# Why do some scientific papers have so many co-authors? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 9, 2025, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663 "2025-07-09T16:13:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/21 "2025-07-10T10:03:39Z")
A medical research paper published in 1993 won the IgNobel prize in literature for having 100 time as many authors as pages. [šŸ”—](https://improbable.com/ig/1993/1993-lit.html) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/22 "2025-07-10T11:38:08Z")
I pointed out to someone years ago that several papers coming out of high-energy physics institutions like FermiLab frequently had more lines of names than there were words in the title. The experiments are so huge, requiring the contributions of so many people (and you want to give full credit to everyone) that you end up with such Author List Bloat. Itā€™s simply a fact of life in the pursuit of Big Physics. And, at the same time, there are plenty of low-tech and theoretical papers done on modest budgets with only one or two authors. Then there are the cases where spurious authors get slipped in, especially when there are a lot of authors for a paper. There was the infamous case of a chemist who included his cat as a co-author (its cutesy name hidden by using his initial). Or the physics group I know of that invented an author whose name appeared on several papers. Or when real scientists who werenā€™t authors are recruited for the sake of a joke, as with the ā€œAlpher, Bethe, Gamowā€ paper, or the ā€œKnox, Knox, Whoose, Zairā€ paper. This class is worthy of a thread of its own. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/23 "2025-07-10T14:58:08Z")
I have a friend, a Biology PHD and former college department head who gave up academia for surfing five years ago. To make ends meet, he ghost writes scientific papers. The researchers just send him their research and conclusions and he writes the paper with minimal back and forth with the ā€œauthorā€. So, in many cases, ā€œauthorā€ is a pretty loose descriptor, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/24 "2025-07-10T17:34:19Z")
When I was in grad school in CS the number of authors was pretty limited, and order was by contribution. I collaborated with someone pretty equally on a survey paper and a paper going into the top journal - we swapped first authorships. Our advisor was good about not being the first author for papers from his grad students. My wife is a biologist and she said that if youā€™re in the elevator when the paper is being discussed you get to be an author. Now once I dropped into an office where a few people were discussing an invention, and I suggested something fairly trivial, and got my name included on the patent. Since patent authors are in alphabetical order, I was first. On the other hand for a patent where I did 90% of the work, my co-inventor (who worked for me) who did 10% of the work was first because his name came first. We still got the same pittance from Bell Labs. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/25 "2025-07-10T18:40:19Z")
I want to mention that there is a possible downside to having your name on a paper that you didnā€™t have much to do with. If memory serves me, famous biochemist Joshua Lederburg had to resign the presidency of Rockefeller U. because a paper with his name on it turned out to have faked data or something like that. Even though he had nothing to do with the faking, he was tarred because his name was on the paper. The director of the lab I worked in when I was a student that I mentioned above was considered remarkable for the fact that if his name was on a paper, it was because he was involved in the research. This was considered odd in biochemistry. Another thing he did was put a machinist in the labā€™s shop on a paper about the construction of a new lab instrument (a recording spectrophotometer, a common tool these days but invented in that lab around 1950). ---
**Author:** ![Mongoose3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3e96dc/32.png) [@Mongoose3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mongoose3)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/26 "2025-07-10T18:53:20Z")
Iā€™m not sure what your point is. Most papers on arxiv become published in journals. And have a look at the number of authors on this paper. [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07824-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07824-z) Lots of published papers have huge numbers of authors. Having worked in one of these collaborations before, Iā€™ve had my name on papers I havenā€™t read and had nothing to do with. Itā€™s silly. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/27 "2025-07-10T19:16:48Z")
I do believe a lot of journals now draw distinctions between authors and collaboration groups or consortiums. But of course there are infinite examples of papers with dozens of authors who have no business being there. Thatā€™s the whole point of the ICMJE standards and thatā€™s why journals have begun requiring contribution statements. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/28 "2025-07-10T19:34:58Z")
As a historian, this thread confirms my analysis that history as a discipline is much, much harder than any science. 1. there are all kinds of child/young adult prodigies in many sciences. There are no history prodigies. Therefore, while any child can do math, etc., history is the preserve of mature, developed minds. 2. History is not written by teams listing pages of collaborators on their final product. Therefore, the work of any single scientist is simple and minuscule compared to the magisterial work of the historian. 3. Cue old-time movie trailer basso profundo voice: ā€œOne lone historian, lost in time, in a world gone amokā€¦ā€ Okay, Iā€™m going back to marking papers and cross-multiplying and dividing to determine grades and percents. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/29 "2025-07-10T19:37:34Z")
Decades ago, I was named on a paper because I was the one shoveling the dairy manure. I also fed the digester, took samples, and did lab tests on the samples. But the shoveling was the thing that no one else wanted to do. I was also the one with forklift safety certification. Other people did the analysis of the test results. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/30 "2025-07-10T20:33:31Z")
Sir Cyril Burtā€™s research papers on the heritable nature of intelligence raised doubts in part because nobody could remember the researchers he credited as coauthors, and there was no trace of them in university records. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/31 "2025-07-10T21:10:34Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Decades ago, I was named on a paper because I was the one shoveling theā€¦manure. Were you the first author? ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/32 "2025-07-10T21:13:44Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Decades ago, I was named on a paper because I was the one shoveling the dairy manure. In some research papers, everyone involved is shoveling dairy manure. šŸ˜€ ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/33 "2025-07-10T21:29:08Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Decades ago, I was named on a paper because I was the one shoveling the dairy manure. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > Were you the first author? Wouldnā€™t **Ylaria** be #2? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/34 "2025-07-10T22:12:14Z")
I think itā€™s time to moove this conversation forward lest the BS get piled higher and deeper. šŸ„ šŸ® šŸ‚ ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/35 "2025-07-11T00:21:47Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > The hopefully-forever-hypothetical problem is that your wife is on the hook if it turns out her peer falsified data or otherwise committed a professional breach of some kind in the paper. What do you mean by ā€œon the hookā€? If one of my coauthors screws up to the point where itā€™s necessary, we issue a correction or a retraction and move on. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/36 "2025-07-11T00:37:08Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Were you the first author? I believe I was last. I was surprised to be on it at all, actually. I was an undergraduate doing the job for the money. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/37 "2025-07-11T01:21:06Z")
Ah, so you were the _corresponding author_ credited with leading the work! They donā€™t equate a PhD to Piled Higher and Deeper for nothing. šŸ˜† ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663/38 "2025-07-11T02:52:54Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Decades ago, I was named on a paper because I was the one shoveling the dairy manure. I got named twice- once for taking care of the lab animals, and another for doing some field research. I mean, those had to be done, so- why not? I mean no pay, nothing else, why they throw your name in at the end? I guess it was a reward for doing nasty unpaid volunteer tasks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-scientific-papers-have-so-many-co-authors/1020663.md?page=1)