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Register a new userBut since the affairs of men rest still uncertain, lets reason with the worst that may befall: Probability, risk, and the 2009 LAquila Earthquake
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Steven N. Shore
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This article is a commentary on the verdict of the LAquila Six, the group of bureaucrats and scientists tried by an Italian court as a result of their public statements in advance of the quake of 2009 Apr. 6 that left the city in ruins and cause more than 300 deaths. It was not the worst such catastrophic event in recent Italian history, but it was one of -- if not the -- worst failures of risk assessment and preventive action. The six were found guilty and condemned by a first level of the justice system to substantial prison terms. The outcry provoked by the verdict in the world press and the international scientific community has fueled the already fiery debate over whether the six should have been tried at all. They have been presented as martyrs to science being treated as scapegoats by a scientifically illiterate justice system and inflamed local population for not being able to perform the impossible (predict the event). Petitions of support have been drafted and signed by thousands of working scientists and technical experts in many fields excoriating the court and the country for such an outrage against the scientific community, often accompanied by ominous warnings about the chilling effect this will have on the availability of expert advice in times of need. My purpose in this essay is to explain why this view of the events of the trial is misguided, however well intentioned, and misinformed.
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Correlations related to related to quantum entanglement have convinced many physicists that there must be some at-a-distance connection between separated events, at the quantum level. In the late 1940s, however, O. Costa de Beauregard proposed that such correlations can be explained without action at a distance, so long as the influence takes a zigzag path, via the intersecting past lightcones of the events in question. Costa de Beauregards proposal is related to what has come to be called the retrocausal loophole in Bells Theorem, but -- like that loophole -- it receives little attention, and remains poorly understood. Here we propose a new way to explain and motivate the idea. We exploit some simple symmetries to show how Costa de Beauregards zigzag needs to work, to explain the correlations at the core of Bells Theorem. As a bonus, the explanation shows how entanglement might be a much simpler matter than the orthodox view assumes -- not a puzzling feature of quantum reality itself, but an entirely unpuzzling feature of our knowledge of reality, once zigzags are in play.
Unless we change direction, we are likely to wind up where we are headed. (Ancient Chinese proverb)
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We present preliminary results on the online war surrounding distrust of expertise in medical science -- specifically, the issue of vaccinations. While distrust and misinformation in politics can damage democratic elections, in the medical context it may also endanger lives through missed vaccinations and DIY cancer cures. We find that this online health war has evolved into a highly efficient network insurgency with direct inter-crowd links across countries, continents and cultures. The online anti-vax crowds (referred to as Red) now appear better positioned to groom new recruits (Green) than those supporting established expertise (Blue). We also present preliminary results from a mathematically-grounded, crowd-based analysis of the wars evolution, which offers an explanation for how Red seems to be turning the tide on Blue.
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