John Benjamins Publishing Company

This is a contribution from Science and Democracy. Controversies and conflicts.

Edited by Pierluigi Barrotta and Giovanni Scarafile.
© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company
This electronic file may not be altered in any way.
The author(s) of this article is/are permitted to use this PDF file to generate printed copies to
be used by way of offprints, for their personal use only.
Permission is granted by the publishers to post this file on a closed server which is accessible
to members (students and staff) only of the author’s/s’ institute, it is not permitted to post
this PDF on the open internet.
For any other use of this material prior written permission should be obtained from the
publishers or through the Copyright Clearance Center (for USA: www.copyright.com).
Please contact rights@benjamins.nl or consult our website: www.benjamins.com
Tables of Contents, abstracts and guidelines are available at www.benjamins.com
 Chapter 1

The dam project: Who are the experts?

A philosophical lesson from the Vajont disaster

Pierluigi Barrotta and Eleonora Montuschi

University of Pisa, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

In 1963 a huge landslide covered the Vajont valley (north-east of Italy), where one of
the tallest arch dams in the world had been put in place (completed in 1959). More
than 2000 people died. The locals had repeatedly warned the scientists that the sides
of the valley were too fragile to hold significant impact, and publicly raised concern.
The ensuing media debate surrounding issues of safety in the valley soon became
manipulated for political purposes, and the important message got wasted.
With the help of this case study we analyse how two types of knowledge (of-
ficial science and local experience) may confront each other and why they fail to
interact. We then draw some lessons concerning how the use of expert knowledge
becomes effective and valuable in the context of non-expert knowledge.

Keywords: experts, local knowledge, public opinion, inductive risk, fact/value

dichotomy

1. Preliminaries

On October 9, 1963, shortly after 10.30pm, a massive landslide detached from Monte
Toc and fell in the reservoir of Vajont, 1 where the tallest (at the time) arch dam in the
world had been built just a few years earlier (1959). For many good reasons the dam
was considered a scientific and technological masterpiece. At the end of the construc-
tion work the engineer who designed it, Carlo Semenza, filmed a short documentary
where he explained the many challenges scientists had had to face in building it, and
how ingeniously they had dealt with them. 2 Semenza’s pride was justified. Even today
the dam arouses a sense of admiration. We went to see it in person: driving along
the narrow road leading to the small village of Erto, overcoming yet another bend in

1. The reservoir of Vajont is part of the Piave valley in the Dolomites, in north-east Italy.
2. The documentary can easily be found online. See, for instance, http://temi.repubblica.it/
corrierealpi-diga-del-vajont-1963-2013-il-cinquantenario/il-cortometraggio-del-59/

doi 10.1075/cvs.13.03bar
© 2018 John Benjamins Publishing Company
18 Pierluigi Barrotta and Eleonora Montuschi

the road, all of a sudden the dam materialsed in front of our startled eyes. One of the
pictures we took gives some idea of its majestic size (see Picture 1). The look of the
landslide of that infamous October 9, 1963, was to say the least, impressive. Picture 2
proves it: the debris that can be seen behind the dam is not part of the mountain, it
is the very landslide that filled up the basin in a matter of seconds.

Picture 1. 
© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company
All rights reserved
 Chapter 1.  The dam project: Who are the experts? 19

Picture 2. 

The dynamic of the Vajont disaster was somewhat astonishing: the dam resisted the
impact of the landslide – a demonstrable sign that it was an excellent specimen of
engineering work – but a wave with peaks over 200 metres tall overflowed all the
way down to the valley, reaching the town of Longarone, located at the far bottom
of it. It was a catastrophe, with over two thousand victims. From being the symbol
and pride of Italian engineering, the dam turned into something altogether different
and sinister. Part of the Italian media and public opinion unanimously pointed the
finger to science – namely, to its ambiguous involvement with political power, and
to the fact that the scientific experts employed by the company in charge of building
the dam (the Adriatic Energy Corporation – or SADE from its Italian name ‘Società
Adriatica di Elettricità’) had – to many unjustifiably – dismissed the locals’ concerns
over the stability of Monte Toc, neglecting several signs of danger and warnings
reported by locals well before the disaster occurred.
No doubt, the case of Vajont would easily fall into the wide array of case studies
that sociologists of science use to identify and analyse the deep asymmetries in
power relations between experts and laypeople. 3 In the case of the Vajont disaster,

3. To mention just one, in discussing the antagonistic relationship between government

appointed scientists and Cumbria sheep farmers over the safety of lamb meat for human

