Taking a Cue from the Silver Screen

Abstract

In his Editorial “Promoting scientific standards” (1 January, p. [12][1]), B. Alberts notes that many scientific projects are carried out by large teams, which makes attributing author contributions a problem. The concept of authorship is derived from a literary tradition, but novels and poems are written by no more than one or two people. Accordingly, authorship presumes that everyone makes an equal contribution to the piece. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors guidelines on authorship, also known as the Vancouver guidelines ([www.icmje.org][2]) explicitly state that every author has equal responsibility for all material in the paper. That the new Science policies described by Alberts do not follow the Vancouver guidelines suggests that we need a new model for assigning credit to scientific projects. Films might provide a better model for assigning credit than literature. Movie productions, like large scientific projects, represent the collaborative efforts of large teams, often working semi-independently of each other. The credits spell out who did what—director, cinematographer, screenwriter, and so on. There is no pretense that everyone who contributed to the film is an author of the film. Honorary authorships are often given to principal investigators who provide resources, but minimal scientific input. Such investigators are analogous to film producers, who often set up financing and handle administration. It is appropriate that this important work receives due credit, but that credit should not imply involvement in the creative process. Such contributions would probably not be recognized if the film industry were using, as science still does, the blunt instrument of authorship. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1185983 [2]: http://www.icmje.org