Monday, September 19, 2005
Time for 10th Commandment instead??
One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: September 13, 2005 NY TIMES
(Corrections Appended)
When a group of Spanish astronomers reported in July that they had discovered a spectacular addition to the solar system, a bright ball of ice almost as big as Pluto sailing the depths of space out beyond Neptune, Michael Brown of Caltech chalked it up to coincidence and bad luck. His own group had been tracking the object, now known as 2003 EL61, for months but had told no one.
Michael Brown, an astronomer at Caltech, top, said that he and his team were tracking an unknown object in the solar system. Jose Luis Ortiz, above, and his team members say they discovered the same object.
He sent the leader of the group, Jose-Luis Ortiz, of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, in Granada, a congratulatory e-mail message.
Now Dr. Brown has asked for an investigation of Dr. Ortiz's discovery, alleging a serious breach of scientific ethics. Archival records, he said, show that only a day before the discovery was reported, computers traced to Dr. Ortiz and his student Pablo Santos-Sanz visited a Web site containing data on where and when the Caltech group's telescope was pointed.
The information in these observing logs could have been used to help find the object on the Spanish images, taken more than two years ago, or simply to confirm that both groups discovered the same object. Depending on what the Spanish astronomers did, their failure to mention the Caltech observations could be considered scientific dishonesty or even fraud, Dr. Brown suggests.
In comments for his Web site (www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila),which includes a detailed timeline of the events surrounding the July announcement, he writes: "It is not clear from the timeline precisely what Ortiz and Santos-Sanz knew and how they used the records that they accessed. They were required by the standards of science, however, to acknowledge their use of our Web-based records."
In an e-mail message to Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who is director of International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, the clearinghouse for such discoveries, Dr. Brown wrote on Aug. 15, "I request that Ortiz et al. be stripped of official discovery status and that the I.A.U. issue a statement condemning their actions."
Dr. Ortiz did not respond to numerous e-mail messages and telephone calls. Last week in an e-mail message to Dr. Brown, Dr. Ortiz neither admitted nor denied looking at the observing logs. Instead he criticized Dr. Brown's failure to report discoveries promptly to the Minor Planet Center, saying that his penchant for "hiding objects" had alienated other astronomers and harmed science......
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By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: September 13, 2005 NY TIMES
(Corrections Appended)
When a group of Spanish astronomers reported in July that they had discovered a spectacular addition to the solar system, a bright ball of ice almost as big as Pluto sailing the depths of space out beyond Neptune, Michael Brown of Caltech chalked it up to coincidence and bad luck. His own group had been tracking the object, now known as 2003 EL61, for months but had told no one.
Michael Brown, an astronomer at Caltech, top, said that he and his team were tracking an unknown object in the solar system. Jose Luis Ortiz, above, and his team members say they discovered the same object.
He sent the leader of the group, Jose-Luis Ortiz, of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, in Granada, a congratulatory e-mail message.
Now Dr. Brown has asked for an investigation of Dr. Ortiz's discovery, alleging a serious breach of scientific ethics. Archival records, he said, show that only a day before the discovery was reported, computers traced to Dr. Ortiz and his student Pablo Santos-Sanz visited a Web site containing data on where and when the Caltech group's telescope was pointed.
The information in these observing logs could have been used to help find the object on the Spanish images, taken more than two years ago, or simply to confirm that both groups discovered the same object. Depending on what the Spanish astronomers did, their failure to mention the Caltech observations could be considered scientific dishonesty or even fraud, Dr. Brown suggests.
In comments for his Web site (www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila),which includes a detailed timeline of the events surrounding the July announcement, he writes: "It is not clear from the timeline precisely what Ortiz and Santos-Sanz knew and how they used the records that they accessed. They were required by the standards of science, however, to acknowledge their use of our Web-based records."
In an e-mail message to Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who is director of International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, the clearinghouse for such discoveries, Dr. Brown wrote on Aug. 15, "I request that Ortiz et al. be stripped of official discovery status and that the I.A.U. issue a statement condemning their actions."
Dr. Ortiz did not respond to numerous e-mail messages and telephone calls. Last week in an e-mail message to Dr. Brown, Dr. Ortiz neither admitted nor denied looking at the observing logs. Instead he criticized Dr. Brown's failure to report discoveries promptly to the Minor Planet Center, saying that his penchant for "hiding objects" had alienated other astronomers and harmed science......
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