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
20 Pierluigi Barrotta and Eleonora Montuschi

the tainted relationship between science and power was emphatically raised by Tina
Merlin, a journalist who played a central role in this story, well before the disaster
occurred. In her book (Merlin, 2001) we find a most unreserved condemnation
of the science involved: truth was evident from the outset, Merlin claims, but it
was ignored because official science was totally at the mercy of the political and
economic power of the Adriatic Energy Corporation.
Merlin’s reconstruction indeed brings to the fore some undeniable evidence.
Yet, the story is more complex than the way she recounts it. In this paper, we do
not intend to deny the relevance of sociological and political analyses. However,
we believe that these analyses do not satisfactorily address equally pressing and
relevant issues in stories of expertise and social decision making – for example, in
what sense scientific knowledge sometimes proves inadequate as the sole adjudica-
tor of what course of action to undertake; or how to assess the cognitive strengths
of different types of knowledge, even those that are deemed to be ‘non-expert’,
and whether/how they can fruitfully combine. These types of issues, we believe,
can be more appropriately and effectively addressed by adopting a philosophical/
epistemological perspective.
In what follows, we offer an illustration of what such perspective can achieve.
With the help of some conceptual tools drawn from the philosophy of science, we
will detect two crucial errors in the experts’ formulation of scientific judgement
in the Vajont story. The first error is epistemological (scientists’ views were based
on poor evidence). The second error is moral (they did not sufficiently take into
account the villagers’ well-being). These claims might appear to be rather obvious.
However, the main thesis of this paper is far from obvious: both errors share a
common root: a neglect of local knowledge. In a nutshell, by neglecting local knowl-
edge scientific experts made both an epistemic and a moral error. Analyzing this
double-edged error will lead to a better understanding of what was at stake in the
Vajont disaster, what was overlooked, and why experts ‘qua experts’ felt entitled
(or at least, epistemologically justified) to act the way they did – with the tragic
consequences that unfolded.
In this essay we will proceed as follows. In Section 2 we will provide a brief
historical reconstruction of the events that led to the disaster. In Section 3 we will
examine the epistemological reasons that explain why the type of knowledge official
science relied on proved insufficient and inadequate to circumvent the disaster. We
will also suggest that those epistemological reasons were intertwined with moral
considerations. As mentioned above, the Vajont story shows that the scientific com-
munity was at fault both epistemically and morally: by overlooking local knowledge

consumption post the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, Brian Wynne identifies the reason of the dis-
pute with the clash between two cultures of knowledge and intervention (Wynne, 1996).

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
 Chapter 1.  The dam project: Who are the experts? 21

(in the two meanings we will qualify) scientists showed both poor judgement and
moral ineptness. This does not imply that non-expert knowledge is more effective
than official science, least of all that it should replace it. Rather, in cases such as the
Vajont’s, both experts and so-called non-experts should be fundamental compo-
nents of a united research community. As we will point out in the final section, this
would lead us in the direction of conceiving an idea of a community of inquirers
extended to both scientists and laypeople.

2. The case study: Historical background

The first feasibility studies on the Vaiont dam project date back to the 1920s. 4 It was
the geologist and academic Giorgio Dal Piaz, a close collaborator of Carlo Semenza,
the talented engineer who designed the dam and supervised the works until October
1961, the year when he died, who finally suggested the choice of location for the
water reservoir.
It is important to note that the studies on the structural stability of the valley
were confined to the abutment area and its hydraulic properties. Nowadays it may
seem foolhardy to embark on a work of such magnitude without preliminarily
studying the inner constitution and resistance of the slopes in the valley. Yet, at the
time, the formidable engineering challenges of the project took precedence over the
geological problems posed by the natural environment – a choice partly justified
by the existence of well-supported knowledge of the nature and behaviour of the
rocks typical of that area, namely limestone (cf. E. Semenza, 2001: 32 ff.; Carloni,
1995, pp. 13 ff.). “From a geological point of view – Carlo Semenza wrote – the rocks
[of the Veneto region] are generally very good […]. Overall, limestone is honest
because it reveals its flaws on its surface” (cited in Gervasoni, 1969: 11). In-depth
geological studies were therefore considered unnecessary because the typical rocks
of the area did not raise any visible concern.
With hindsight, we are now in a position to say that that was an overly optimis-
tic judgment: contrary to Semenza’s expectations, the Vaiont valley would unfortu-
nately prove to be of “exceptional singularity” (E. Semenza, 2001: 29), and as a result
a number of potentially relevant chains of causally linked observations were left
unexplored (as will be discussed below), with devastating consequences to come.
It seems appropriate at this point to summarize briefly the sequence of steps
that led to the disaster, in order to provide some useful background to the forth-
coming discussion.

