Science was done in the Royal Society, there certainly was no competition, pride, ego, greed or politics there!
To be sure, there was. I had in mind, principally, the monastery in Brno, where a certain monk did some breeding experiments with peas in the mid-19th century. (I am the author of the article.)
"But science is no longer done in monasteries. Competition, pride, ego, greed, and politics play all too great a role in determining who gets credit, who wins the prizes, and who gets into the textbooks."
This really was never any different.