In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]@John>,
John Simmons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At 02:59 AM 9/16/98 -0400, Vincent J. Mooney Jr. wrote:
> >Should the GIMPS effort discard Alan Blosser's results on the grounds that
> >they were improperly obtained? Surely we can wait for the whole story, not
> >just a newspaper article, but then if the news stories are indeed right,
> >should we discard the results?
>
> Well Vince, that is a pretty moronic suggestion. I think some of you
> (especially you, Vince) have lost sight of the true goal - discovering new
> prime numbers. The fact that Alan may (or may not) have used processing
> time on unauthorized machines does NOT invalidate the numbers he has
> completed. The fact is that he has completed a lot of numbers. How he did
> it is NOT a consideration.
Here I disagree - let me suggest that the ethics of the question are
more significant than the scientific discoveries involved.
For instance, there is I believe consensus within the scientific
community that experiments upon human beings that result in
foreseeable and permanent harm are indefensible, and that any
discoveries made thereby should be REPUDIATED.
Admittedly, the primality of numbers is not a life-or-death question,
but a line should be drawn somewhere. If it is o.k. to dismiss someone
who says 'CPU time was stolen from me', where _should_ we stop ?
mikus
