The ethics of earthquake prediction |
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Authors: | Email author" target="_blank">Ayhan?SolEmail author Halil?Turan |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Philosophy, Middle East Technical University, 06531 Ankara, Turkey |
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Abstract: | Scientists’ responsibility to inform the public about their results may conflict with their responsibility not to cause social
disturbance by the communication of these results. A study of the well-known Brady-Spence and Iben Browning earthquake predictions
illustrates this conflict in the publication of scientifically unwarranted predictions. Furthermore, a public policy that
considers public sensitivity caused by such publications as an opportunity to promote public awareness is ethically problematic
from (i) a refined consequentialist point of view that any means cannot be justified by any ends, and (ii) a rights view according
to which individuals should never be treated as a mere means to ends. The Parkfield experiment, the so-called paradigm case
of cooperation between natural and social scientists and the political authorities in hazard management and risk communication,
is also open to similar ethical criticism. For the people in the Parkfield area were not informed that the whole experiment
was based on a contested seismological paradigm. |
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Keywords: | earthquake prediction ethics responsibility freedom consequentialism rights view |
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