Letter: Who wrote this?

From Mary Lush

Woo Suk Hwang’s comment that part of the responsibility for the Korean stem cell fraud should be borne by his 30 or so co-authors, raises the issue of authorship in science (8 July, p 5). In some branches of science it is not unusual for 12 or so people to be listed as co-authors. It follows that if these co-authors made unequal contributions to the work, then one or more of them must have contributed very little, possibly less than 8 per cent. The anonymous referees may have done more.

Some professional associations recognise co-authorship as a problem and have developed guidelines for authors. One such set of criteria states that an author must have participated in all of the three processes associated with the work: they should be involved in the experimentation; in the writing of the article; and in approving the final version.

Such stringent rules are unsatisfactory where they preclude the naming of technicians who have carried out all of the experimentation, or active participants with poor English language skills. On the other hand the idea that participation in just one of these processes justifies co-authorship is also unsatisfactory, because it allows for some of the practices that appear to have characterised the Hwang publications and are in fact quite common elsewhere in science. These practices include established scientists agreeing to appear as authors of their protégés’ papers because it is perceived that their presence will facilitate publication, and scientists being named on papers they know nothing about until after publication.

Despite the pressure to amass a vast list of publications, not all scientists welcome all opportunities for co-authorship; but it can be hard to turn down an offer. Teamwork in science is sometimes emphasised at the expense of independent thinking. To decline authorship is to withdraw from the team.

The existence of firm (not to mention known and accepted) guidelines would help people who wish to decline offers. An additional criterion that we should all consider before accepting co-authorship is this: are we sure beyond reasonable doubt that all of the work reported is genuine? This is not always easy with long-distance collaborations.

Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia