h{\alpha}: The Scientist as Chimpanzee or Bonobo

Abstract

In a recent paper, Hirsch (2018) proposes to attribute the credit for a co-authored paper to the {\alpha}-author--the author with the highest h-index--regardless of his or her actual contribution, effectively reducing the role of the other co-authors to zero. The indicator h{\alpha} inherits most of the disadvantages of the h-index from which it is derived, but adds the normative element of reinforcing the Matthew effect in science. Using an example, we show that h{\alpha} can be extremely unstable. The empirical attribution of credit among co-authors is not captured by abstract models such as h, h_bar , or h{\alpha}.