Multiple discoveries

The issue of scientists "discovering" things that have already been discovered (mostly because they haven't done a proper literature search!) is in the news again.
Kolata, G. (2006) "Pity the Scientist Who Discovers the Discovered." New York times, February 5th. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/
weekinreview/05kolata.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (you need to register to see the full text) "Stephen Stigler, a statistician at the University of Chicago who has written about the phenomenon. Not only does it occur in every scientific field, he said, the 'very fact of multiple discoveries has been discovered many times.'"
Photo by S. Webber: Greenwich Park, Feb. 2006.