If there is one thing I hate, it is the traditional view of science. No one proposes a hypothesis, does a set of experiments that proves or disproves said hypothesis, and communicates the results to an approving and appreciative audience. That cliché is boring and wrong. Science proceeds by inspiration, ruthless pursuit, and not a small amount of vindictiveness. For anyone who doesn't believe this, Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science by Michael Brooks is the book for you.

Brooks lays out, in fascinating—and often horrifying and discomfiting detail—the anarchy that underlies the scientific endeavor. He recounts Werner Forssmann charming his way into an operating theatre in order to open up a vein and insert a catheter into his own heart. His success (if he hadn't succeeded, he would be used as an example in lab safety courses) earned him a Nobel prize because it showed that one could access the heart without killing the patient.

The book abounds with stories of good scientists, people who were ultimately right, going through the scorching flames of derision on their way great success. In short, he presents the hard truth that science is actually about personality. It is very rare that any scientist obtains data that is absolutely irrefutable. Indeed, the greater the discovery, the more inspiration and intuition is needed to interpret the data. These leaps of inspiration are actually the stuff that makes science worth doing.

Yet, as Brooks points out, the inspiration—the exciting part of science—is also the part that we hide from view. Instead, we present ourselves as logical, calculating machines with no passion. He (rightly) believes that scientists do ourselves a huge disservice in presenting the scientific enterprise in this way. It makes us less believable, and the front of cautiousness is used by the unscrupulous to slow down much-needed societal changes. Penultimately, Brooks points out that scientists have lost their voice in the political process. By portraying ourselves as passionless and neutral advisors, our advice and well-informed advocacy has become powerless.

Worse than that, we end up being the automatons we despise, functioning as little more than administrators on a certain number of publications in peer-reviewed journals per year. The work is cited, and funding for future work is obtained. Given the anarchical and competitive nature of science, what's the incentive to let your rival publish? Or recommend that their grant application be awarded? Or cite their papers? Our deliberately false image works against us in too many ways, and we should give it up.

In this book, ethical boards come in for a particularly hard time. To hear Brooks tell it, ethical boards have been an unreasonable barrier to science ever since Nurenburg. And he is right. Ethical boards make a scientist slow down and think about the potential consequences of their research. Indeed, the practice of avoiding ethical boards by experimenting on yourself has a long and noble history.

The problem, as Brooks rightly points out, is that the boards are often governed by the taboos and prejudices of the society in which they function. When the research is performed in spite of the ethical board's disapproval, society often seems to be remarkably happy about the results.

For a scientist, this book can make for an uncomfortable read. The story of Eddington's treatment of Chandrasekhar is an eye-opener. Nevertheless it is a must read for every scientist on the planet, as well as anyone interested in science.

There is, however, an undertone to the book that should be treated with caution. Because Brooks only picks the examples of spectacular successes, you don't get to see how the furnace of scientific criticism also serves to burn away crackpot ideas. This is unfortunate, because, although the orthodoxy of science is always wrong in some way, the maverick is usually more wrong, and in more significant ways. For every example named in this book, there are a hundred failures whose ideas were actually dead wrong. This process of weeding these out is equally important to the progress of science, and the book largely ignores it.

Title: Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science

Author: Michael Brooks

ISBN: 978-1-59020-854-0

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