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IAU Names Fifth Dwarf Planet Haumea
Kligat writes "The International Astronomical Union has renamed the dwarf planet Haumea and its two moons Hi'iaka and Namaka, after the Hawaiian fertility goddess, the patron goddess of Hawaii, and a water spirit. The cigar-shaped body is speculated to have resulted from its short rotational period of only four hours. Holding up the reclassification of the body as a dwarf planet was a dispute over its discovery between the groups of José Luis Ortiz Moreno and Michael E. Brown."
Well, Brown is apparently still favoring the theory that Ortiz Moreno never did his own observations and 'stole' all the data from Brown's observing logs. But Brown himself admits there is no firm evidence for this. The IAU's decision to accept joint discovery was probably inevitable; either that or directly accuse Ortiz Moreno of scientific misconduct.
If you have evidence, then put up. Otherwise, stop accusing people of fraud and shut up. Either way, what Ortiz Moreno did was impolite and dishonest, but if you are accusing him of scientific misconduct, then you need to show proof. I'm sure the IAU would be thrilled to hear from you. As would Brown himself.
When someone takes an abstract for an upcoming talk, Googles the software-assigned name "K40506A," from said abstract, then plays around with the url to get access to unlinked data, then points their telescope at the spot mentioned in the data, then sends out an email (from the same computer used to access the data in the first place) saying "here's our discovery, look at my new data plus some archival data from this telescope," and doesn't even mention the data access, doesn't even respond when confronted...well yeah, my bullshit alarm goes off.
Look, here's the timeline (which you never read, because your entire expertise on this comes from the link to Mike Brown's blog you saw elsewhere in the discussion -- those who have followed this for a while have a bit of an advantage, eh?).
Maybe Moreno couldn't be convicted in a court of law. But anybody that believes Moreno's highly improbable account has his brain dribbling from his nose-holes.
It seems clear that you simply read my original quote from Wikipedia, thought that was all there was, and became a Slashdot InstaExpert on the subject. You probably do it all the time. Once I called you on it, you did a little extra reading, found that I was right, and retreated to your "no firm evidence" stance. Just because you own a keyboard doesn't mean we need to see you pontificate on every subject under the sun. The internet will be a better place with a little less of your stupidity in the future, huh?
Here's a bit more information from Brown, if you don't really understand how astronomy works: hasty announcement and the reports of "hacking". Yes, yes, I know that you are even now composing a reply with a huge list of your qualifications. The hacking discussion was linked from the original 2005 New York Times article about the controversy, which again, you never read, but which I saw when the story broke.