4. For a previous historical reconstruction of the Vajont disaster, see also Barrotta (2016),
Section 3.5.

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
22 Pierluigi Barrotta and Eleonora Montuschi

At first glance, the Vajont valley appeared to possess all the characteristics that
would make it an ideal location for the construction of a dam. Indeed, its creators
had set their eyes on it ever since the 1920s, though the actual excavation work only
began in 1957. At that time, the inhabitants of the valley had already started cam-
paigning against the construction of the dam. This was justified partly by local op-
position to the considerable pressure exerted by SADE to acquire large plots of land
in order to commence work on a legally secure footing; and partly by some deep
concern regarding the safety of the small town of Erto, located dangerously near
the construction site. The locals knew that the area was subject to landslides. The
very origin of the name ‘Monte Toc’ bore witness to it. In local dialect ‘toc’ (short
for ‘patoc’) means rotten, deteriorated, prone to disintegration. The whole area was
in fact geologically fragile. This fact is also documented by Carloni (1995: 13, italics
added) in his historical reconstruction of the disaster: “Monte Toc overlooking the
left bank of the artificial basin standing at 1921 metres is a heavily tectonic lime-
stone relief in which fractures and surface movements of the earth are visible.” One
of the most important landslides took place as far back as 1647 and destroyed the
nearby village of Casso.
The inhabitants’ worries found a voice in the local and national press thanks to
the journalist Tina Merlin, an outspoken critic of the Adriatic Energy Corporation.
In an article published on May 5, 1959 in the national newspaper L’ Unità, Merlin
denounced the incumbent danger. She wrote: “the villagers […] sense a serious
danger to the very existence of a town situated close to where a reservoir of 150
million cubic meters of water is being built, which will eventually erode a terrain
prone to landslides and plunge the housing complex into the lake.”
The town mentioned by Merlin in her article was Erto. SADE commissioned
some investigations to test the stability of the slopes surrounding the town, but
ruled out any danger. They were partly proven right, in that the village was almost
entirely left untouched by the landslide that provoked the disaster. However, ruling
out danger for one village was indeed indicative of Sade’s more general attitude of
not taking seriously into account the possibility that the entire area was subject to
landslides and therefore unsuitable for the construction of a dam of such a size.
Unfortunately, the instability of surrounding slopes was to gain more and more
credence. On March 22, 1959, a landslide occurred in the nearby dam of Pontesei.
SADE scientists began to monitor the area and consulted with leading experts. On
June 10, 1960, the geologist Edoardo Semenza (Carlo’s son), delivered a report in
which he warned of the existence of an ancient landslide on Monte Toc which – he
claimed – could be set in motion by the construction of the dam. Though Edoardo’s
claim was not unanimously accepted, monitoring the area became more atten-
tive. Residents in the meantime experienced several light earthquakes, and in
November 1960 a small landslide of 700,000 cubic metres fell into the artificial

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
 Chapter 1.  The dam project: Who are the experts? 23

lake. Immediately Carlo Semenza decided to build a by-pass in order to control

any dangerous rising of water levels in the event of a new and bigger landslide.
Possible consequences of landslides were also studied by means of a purpose-built
model of the whole Vajont reservoir, commissioned to Augusto Ghetti, Director of
the Institute of Hydraulics at the University of Padua. By the time Carlo Semenza
died on 31 October, 1961, the situation had grown out of control, but Semenza’s
successor, Alberico Biadene, was determined to complete the work. On October 9,
1963, the catastrophe took place. In the trial that followed Biadene was sentenced to
six years in prison. One of his main collaborators, Mario Pacini, committed suicide.
If Biadene’s liability is somehow acknowledged thanks to the trial (though its
extent might be disputed), Carlo Semenza’s responsibility is still the subject of lively
discussions. Was Semenza reckless and culpable? As we have already remarked, at
the time both the existing practice within the scientific community and legal norms
and regulations did not require accurate in situ geological investigations prior to
the construction of artificial lakes. So Semenza’s expert decision making was not
criminal, nor unusual – yet, at least with hindsight, it remains poor. How can we
account for what appears as gross shortsightedness, if not plain misconduct?
We suggest reformulating the question above differently: what was missing from
the judgement that brought Semenza to his purportedly reckless and irresponsible
decision of relying on existing background knowledge, without testing it in situ?
In the rest of our essay we identify two crucial areas of neglect from Semenza’s
use of his expert knowledge that led him to underestimate a number of aspects
which, we believe, would have proved crucial to a correct formulation of his expert
judgement. These two areas can be described and questioned in both epistemo-
logical and moral terms. As we remarked above, the two types of neglect share a
common root. Let’s see how this is the case.

