The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki

I wish more science, and generally more work was done this way. Dispense with ego-flattering prizes, narratives of discovery that put lone geniuses in the spotlight, turning PIs heroes and dictators at the expense of their team... I understand this is not practical for all fields, but it would alleviate much of the pettiness and unethical behaviors that have become so normalized in academia.

I'd heard of it as well - there was a novel that had a group of aging Biologist get together and publish anonymously under the name.

The clever part of the novel - and I can't even remember the name - was that the "discovery" they made was PCR. It made it seem a lot better then if the novelist had just created some magic invention for the characters. Made it much more grounded - as I remember it. That said, how good could it be if I can't remember the name of the book.

I learned about this from the excellent BBC Radio series a brief history of mathematics with Marcus Du Sautoy. Here is the relevant episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00stcgv

Carl Djerassi was of course himself a world-class drug researcher: he has a good claim to being the most important figure in the development of oral contraceptives for women.

I am no expert but it is not my impression that adopting a group pseudonym eliminated politics or pettiness from the behavior of people inside or outside. But maybe makes the politics a bit less public/transparent?

One criticism I have heard from professional mathematicians is that Bourbaki wasted a whole generation of French talent, pulling the best young mathematicians away from their own useful and interesting research to assign to them a project of marginal benefit if any, because being a member of Bourbaki was in itself prestigious. The work tries to be entirely self-contained instead of part of a conversation, which leads to insularity, arbitrary “not-invented-here” reformulation of established concepts, ignoring outside developments, and lack of historical links and attributions. It is essentially all reworking of previously known mathematics, rather than any new discovery.

I am not a mathematician, and I don’t really have insight into the opportunity cost of research potential for the people involved, but personally I think the Bourbakist style has been very harmful to mathematics: it is entirely dry and formal, eschewing motivation, examples, or pictures. As a reference for professionals it might be okay, but the same style has infected broad swaths of mathematics teaching, and it serves to chase away many newcomers, almost like a kind of hazing ritual.

But Bourbaki is to say the least a controversial group. I don’t think it should uncritically be taken as a model for other researchers.