This is the modern physics model. The major discoveries and papers have 100s of authors attached to them. The soft sciences tend to have lots more smaller studies and papers.

The damage is that there isn't an "Accepted body of knowledge" that everyone knows to be true. Perhaps this isn't even possible.

There is a sick culture that thinks being the "idea person" is the most important part of research, and that "idea people" should be in charge of implementing their ideas. A lot of issues stem from that.