3. Two areas of neglect in expert judgement

The first area of neglect we consider concerns the relation between expert and local
knowledge. In order to pursue a project of such magnitude as that of the Vajont
arch dam, the scientific community needed accurate general knowledge about the
chemical and physical characteristics of the rocks forming the terrestrial crust of the
area. Semenza and his fellow scientists had all or most of this knowledge. What they
failed to see was that (and how) this knowledge should demonstrate its real worth
(proof of effectiveness) in the particular circumstances where it was called upon.
Possessing general knowledge did not ipso facto entail that the scientists could make
it useful/usable in the specific circumstances (e.g. what could the impact of a spe-
cific environment be on the rocks in questions? what could the particular reaction

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
24 Pierluigi Barrotta and Eleonora Montuschi

to that impact of these particular rocks in that particular location be? etc.). In other
words, what was missing from Carlo Semenza’s judgment was local knowledge.
Semenza seems to be inclined to believe that good general theory has automat-
ically all the resources and logical/technical tools to apply to specific circumstances.
However, shifting from the general to the particular is not just a question of logical
implication of the kind ‘if the situation is X, theory T will tell us that Y happens’
(Cartwright, 1999, p. 183). It is instead a matter of building an empirical judgment
of relevance with the help of local circumstances. In what sense? Let’s see in the
concrete case of the Vajont.
In using general knowledge of limestone to inform a specific situation (the
stones in the Vajont valley) not all knowledge about limestone is required. But this
is not only a question of quantity. Some facts will matter more (or less) than others
in assessing the behaviour of these stones in situ. In weighing facts against each
other a situational range (and arrangement) of assumptions and contextual factors
play a crucial part. On one side, there will be local information; on the other, an
empirical assessment of how local information directs our attention to what matters
in the circumstances. This is why deciding relevance is not an automatic given of
well-established theories (theories well corroborated by evidence). Even the best
theory is not ipso facto a relevant theory in some circumstances. Deciding on rel-
evance is partly a judgement informed by local knowledge.
Part of the problem in our story was that some of this local knowledge came from
the locals (the inhabitants of the valley – peasants and mountaineers), and expressed
in forms that the scientists felt entitled to disregard (experience, tradition, even
feelings towards the mountains). The scientists believed they had enough good
general knowledge to enable them to control what occurred in the area. To do their
job properly they did not need, on top of that knowledge, local information (either
in the form of fresh geological observation or, even less so, of fuzzy laypeople an-
ecdotes). Knowledge of the locals and knowledge of local facts – so they appeared
to believe – were redundant or confusing. 5
The reason behind this first area of neglect had nothing to do with criminal
responsibility. As mentioned above, there was no legal requirement at the time
to pursue in-situ geological investigation in advance of undertaking these types
of grand works, nor was it a current scientific practice to pursue them. Still we
can say, with hindsight, that Semenza’s judgment was poor, and it is by using an
epistemological perspective that we can see why. Semenza took for granted the
well-established geological background knowledge existing at the time and believed
that possessing that knowledge was sufficient to undertake the construction of the

5. In what follows, when speaking of ‘local knowledge’ we should understand it in both its
meanings: knowledge of local facts and knowledge of the locals.

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
 Chapter 1.  The dam project: Who are the experts? 25

dam in the chosen area. Thus, the neglect of local knowledge led Semenza to accept
poor evidence – more specifically, poor evidence in view of its use.
This is an epistemic mistake. Facts do not come with a tag attached to them that
says ‘evidence’. To say that certain facts count as evidence means that they count
as evidence for a certain situation or problem. This entails a construction of their
relevance as evidence in view of understanding the specific situation or problem
they are intended to provide evidence for. Furthermore, as we will see shortly, this
mistake at the same time points to a second area of neglect the nature of which is
not epistemic but moral.
Back in March 22, 1959, approximately three million cubic metres of material
slid down into the artificial lake of Pontesei, close to the Vajont valley. One man
died because of water overflowing, even though the lake was 13 metres below its
maximum capacity. For the locals, that was a confirmation of their concern; for
SADE scientists, it was an alarm bell. In fact, the latter were struck not only by the
magnitude, but also by the compactness and the speed of the landslide. They began
realising that a more detailed geological analysis of the area would prove useful at
that point. Carlo Semenza asked Leopold Müller, a distinguished scientist and a
pioneer in geomechanics, to do a survey. In order to write his report Müller went
to the Vajont valley on July 21 and asked a young geologist, Edoardo Semenza,
(Carlo’s son) to investigate the phenomena of instability that appeared to pervade
the valley. Together with his colleague Franco Giudici, Edoardo Semenza (1960)
came to an astonishing conjecture: the presence on Monte Toc of a pre-existent
large ancient landslide that could be set in motion again by the construction of the
artificial lake – in particular by running incremental series of filling of the lake to
test the reservoir’s safety levels. The conjecture did not include a confirmed estimate
of the size of this ancient landslide, though a guess of 50 million cubic metres was
put forward. Such an estimate was already big enough to raise serious concern, but
the actual size of the landslide that eventually precipitated into the reservoir were to
prove five times bigger (260 million cubic metres, spread over an area of 2 sq. km).
The scientific community did not unanimously agree with Edoardo’s hypoth-
esis nor his estimate. Müller was inclined to accept the conclusion supported by
Edoardo (though at the time he did not explicitly and officially endorse the hypoth-
esis of an ancient landslide), while experienced geologists such as G. Dal Piaz, F.
Penta and P. Caloi overtly disagreed with Edoardo. In particular, Caloi, who carried
out a geoseismic investigation, came to the conclusion that fractured rocks only
existed at the surface of Monte Toc. For him, no ancient landslide ever existed (See
Caloi, 1966).
Situations of disagreement are not unusual in science. Evidence can prove un-
certain and contested, and often scientific disciplines are not established enough
to assist in disputes. Carlo Semenza found himself right in the middle of one of

