PARIS: Scientists on Tuesday sounded the alarm at the sentencing of six Italian seismologists for underestimating the risk of a 2009 earthquake, branding the verdict a dangerous blow to scientific freedom.
From research into new drugs to identifying rogue asteroids that could strike Earth or even weather forecasting, all branches of science that explore unknowns were targeted by the verdict, they said.
"The verdict is perverse and the sentence ludicrous," the prestigious journal Nature said in an editorial to be published Tuesday.
"Already some scientists have responded with warnings about the chilling effect on their ability to serve in public risk assessments."
The six Italian scientists and a government official were sentenced to six years in jail in the central Italian city of L'Aquila for multiple manslaughter and ordered to pay more than nine million euros ($11.7 million) in damages.
Michael Halpern of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists said that without the right to speak freely and independently, they become vulnerable to scapegoating and persecution.
"Scientists need to be able to share what they know -- and admit what they do not know -- without the fear of being held criminally responsible should their predictions not hold up," he said in a blog.
He drew a parallel between Monday's verdict in L'Aquila with the persecution of Italian astronomer Galileo: "I guess some things never change."
Malcolm Sperring, a professor at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, southern England, said scientific endeavour would be the big victim if scientists had to play safe.
"It is worth pointing out that many of the valuable contributions made by scientists such as penicillin (and) radiobiology have stemmed from the enquiring mind rather than absolute certainty of success," he said.
The defendants were members of a risk assessment committee that met in L'Aquila on March 31, 2009, less than a week before a 6.3-magnitude quake killed 309 people, destroying homes and ancient churches and leaving thousands homeless.
Ahead of the trial, 5,000 scientists, including some of the world's leading academies, published an open letter to condemn the indictments and to point out it was impossible to predict when an earthquake would take place.
Under the Italian justice system, the seven remain free until they have exhausted two chances to appeal the verdict.
"There will be time enough to ponder the wider implications of the verdict, but for now all efforts should be channelled into protest, both at the severity of the sentence and at scientists being criminalised for the way their opinions were communicated," Nature said.
Bill McGuire, a professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, described the verdict as "extremely alarming."
"If this sets a precedent, then national governments will find it impossible to persuade any scientist to sit on a natural hazard risk evaluation panel," he said in quotes reported by Britain's Science Media Centre.
"In the longer term, then, this decision will cost lives, not save them."
In an apparent echo of this warning, top Italian physicist Luciano Maiami on Tuesday quit as head of the country's Major Risks Committee.
"These are professionals who spoke in good faith and were by no means motivated by personal interests. They had always said that it is not possible to predict an earthquake," he told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. "This is the end of scientists giving consultations to the state."
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