Editing Charles Babbage (section)

==="Declinarians", learned societies and the BAAS===
[[File:Babbage - Letter to sir Humphry Davy on the application of machinery to the purpose of calculating and printing mathematical tables, 1822 - 721620.tif|thumb|''Letter to Sir Humphry Davy'', 1822]]
Babbage now emerged as a [[polemicist]]. One of his biographers notes that all his books contain a "campaigning element". His ''Reflections on the Decline of Science and some of its Causes'' (1830) stands out, however, for its sharp attacks. It aimed to improve British science, and more particularly to oust [[Davies Gilbert]] as President of the Royal Society, which Babbage wished to reform.<ref>{{cite book|author=Anthony Hyman|title=[[Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer]]|year=1985|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|isbn=978-0-691-02377-9|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YCddaWqWK2cC&pg=PA88 88]}}</ref> It was written out of pique, when Babbage hoped to become the junior secretary of the Royal Society, as Herschel was the senior, but failed because of his antagonism to [[Humphry Davy]].<ref>{{cite book|author=James|title=Remarkable Engineers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0bwb5bevubwC&pg=PA47|access-date=27 April 2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-48625-5|page=47|date=25 February 2010}}</ref> Michael Faraday had a reply written, by [[Gerrit Moll]], as ''On the Alleged Decline of Science in England'' (1831).<ref name="Holmes">{{cite book |author=Richard Holmes|title=The Age of Wonder|year=2008 |publisher=Pantheon Books |isbn=978-0-375-42222-5 |pages=437–440|author-link=Richard Holmes (biographer)}}</ref> On the front of the Royal Society Babbage had no impact, with the bland election of the [[Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex|Duke of Sussex]] to succeed Gilbert the same year. As a broad manifesto, on the other hand, his ''Decline'' led promptly to the formation in 1831 of the [[British Association for the Advancement of Science]] (BAAS).<ref name="Holmes"/>

The ''[[Mechanics' Magazine]]'' in 1831 identified as Declinarians the followers of Babbage. In an unsympathetic tone it pointed out [[David Brewster]] writing in the ''[[Quarterly Review]]'' as another leader; with the barb that both Babbage and Brewster had received public money.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Mechanics' Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7tQ3AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA373|year=1831|publisher=M. Salmon|pages=373–374}}</ref>

In the debate of the period on [[statistics]] (''qua'' data collection) and what is now [[statistical inference]], the BAAS in its Statistical Section (which owed something also to [[William Whewell|Whewell]]) opted for data collection. This Section was the sixth, established in 1833 with Babbage as chairman and [[John Elliot Drinkwater]] as secretary. The foundation of the [[Statistical Society]] followed.<ref>{{cite book|author=Mary Poovey|title=A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AQ5ADoAjmd4C&pg=PA309|year=1998|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-67526-8|page=309|author-link=Mary Poovey}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Dov M. Gabbay|author2=John Woods|title=British Logic in the Nineteenth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UULl07dutBwC&pg=PA164|year=2008|publisher=Elsevier|isbn=978-0-08-055701-4|page=164}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Patricia Jones |title=Population Malthus |year=1979 |publisher=Routledge and Kegan Paul |isbn=978-0-7100-0266-2 |page=445}}</ref> Babbage was its public face, backed by Richard Jones and [[Robert Malthus]].<ref>{{cite book|author=James P. Henderson|title=Early Mathematical Economics: William Whewell and the British case|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ye2p5tMnVAcC&pg=PA33|year=1996|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-8476-8201-0|page=33}}</ref>