To me science as a field is somehow more primitive and backward in that it's still first and foremost about building one's CV, like an explorer putting their name on places before the other guy gets there. This doesn't generally match the current environment where everyone is pursuing the same incremental advances and will get there sooner or later. Yet we pretend the one person who's paper got past reviewers first deserves all the credit for that increment plus the increments that follow. The first implementations often don't even work.
Presumably the reason it works this way is because the funding process in research rewards this approach. Elsewhere like in engineering, results are what matter. Science will probably evolve in this direction as we need more and more of it, and results are produced in more shared-credit environments like big labs instead of academia. Then it won't be so much about the Matthew effect which favors those who got started the earliest (which tends to be boys).
Presumably the reason it works this way is because the funding process in research rewards this approach. Elsewhere like in engineering, results are what matter. Science will probably evolve in this direction as we need more and more of it, and results are produced in more shared-credit environments like big labs instead of academia. Then it won't be so much about the Matthew effect which favors those who got started the earliest (which tends to be boys).