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
26 Pierluigi Barrotta and Eleonora Montuschi

these thorny situations. At the time, geology was not a well-established paradigm.
Geologists used different methods of investigation, the results of which were not
always compatible with each other. As a consequence, he had to face extreme uncer-
tainty about the evidence and deep disagreement among experts. The way he made
his decision about what to do and how to solve the difficult and complex situation
he was confronted with can be reconstructed in the following terms: he made an
epistemological error of judgement that carried with it a clear moral implication.
To anticipate the framework of the error: by neglecting local knowledge,
Semenza considerably underestimated the probability that the construction of the
dam could set in motion the ancient landslide and consequently a series of devastat-
ing geological phenomena in the valley. There is here a clear entanglement between
the epistemic and the moral: an epistemic error (neglecting local knowledge) led
the scientists to commit a moral error (they appeared to be willing to accept too a
high risk by jeopardizing the life of the inhabitants).
In the 1950s the philosopher Richard Rudner (1953) had already pointed out
that when scientists decide to accept or reject a hypothesis they implicitly make a
moral decision. This is because the strength of evidence “is going to be a function
of the importance, in the typically ethical sense, of making a mistake in accepting
or rejecting the hypothesis” (Rudner, 1953: 2). 6
Rudner’s view put us on the right track to address the problem of the entan-
glement of the epistemic and the moral in the case of the Vajont disaster, though
in this case the entanglement itself takes a different, and in a sense more radical,
form. In Rudner the entanglement between the epistemic and the moral occurs
because in accepting (or rejecting) a hypothesis the scientist needs to make both
an epistemic decision (a probability assignment, i.e. the probability of a hypothesis
being true) and a morally risky decision (a risk evaluation, i.e. what is the risk
involved in wrongly either accepting or rejecting a hypothesis). Thus, following
Rudner in principle we could avoid the entanglement by claiming that scientists are
only concerned with the probability assignment problem. 7 Whether the scientist
is, or should be, interested in accepting or rejecting a hypothesis is in principle a
separate/separable issue.

6. Here we have touched upon the distinction between type I error (the error of accepting a
hypothesis when it is false) and type II error (the error of rejecting a hypothesis when it is true).
We will not discuss this issue here.
7. This is the line of reasoning suggested by Jeffrey (1956) and, more recently, by Betz (2013).
Here we have simplified the argument proposed by Rudner. In all likelihood, Rudner would
not accept the way we have reconstructed it (see Rudner, 1953: 3–4). However, simplification is
justified here as the problem raised by us is in any case different from the one raised by Rudner.

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
 Chapter 1.  The dam project: Who are the experts? 27

The Vajont disaster shows us that the entanglement between the epistemic and
the moral cannot be avoided, not even in principle, since in the final analysis it is
rooted in the very problem we have raised in the first part of this essay: the neglect
of the locals’ views. In fact, probability assignment appears to have a moral import
from the start, since it crucially depends on a different kind of risky acceptance,
namely one that entails what kind of evidence should be considered relevant. As
argued above, this is where local knowledge comes to the fore. The locals in the
Vajont case were pertinent knowers, since their opinion was germane to the gath-
ering of relevant evidence (the importance of local knowledge in making relevant
use of general knowledge). Besides, it should be noted that in this case the locals
were also stakeholders and understandably asked for the minimizing of the risks
of incidents. In short, Semenza’s error consists of not involving the locals in the
search of the best line of action to undertake, in the light of morally-loaded epis-
temic considerations.
It is interesting to examine how Semenza faced up to the situation when the
ancient landslide hypothesis acquired further support. He knew that the artificial
lake could affect the stability of the landslide and put not only the dam, but also
the inhabitants of the valley in serious danger. He clearly had to avoid a human
catastrophe. Yet, he acted as if the problem was only (or primarily) technical and
epistemic. He looked for scientific/technical solutions for what he took to be a
specifically scientific/technical problem.
In November 1960, he started building a by-pass (Picture 3). In the case of a
landslide, it would prevent the rising of upstream water, which would endanger
the town of Erto. In the same month, a landslide of 700.000 cubic metres fell into
the basin: it was a small part of the ancient landslide that had set itself in motion.
Edoardo’s hypothesis was closer to reality than ever, and growing evidence also lent
further support to the devastating prospect that the conjectured ancient landslide
could be much bigger than Edoardo first estimated (only Dal Piaz and Penta con-
tinued to be optimistic at that point). 8

