Monday, October 22, 2012

Stalinist Science Policy

Back in the day,
if a bridge collapsed  in the Soviet Union,
Stalin would execute the engineers.

This had a remarkably bracing effect upon those currently so employed,
but (alas) impinged negatively  on future recruitment.

~

And, now, in our own day,
in a land far away, called Italia,
purporting to pertain to the civilized world,

we have an echo of this:

A court found six scientists and an official guilty of manslaughter for failing to properly warn residents in the central Italy city of L’Aquila about the risk of an impending earthquake that killed more than 300 people in 2009.
The three-judge court handed down a prison sentence of six years for each of the defendants, more than the four years requested by the prosecution in a case that many thought should never have gone to court because of the virtual impossibility of predicting an earthquake.

A reader  acutely comments:

When not predicting earthquakes is outlawed, only outlaws will not predict earthquakes.

~

In this insane decade  here in America,  Republicans have been going after climate scientists who report things that the Tea Party would rather not hear.
Yet none of them has gone so far as this bold Italian initiative.
If the Romney-Adelson ticket wins,
expect that to change …


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~ Commercial break ~
Relief for beleaguered Nook lovers!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled essay.

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[Footnote:   To forestall any such possible contretemps,
the World of Dr Justice predicts
that an earthquake (and, for good measure, a volcano)
are about to hit your very own house.
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES !!!!!!!!!!! ]

[Update 13 XI 2012]  For further European judicial instances of what are arguably overreaching into technical matters, click this:

[Update 22 XI  2013]

For a further essay on a matter of public science policy:
     Climate Change



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