Jon J is drawing a very long bow.

To liken scientists to clergy is an abomination - it simply is not close to equivalent to compare recommendations or predictions based on rational analysis with a philosophy based on untestable beliefs.

Presumably, as suggested by his crack at Tim Flannery, Jon J is one of those pesky climate sceptics who claim science when it appears to somehow support their notions, yet challenge and deny the relevance of all other science and scientists.

Climate sceptics are in a separate field, removed from both religion and science. Perhaps it is reasonably described as self delusion.

Whatever the veracity of the foregoing, it is drifting off topic.

I remember the immediate aftermath of the Newcastle earthquake of a couple of decades ago, when the structural adequacy of many buildings needed to be assessed. Engineers were confronted with 4 possibilities for each building.
1. The building was stable and would remain stable. They are deemed to have added little of value because "blind Freddy could see that it was OK".
2. The building had collapsed, gone past the point of no return. Blind Freddy wins again.
3. If they stated that the building was unstable, yet it continued to stand, they were risk-averse, bureaucratic wasters of money and impediments.
4. If they stated that the building was OK, yet it subsequently collapsed, they were culpable idiots.

So, as in Italy or Brisbane, experts, unless 100% infallible, are on a hiding to nothing. In the real world, they cannot win.

I feel a little sorry for those Italian guys who are looking at a jail sentence, merely for doing their job as they saw it.

For me, it is a clear illustration of the problems that inevitably arise when a government sets itself up as some kind of omniscient expert, a source of infallible guidance that the public should have "full access" to, and that they should consult at every opportunity.

That faux-expertise is applied expediently, and for political purposes, so when things go wrong they can simply shift the blame onto the individuals whom they had appointed to carry the can.

Let's look at it realistically. Governments have far less of a direct interest in the "advice" they give than, say, an insurance company that faces a specific monetary risk. Sure, the manual says they should act "in the public interest". But that instruction hasn't been observed for several generations, thanks mainly to the professionalization of politics itself.

On the other hand, an insurance company will act upon its own advice, as to whether a building is exposed to flood danger, or sits on a geological fault line. The problems arise when the poor householder, waving goodbye as their home floats away downstream, suddenly finds that they are not insured against floods. What do they do then? They agitate for "government compensation" to recompense them for their personal stupidity, which the government does (to ensure their vote at the next election) while bitching under their breath about predatory insurance companies...

I hope the Italian higher courts recognize this, and let the poor saps off with a slap on the wrist. As JohnBennetts points out, they were screwed by the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't nature of the system.

"Climate sceptics are in a separate field, removed from both religion and science. Perhaps it is reasonably described as self delusion."

That's just stupid; every day more evidence against AGW appears; even Briffa, a staunch hockeystick man has rebutted the concept, just as the egotist, Mann, the man without a Nobel prize, prepares to sue Steyn for calling him in effect a fraud; what an ironic juxtaposition!

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hockey_stick_mann_awards_himself_a_nobel/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/28/manns-hockey-stick-disappears-and-crus-briffa-helps-make-the-mwp-live-again-by-pointing-out-bias-in-ther-data/

It has reached the point where it truly can be said that the only people who still believe AGW are idiots or fanatics.

>>Let me point out, by the way, that if the same rules are applied in Australia, then Tim Flannery for one will be looking at a long jail sentence.<<

Scientists get things wrong from time to time: they have been since science was natural philosophy and they will be until religious fundamentalists take over the world and we stop doing science. The reason these scientists are being prosecuted is that people died. If they're not causing the deaths of others I don't think this case represents a threat to the freedom of scientists to get things wrong.

Cheers,

Tony

the main problem is that these science prophets don't actually use proper science for their predictions. Many of them make some of the fallen US evangelist look like angels. They follow the money and not what is tested and proven. Just look how many compromise knowing that evolution is a fairytale. The gw scam is fruit of this pseudo science. They play the game or lose their jobs/funding. Thankfully we have the book that tells us the beginning and the end. Most are to prideful to see that what is written is easily observable. How dumb we become when we ignore our Creator and Saviour.

runner,

Perhaps you can explain to us the "proper science" that relegates the theory of evolution to fairytale status?