8. Caloi carried out a second investigation, which led him to change his previous view dramat-
ically. According to his new results, now the area of fractured rocks appeared to be much deeper
and wider. We must also mention the 15th report drafted by Müller (1961). That report was
probably the strongest blow to Carlo Semenza’s hopes. Following Paolini and Vaci’s (2013: 84)
historical reconstruction, Müller suggested that SADE should have abandoned the whole project.
This is actually not entirely correct, but the report was all the same rather disturbing. Müller
(1961: 14–16) mentioned several measures that could have been taken in order to control the
landslide, though none of them were feasible given the technology available at the time.

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
28 Pierluigi Barrotta and Eleonora Montuschi

Picture 3. 

Before dying Semenza played yet another card. He asked Augusto Ghetti (Director
of The Institute of Hydraulics, University of Padua) to build a model of the dam
and of the whole reservoir – a highly innovative move at the time. It was the first
purpose-built model in Italy, and one of the first in the world (Picture 4). It was
meant to assist in understanding the effect of a landslide on the reservoir. Since
scientists were unsure about the stability of the slope which the landslide laid on,
Ghetti carried out several experiments using the purpose-built model. Given the
worst-case scenario, he came to the conclusion that there was no danger if the level
of water in the basin did not exceed 700 metres, and provided that the dam resisted
water impact. 9

9. As Ghetti (Zanetti, 2013, p. 49) wrote: “This seems sufficient to conclude that, starting from
the maximum reservoir flooded top water level, the fall of the expected mass landslide could get
to produce an overflow of about 30,000 cubic metres/sec. and a rising wave of 27.5 metres only
in catastrophic conditions – that is, when the landslide occurs in an exceptionally short time,
from 1 to 1.30 minutes. By just doubling this time the phenomenon is attenuated and we expect
an overflow below 14,000 cubic metres/sec. and a rising wave of 14 metres. Decreasing the initial
level of the reservoir, these effects of overflow and rising wave rapidly declined, and 700 metres
above sea level could already be considered to be of absolute safety with regard to even the most
catastrophic of the expected events.” Ghetti’s full report has been published by Zannolli (2013,
pp. 48–50).

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
 Chapter 1.  The dam project: Who are the experts? 29

Picture 4. 

None of these measures avoided the catastrophe. As a matter of fact, with good
reason Semenza continued to feel uneasy. In a well recorded letter to his old master
Vincenzo Ferniani, dated April 21, 1961, he wrote: “After so many lucky works and
imposing constructions, I am facing something of such a size that it appears beyond
my control” (C. Semenza, 1961: 2).
Furthermore, Alberico Biadene (Semenza’s successor) made one further mis-
take, which should be clear to those who are acquainted with the philosophical
debate on the use of models in science. A model predicts on the basis of its own
assumptions, which do not necessarily comply with the factors and conditions oc-
curring in the actual situation. Drawing conclusions about real situations relying
on the results offered by a model is a risky business. Semenza’s successors showed
a lack of understanding of the logic of models. Biadene took the experiments car-
ried out by Ghetti at face value. To give an example, he did not consider that in
the model experimenters used gravels, which proved to be less compact than the
composition of the real landslide. So, the calculation of the speed of the landslide
proved inaccurate (unfortunately, the speed of the real landslide would be much
faster). 10 Biadene grasped the conclusion (until a height of 700 hundred metres

10. Ghetti himself warned that his results should not be taken at face value: “the final sentence
on safety level is like a foreign body in the context of the report. The experiments were conducted
with the original data provided by SADE, which do not adhere to reality” (quoted in Zanolli,
2013: 50).

