Rethinking the Value of Author Contribution Statements in Light of How Research Teams Respond to Retractions

The authorship policies of scientific journals often assume that in order to be able to properly place credit and responsibility for the content of a collaborative paper we should be able to distinguish the contributions of the various individuals involved. Hence, many journals have introduced a requirement for author contribution statements aimed at making it easier to place credit and responsibility on individual scientists. We argue that from a purely descriptive point of view the practices of collaborating scientists are at odds with the requirement for author contribution statements. We also argue that from a normative point of view the authorship policies may be unnecessary. Our arguments draw on an examination of 35 years of retraction notices in the journal Science.