Steve, Their science "may or may not" be adequate for this, we simply do not know for sure at this moment: 'time will tell' ... and no, they are not "unethical" in the normal sense of these things. Or should I say that there is an entrenched pecking-order in science, and it gives full credit where often "it is not due".
If you look hard enough, you can find a close or even "an exact predecessor" for many great ideas, in the prior work of little known "neighbors" of a famous scientist. As I mentioned a few years ago on Vo, the classic example is e=mc^2 ... which the great AE actually 'lifted' from an neighbor, as he was living within a day's walk of the first publisher, and he repeated it totally without attribution. That "victim" was a fellow named Olinto de Pretto, who published the identical formula in a local journal in 1903, fully two years before Einstein published his in a more famous and peer-reviewed journal. This documented revelation has been known in Italy, and on the internet for some time, and never denied by anyone - how can it be denied ? the evidence is absolutely clear... yet no major newspaper or scientific journal wants to pick up the story of this semi-injustice since the originator of e=mc^2 was, in effect what is called in the music industry a "one hit wonder" ... whereas the great AE had many feathers in his cap ... and so it goes. There are dozens of similar cases. BTW - the Nobel committee probably had "suspicions" back then... and Al was awarded the big prize in 1921 *solely* for his work on the photoelectric effect, which he did deserve. Of course, he is still remembered today mainly for his work on relativity and gravity, encapsulated in the one famous but "borrowed" equation. ... and so it goes (should I credit Linda Ellerbee for that phrase?) Jones, Can you be clear please? Did you give up on them because your opinion of their science was low? Or because you judged them to be unethical? Or both, in which case, why would you care who they gave attribution to or not? Steve
