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

[Marco Langbroek]

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potential unpublished materials.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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