At 09:50 AM 12/16/2012, Jones Beene wrote:
There are other Naudin sites which suffer the same problem.
An inability to admit personal error is fatal for anyone involved with scientific investigation. A real scientist, discovering a significant error in published work, will *immediately* announce it, because it can cause many other people to waste a great deal of time.
Michael McKubre found an error in work he'd done for the Electric Power Research Institute. He communicated it to them, even though it was minor. That contract was over, he didn't have to do it, but this kind of correction is a matter of professional ethics. At that time, the EPRI work wasn't publicly available. It was later released, and the McKubre correction was not incorporated -- the document wasn't changed at all. Krivit found this error and made a big deal out of it....
With a live web site that the researcher can edit, all it takes is a note added to the site, such that anyone will not be misled by the error.
While some might think that embarrassing, it is far, far more embarrassing to have made an error and be unable to acknowledge and correct it.
Correcting the error is better than taking down the site.
