One of the attractions of the scientific community, and possibly the reason for its great success, is the ethical, egalitarian ideal it purports to offer. Reputable scientists presumably work according to certain ethical principles. For example, you don't falsify your evidence to prove your hypothesis. You place credit where credit is due; you don't claim that other people's discoveries and findings are your own either by plagiarism or by undeservedly appearing on the byline of a research paper. Entwined in this process is the network of professional journals that publish scientists' findings -- not for the entertainment of the masses but for the scrutiny and appraisal of other scientists. In the papers published in such journals, scientists learn about not only the substance of the findings but also who in the field is pursuing which kinds of research.

I had decided to find out how accurate such information was. Did the list of authors in such papers actually reflect the truth about who in fact contributed to them? More specifically, I set out to ask junior physicists with Ph.D.s, so-called postdocs: How do you make up your authorship lists? Are there any guidelines? Do you list your boss? Do you list undeserving, "honorary" authors? And if so, why?

My investigation took me where few had gone before. Out of the 8.6 million scientific papers from the last 10 years in a database called "Current Contents," there were only three studies surveying the actual procedure of assigning authorship credit. I soon found out the reason: nobody wants to know.

As a first step, I asked the American Physical Society (APS) to sponsor the study. I wanted the support -- both for its prestige and its funding -- from a recognized institution. This is particularly important for survey research, because you want as many respondents as possible to answer the survey; scientists would be more likely to participate if the project had institutional support. A former APS president, Brian Schwartz, shepherded my proposal to three different committees. But even with such a powerful scientist extending his help, the process proved difficult.

A technicality prevented the survey from being sponsored by the first committee. Before the proposal was taken to the second committee, certain members began to voice concern about the touchiness of the subject. I was asked to promise not to include any "politics" in the scientific paper (which presumably meant that I should avoid formulating a theory that might taint the powers that be); to submit the paper to the publications committee of the American Institute of Physics before submitting it for publication elsewhere; and, should the information reach the newspapers, to refer exclusively to material in the scientific paper when talking to reporters. I hesitantly consented.

Unfortunately, the second committee did not find the proposal appropriate for their agenda. It was then taken to the Publications Oversight Committee, which presented the Catch-22 argument with which this article begins.

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