One Find, Two Astronomers

Malacon writes "The New York Times is running a story about Debate Between Astronomers who both claim to have discovered the same object beyond Pluto, and almost the same size. Apparantly the US Astronomers had been tracking it for quite some time, but chose to not report it yet. They also claim the Spanish Astronomers stole data to make the find."

Comments

Finders Keepers

[fembots]

Richard Pogge, an Ohio State astronomer who uncovered the apparent breach, said that scientists had long lived mostly successfully by a kind of honor system. Astronomers, he said, routinely serve on time allocation committees for telescopes and peer review panels without stealing one another's ideas. "It allows us to have an open, collaborative community,"

So why can't Dr Brown (the USian) publish his discovery immediately and let the community to chip in and further investigate the finding?

Re:Finders Keepers

[zanderredux]

Maybe he was very serious about keeping scientific correction standards.

But since the subject of the discussion is fame and merit, well, gotta agree: f**k scientific procedure. If you *think* you've got something new, just publish it away. You might be right and, in that case, you'll have fame and fortune. If not, lay low for a year or so, until people forget, and do it again, ad nauseam.