Babbage 1830: "It is impossible to advance science by repeating each other's experiments."

Unless that's how grant renewals work.

Sep 2026. ISBN 9798259503571.

#Babbage1830 #ReplicationCrisis

Babbage, 1830: "A man's reputation in science depends less on his discoveries than on his standing in the right committees."

Replace "committees" with "study sections" and you've described every NIH career path.

Sep 2026.

#Babbage1830

"Scientific knowledge scarcely exists, except amongst a comparatively few individuals, scattered over the kingdom."

— Babbage, 1830, on a research system where prestige flows by patronage rather than discovery.

Sep 2026 — the first scholarly edition since 1990.

#Babbage1830

"The Royal Society of London bestows honorary positions on its members for reasons that have nothing to do with science."

— Charles Babbage, 1830.

Replace "Royal Society" with "NIH study sections" and the sentence ages 196 years without losing a syllable.

#Babbage1830 #ScienceFunding