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
30 Pierluigi Barrotta and Eleonora Montuschi

there would be no danger), but not the process through which the conclusion was
achieved. Though Ghetti insisted on making more experiments, Biadene stopped
making use of the model’s results, and in the weeks before the disaster he even
decided to exceed the water safety level of the lake. 11
So, we come to the end of our analysis. The description of the two areas of
neglect sheds light on what ultimately went wrong in this dramatic episode. They
point out what was crucially missing from expert scientific judgement: an aware-
ness of the importance of local knowledge, in both above-mentioned meanings
(knowledge of local facts and knowledge of the locals). This lack of awareness led
scientists to make mistakes in the probability assignment, (they disregarded rele-
vant evidence) and in the moral consequences it implied, (what should have been
factored in while assessing the risk involved). Furthermore, the locals were ne-
glected as stakeholders, since they were never appropriately informed – let alone
consulted – about the impending risks.
Although we pitched our philosophical reconstruction at the level of Semenza’s
decision-making strategies, this should not lead us to believe that the Vajont disas-
ter comes down to one individual’s mistakes. Indeed, we should not disregard the
‘bigger picture’. Poor individual judgement is often the result of a ‘systemic failure’.
Put in these terms, understanding what went wrong in some individual instance
would lead us towards tracing the causal chain that ends in a disastrous outcome
not so much back to the individual, but to the structural failure of a system that
explains why the individual committed some error. Errors often occur within sys-
tems that are ill equipped (both theoretically and practically) for preventing them.
This is said not to abrogate individual responsibility but to put us in a position so
as to understand it better, both at individual and system level, and for acting on
those aspects of the system that allow for mistakes to emerge – as we will point out
in some concluding remarks.

4. By way of conclusion: A community of inquirers

The Vajont story is a story of huge gaps in communication among relevant areas of
expertise. Firstly, within geology. At the time, we have already mentioned, geology

11. It is interesting to mention here that Italian authorities were only partially informed about
the decisions being made, and the locals were completely left in the dark. The latter seemed to
be neglected twice – not only as contributors to the understanding of the geological features of
the area, but also as stakeholders, whose lives were at risk as a consequence of what knowledge
it was decided to take into account.

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
 Chapter 1.  The dam project: Who are the experts? 31

was not a paradigm. Geologists belonged to different schools and did not routinely
communicate much among each other. In his parliamentary report, MP Pietro
Vecellio mentioned the geologist Schnitter, who specifically raised this issue when
providing his explanation of the disaster. Vecellio (1965: 3) writes: “It is interesting
to note that Prof. Schnitter stresses that in the future the newly born science of
rock mechanics will have to develop alongside descriptive geology, which is now
considered in itself, insufficient when facing such complex situations.”
Secondly, there was a lack of communication between engineers and geologists.
Although they provide radically different accounts of the disaster, both Edoardo
Semenza (2001) and Paolini and Vacis (2013) notice how geologists were not suf-
ficiently consulted by engineers. In particular, Paolini and Vacis (2013) maintain
that engineers were so confident in their knowledge and expertise as to believe that
they were able to cope with any challenging situation without consulting others
(and indeed disagreements among geologists did not boost confidence in their
potential contribution).
Thirdly, there were huge information gaps between the scientific and local com-
munities. Locals were not involved, not listened to and not factored in when the
hypotheses and predictions of scientists were tested and assessed. The risks taken
by science were dealt with primarily in epistemic terms, and as if the epistemic can
take care not only of itself but also of the moral. Risks were not looked at as primarily
moral and the (degrees of) epistemic acceptance of a hypothesis as a consequence
of the moral nature of those risks. This inevitably led to a progressive detachment
of the local communities from the decision-making procedures of the scientists,
and to an increasing generalised distrust in the scientific community.
From within each of these domains of faulty communication it becomes un-
derstandable how a whole series of factors, considerations and pieces of evidence
(as partly exposed in this essay) were easily neglected or interpreted in inadequate
forms – gradually and inexorably leading to a catastrophe that still haunts and
shames the memory of a nation.
However, faulty communication is not only the making of individual or corpo-
rate neglect (more or less intentional). Especially in the case of the disconnection
between the locals and the communities of experts. What is missing is an appro-
priate framework of conditions and linguistic tools for communicating effectively
(Cf. Montuschi, 2011).
The difficulties of communication among different scientific communities and
different types of experts, have been widely studied in philosophy and the history
of science, and in science studies – starting, for example, from Galison (1997),

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
32 Pierluigi Barrotta and Eleonora Montuschi

who used the metaphor of a ‘trading zone’ 12 to explain how physicists belonging
to different paradigms managed to collaborate with each other and with engineers
to develop high-energy physics particle detectors and radars. Collins (Cf. Collins
and Evans, 2007) put forward the idea of an ‘interactional expert’, as someone who
can train in different disciplines and areas of expertise and who is able to exchange
information and communication with different experts.
These various views of how crucial communication and cooperation prove to
be among different knowledge bearers finally lead us to envisage the idea of a ‘com-
munity of inquirers’ that should allow, in cases like the Vajont disaster, to extend
membership to all stakeholders, including laypeople (Cf. Barrotta, 2016). Working
out the details and implications of this idea surely cannot be crammed into some
concluding remarks. Nonetheless, reference to the type of literature mentioned
above might be a suitable starting point to address, in a careful and considerate
manner, the strenuous problem of creating effective and collaborative communi-
cation between distant parties in a democratically conceived idea of public debate.

