On Deliberate Misreferencing as a Tool of Science Policy

Abstract: In the second half of February the impending Giotto encounter of 13 March concentrated our minds on what the encounter might reveal. As an outcome, we issued a fairly widely circulated preprint with the title "Some Predictions on the Nature of Comet Halley," (1 March, 1996, Cardiff Series 121) whose contents were reported in the issue of the Times for 12 March. This publication in the Times was fortunate for us, because it appeared indisputably ahead of the encounter, whereas a contemporaneous submission to the Royal Astronomical Society has suffered long delays to acceptance on advice to the Society from two persons of unknown identities.