The New Paradigm for Gamma Ray Bursts: a Case of Unethical Behaviour?

Abstract

One might have hoped that the immediacy and completeness of scientific information provided through the internet would have made the wrongful appropriation of someone else's ideas --now so easy to detect and document-- a sin of the past. Not so. Here I present evidence, which the reader should judge, of such an apparent misconduct by Sir Martin Rees, the British Astronomer Royal, and others. Unethical behaviour is not unknown in science. My sole intention is to call attention to the problem by way of example, in an attempt to contribute to a more ethical atmosphere, which would in my opinion be beneficial to the field.