"In
this paper, we study workforce trends in three scientific disciplines over half
a century...we find a rapid rise (from 25 to 60%…) of a group of scientists who spend their
entire career only as supporting authors without having led a publication." https://www.pnas.org/content/115/50/12616
I agree that there are very strange behaviors in academia, not only the one described in the article above that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, but for instance also the elevation of "back-stabbing and bullying to a fine art" https://troymedia.com/education/the-dark-machiavellian-side-of-academia/
