It would be difficult in practice to maintain the secrecy needed to pull this off. While in many cases scientists currently keep what they're working on "mostl

It would be difficult in practice to maintain the secrecy needed to pull this off. While in many cases scientists currently keep what they're working on "mostly secret" until it's published, in fact lots of their friends and colleagues have a pretty good idea of what they're doing and would be in a position to ask hard questions if they tried to take your approach.