Jan Wong
speaker
169 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2012
last heard Oct 2012
Jan Wong’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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More or Less · Predicting L'Aquila Earthquake: is it right to blame the scientists? · 29 Oct 2012
podcast
I'm Jan Wong.
This week we'll be reporting on a rogue Indian statistic which has fuelled a full-scale political row.
But first, this week six Italian scientists and one ex-government official were sentenced to jail for manslaughter.
Why?
Because they made overly reassuring statements before this happened.
The earthquake which hit the Italian town of L'Aquila in March 2009 killed 309 people.
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that amid the grief and anger which followed, some in Italy wanted to apportion blame.
But is it right to blame the scientists?
Well, at its heart, this is a story about numbers and probability.
So let's start with an obvious question.
Is it actually possible to predict earthquakes?
The short answer is no.
And in the case of this earthquake in Italy, it was preceded by a whole series of smaller tremors.
I assume that that means you can change the estimate of probability that a major earthquake will happen after that.
It changes the equation somewhat.
So the probability of an earthquake happening after a series of these events could go up by more than 100-fold, but it still goes up to a very small amount, 1% or so.
So 99 times out of 100, a series of tremors won't mean there's about to be a larger earthquake.
But this time, there was.
Now, in the past in L'Aquila, after numerous tremors, some residents would leave their houses and sleep in their cars.
However, on this occasion, comments by the authorities prompted some of those people to change their usual response and stay in their homes.
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