And which reviewer or publishers verifies how “significant” a contribution is beyond seeing some initials matched with tags like “visualization” or “experimental design”? That’s right, nobody. It’s not even remotely traceable who did what if you’re a reviewer.

Academia is full of fraud and people trying to secure their share of credit because in academia it’s all about names, as the twitter exchange above illustrates so profoundly. And the other driver for the sad state of academia is of course having the quantity of published papers as the most important criterion for academic success. The more papers, the more citations, the bigger your name will become. It determines your chances of getting funding and therefore your career. If you want to make a career in science you have little options but to comply with this system.