Timeline for Is there an ethical obligation to make author order reflect conventions in your field?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
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| May 31, 2016 at 13:02 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | ... In some hypothetical situation where author order indicated something that genuinely can be given away freely, like "muggins who gets correspondence" then willingness of other authors would resolve it. The same might apply if your field somehow considers "coming from Prof Z's group" not to be a matter of academic credit. But I naively suppose that who wore what hat at what time under whose authority actually is more than a matter of pure admin that could ethically be negotiated, and does have incidental academic significance, just like e.g. funding sources do. | |
| May 31, 2016 at 12:56 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | @ff534: surely the difference between willingly giving someone credit they don't deserve (at whatever level: being an author at all, being first author, being last author) and unwillingly doing so, is significant to the ethics of the situation concerning how you're treating the person who did deserve the credit, but it's not significant to the ethics concerning how you're treating readers, and that's why in academia you're not allowed to give away academic credit: the readers don't let you. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:44 | comment | added | Dan Romik | @ff524 I see. In that case it again feels pretty clearly unethical to me, as there is an intention to mislead others. Note that I say this from my position of moral luxury as someone who publishes in math journals where author order is alphabetical and no one needs to think about such insane political nonsense as whose lab a paper is seen to be coming out of. So I can afford to have high (perhaps unrealistically high from your point of view) standards about such things. Anyway, my opinion (for the little that it's worth) is that it's unethical. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:38 | comment | added | ff524 | @DanRomik The paper will be seen as having come out of the group of whoever is the last author (e.g. people will refer to it as, "that paper from Prof. Z's group..." and will credit Prof. Z accordingly). The person whose group it did come out of, and should be last author, probably wants to avoid a political argument over it. The student who is first author, and who ultimately makes the decision, doesn't want to list Prof. Z as last author if it's unethical to do so, but also doesn't want to make a big deal about it if it isn't. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:37 | comment | added | Dan Romik | @ff524 the alpha-beta-gamma story is also about actual gift authorship, so clearly it is not a perfect example. It merely shows in general the potential injustices that can be caused because of inaccurate authorship. Whether the party that loses out on the credit gives it up willingly or not feels mostly irrelevant to me, since it is not only them who can be harmed, it is also the entire community that can miss out on historical knowledge about who made important discoveries, or (in more mundane cases) knowledge about which scientists should be offered jobs, invited to give plenary talks etc. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:32 | comment | added | Dan Romik | @ff524 I don't feel like I really understand what's going on in your second scenario. Why does the senior contributor want to be last author? Why is the "real" last author okay with giving up that status? What are the implications to being named or not being named last author? I'm confused about the motivations of the people involved, so I don't feel I can really comment about the ethics of the situation. In any case, the default assumption should be that if there is a convention, then one would have to have a pretty good reason (and, ideally, honest and noble intentions) to deviate from it. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:28 | comment | added | ff524 | I think your story about the alpha-beta-gamma paper addresses a different problem, that of potential harm to the authors who end up with less credit than they deserve. In my scenarios, the author who "deserves" the credit willingly gives it up. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:25 | comment | added | ff524 | @PeteL.Clark I understand :) | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:24 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | @ff524: Yeah, but I'm just thus guy, you know? It is far out of my own experience. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:23 | comment | added | ff524 | Do you have any thoughts on the second scenario? Pete L. Clark seems to find it less problematic than the first. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:22 | history | answered | Dan Romik | CC BY-SA 3.0 |