Gravity, evolution, the atomic nucleus, DNA. You name it, and the person who discovered it was a Royal Society fellow. While the individual glories of those on its membership roll are well established, its corporate contribution to advancing knowledge is appreciated less often. In the present, that contribution comes through grants, lectures and the esteem of the 44 fellowships dished out every year. In the past, the society had a hand in shaping the scientific method itself. Physics and the like were still regarded as mere provinces within philosophy's empire when the "Invisible College", which preceded the society, was set up to challenge the scholastic view that the world was best understood through abstract reasoning and ancient text. The subversive upshot of instead emphasising experiment is neatly captured in the society's strapline Nullius in verba – roughly, "Take nobody's word for it." But intellectual revolution was cannily mixed with pragmatic politics. As the restored Charles II scrambled around for innovations to prove he was more than a chip off the old chopping block, his endorsement was successfully sought. The archives the society has put online for its birthday this week show how it went on to develop central precepts of modern scientific practice, such as peer review and the faithful writing-up of experiments so that they could be replicated. After 350 years, the evidence is in, and the peculiar experiment of the Royal Society has proved a rip-roaring success.