Acknowledgments

We thank the audience at the IASC conference ‘Science and Democracy’ (Pisa, 26–28 October
2017) for interesting questions and insight. Special thanks also go to Giulia Bossi (IRPI, Univer-
sity of Padua) for assistance with technical terminology.

References

Barrotta, P. (2016). Scienza e democrazia. Roma: Carocci. Eng. Trans. Scientists, Democracy, and
Society: A Community of Inquirers. Berlin and New York: Springer, forthcoming.
Betz, G. (2013). In Defence of the Value Free Ideal. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 3,
207–220.  doi: 10.1007/s13194-012-0062-x
Caloi, P. (1966). L’evento del Vajont nei suoi aspetti geodinamici. Annali di Geofisica. vol. 19, no. 1.
Carloni, G. C. (1995). Il Vaiont trent’anni dopo. Esperienza di un geologo. Bologna: Clueb.
Cartwright, N. (1999). The Dappled World. A Study of the Boundaries of Science. , Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.  doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139167093

12. Literally it points to the real situation in which different peoples are able to exchange goods,
despite differences in their language and their culture. In Galison’s own words: “Two groups can
agree on rules of exchange even if they ascribe utterly different significance to the objects being
exchanged; they may even disagree on the meaning of the exchange process itself. Nonetheless,
the trading partners can hammer out a local coordination, despite vast global differences”
Galison, 1997, p. 783.

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
 Chapter 1.  The dam project: Who are the experts? 33

Collins, H. & Evans, R. (2007). Rethinking Expertise. Chicago and London: The University of
Chicago Press.  doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113623.001.0001
Galison, P. (1997). Image and Logic. A Material Culture of Microphysics. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press.
Gervasoni, A. (1969). Il Vajont e le responsabilità dei manager. Milano: Bramante editrice.
Jeffrey, R. (1956). Valuation and Acceptance of Scientific Hypotheses. Philosophy of Science, 22,
197–217.
Merlin, T.. (1959). La SADE spadroneggia, L’Unità, May 5, also in http://tinamerlin.it/pubblicazioni/
articoli-di-tinamerlin/vajont/
Merlin, T. (2001). Sulla pelle viva. Come si costruisce una catastrofe. Il caso del Vajont, 4th ed.,
Verona: Cierre edizioni.
Montuschi, E.. (2011). Oggettività ed evidenza scientifica. Ricerca empirica, politiche sociali,
scienza responsabile. Roma: Carocci.
Müller, L. (1961). Rapporto geologico per conto della SADE, Documenti utilizzati dal 1° gruppo
di lavoro della Commissione. Senato Italiano (2003).
Paolini, M. & Vacis, G. (2013). Il racconto del Vajont. Nuova edizione con due saggi inediti. Milano:
Garzanti.
Rudner, R. (1953). The Scientist qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments. Philosophy of Science, 20,
1–6.  doi: 10.1086/287231
Semenza, C. (1961). Lettera a Vincenzo Ferniani. Documentazione Tecnica, Senato Italiano (2003).
Semenza, E. & Giudici, F. (1960). Studio geologico sul serbatoio del Vajont, Documentazione
tecnica, Senato Italiano (2003).
Semenza, E. (2001). La storia del Vajont, raccontata dal geologo che ha scoperto la frana. Ferrara:
K-flash.
Senato Italiano (2003). Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul Vajont. Archivio storico,
Soveria Mannelli: Rubettino.
Vecellio, P. (1965). Relazione su studi apparsi in pubblicazioni straniere dopo la sciagura del
Vajont. Documenti redatti dal 1° Gruppo di lavoro della Commissione, Senato Italiano (2003).
Wynne, B. (1996). May the Sheep Safely Graze? A Reflexive View of the Expert-Lay Knowledge
Divide. In S. Lash, B. Szerszynski, B. Wynne (Eds.), Risk, Environment & Modernity (44–83).
London: Sage Publications.
Zanolli, R. (2013). Vajont. Cronaca di una tragedia annunciata, Vittorio Veneto: Dario De Bastiani
Editore.

© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company

All rights reserved
© 2018. John Benjamins Publishing Company
All rights reserved