When I tell you I inhaled this book, I mean I read it in one sitting, then 7 times over again. I've recommended it 57 times, gifted 12 copies, and lovingly annotated it on 6 flights. Donald Braben's Scientific Freedom is an eulogy to scientific discovery, autopsied while it was still alive. He predicted the current landscape of research, 17 years before it happened. We went from 500 people who could conduct and execute on research to 50,000 locked in cages of incremental work. Young scientists don't even bother anymore (they just leave). We didn't get dumber. We built a system that punishes risk. I would argue that most Nobel-winning discoveries from the 20th century would be rejected today (too weird! Too slow! Too uncertain!) Since 2008: > Peer review times have tripled > Federal grant success rates fall below 20% > First-time PI age is approaching 50 > (new!) Research funding cuts up to 43% I've spent the last few weeks mapping what Braben saw coming and stress-testing his arguments in 2025, what he missed, new challenges, and what we can adapt from here. Deep dive follows below! Very few books make me go wow, let alone restructure my entire paradigm. @stripepress knew what they were doing bringing this back. Everyone even remotely adjacent to scientific research needs to read this.