[meteorite-list] One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Sep 17 13:07:20 2005
Message-ID: <432C4D45.1010500_at_wanadoo.nl>

Darren wrote:

> Why not do the HONEST thing and go to Brown and say "here, look at
> this data we have, I think we are looking at the same object.
> Why don't we pool our data and publish together?"

This happens sometimes when the peope involved know each other well. When this
is not the case, it could be risky to do so. I agree the above is a sane thing
to do if it concerned a colleague I know and trust. I disagree that not doing
this would be "dishonest", however. It is normal scientific conduct to report on
your own data in the context of what has been *published* by others, and ignore
potential unpublished materials. That's just the way it goes in science.
Otherwise, things would get unworkable.

In this case, it was even more simple. It concerned the report of astrometric
data to the MPC, not publication of a paper. MPC rules are very clear: the first
who reports astrometric data, gets credit, in the Minor Planet Electronic
Circular that reports on the object in question. Brown et al. did not report to
the MPC, Ortiz et al. did, so the latter gets credit. That's the way it goes for
*ALL* newly discovered solar system objects. There's no reason why 2003 EL61
should be an exception.

Considering Wallace and Darwin: there are science historians who feel that
Darwin and some people supporting him did outmanouvre Wallace when they
discovered Walllace was indepently arriving at an evolution by natural selection
theory.

- Marco

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Dr Marco Langbroek
Dutch Meteor Society (DMS)

e-mail: meteorites_at_dmsweb.org
private website http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek
DMS website http://www.dmsweb.org
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Received on Sat 17 Sep 2005 01:07:17 PM PDT