The problem is we will never know what really happened. This model leads to a necessary accrual of credit to more senior researchers because the default assump

The problem is we will never know what really happened. This model leads to a necessary accrual of credit to more senior researchers because the default assumption is to assume credit of a group to the more senior individual. The problem is there's no way (or less way) for the less senior individual to establish credit unless they are publishing on their own, which isn't feasible. In this way, group efforts tend to trickle toward the person in the senior position, and credit accrues to people in management of large groups irrespective of where ideas are coming from or who is doing the work. We say "someone is a great scientist" because they have an administrative position with reference to a large group. Whoever has the most papers with the largest groups wins.