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Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science
"In Free Radicals, bestselling author Michael Brooks reveals the extreme lengths some of our most celebrated scientists are willing to go to, from fraud and suppressing evidence to reckless, unethical experiments, in order to make new discoveries and bring them to the world's attention."--P. [4] of cover.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
About the author
Michael Brooks
74 books120 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Michael Edward Brooks is an English science writer, noted for explaining complex scientific research and findings to the general population. Brooks holds a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Sussex. He was previously an editor for New Scientist magazine, and currently works as a consultant for that magazine. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer, The Times Higher Education Supplement. His first novel, Entanglement, was published in 2007. His first non-fiction book, an exploration of scientific anomalies entitled 13 Things That Don't Make Sense, was published in 2009. Brooks' next book, The Big Questions: Physics, was released in February 2010. It contains twenty 3,000-word essays addressing the most fundamental and frequently asked questions about science.
Michael Edward Brooks is an English science writer, noted for explaining complex scientific research and findings to the general population. Brooks holds a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Sussex. He was previously an editor for New Scientist magazine, and currently works as a consultant for that magazine. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer, The Times Higher Education Supplement. His first novel, Entanglement, was published in 2007. His first non-fiction book, an exploration of scientific anomalies entitled 13 Things That Don't Make Sense, was published in 2009. Brooks' next book, The Big Questions: Physics, was released in February 2010. It contains twenty 3,000-word essays addressing the most fundamental and frequently asked questions about science.
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July 15, 2015" I do not think that word means what you think it means".
While the premise is interesting - scientists are human too, but science has missold itself as somehow a more perfect way - few if any of the example scientists Brooks cites as 'anarchists' were anything of the sort.
He uses the term 'anarchist' to loosely collect together young people in the 70s who dabbled in LSD, scheming Renaissance italians, doctors who experimented on themselves, people who had flashes of inspiration, feuding scientists who did their best to damage each other's reputations and so on - all described as anarchists. Well, gosh, students in the 70s doing drugs? Shurely not. And people scheming and being political in Renaissance italy - anyone for the Borgias?
Similarly, claiming Einstein was an anarchist because he had a flash of inspiration, well that just annoyed me. The guy had been thinking about relativity for months if not years, so having a dream or a sudden inexplicable idea - hardly a surprise. Thats how minds work.
Finally - sorry but the chapter suggesting peer review was bad was just muddle headed. For sure its not perfect and some people use their influence inappropriately. But thats the fault of journal editors for not properly weighting opinions (for example downweighting a rival who is known to favour an alternate theory or is working on thte same topic), not the process.
If he'd said nonconformist or political I'd have been happier, but I guess 'the secret nonconformity and politics of science; isn't so snapppy.
While the premise is interesting - scientists are human too, but science has missold itself as somehow a more perfect way - few if any of the example scientists Brooks cites as 'anarchists' were anything of the sort.
He uses the term 'anarchist' to loosely collect together young people in the 70s who dabbled in LSD, scheming Renaissance italians, doctors who experimented on themselves, people who had flashes of inspiration, feuding scientists who did their best to damage each other's reputations and so on - all described as anarchists. Well, gosh, students in the 70s doing drugs? Shurely not. And people scheming and being political in Renaissance italy - anyone for the Borgias?
Similarly, claiming Einstein was an anarchist because he had a flash of inspiration, well that just annoyed me. The guy had been thinking about relativity for months if not years, so having a dream or a sudden inexplicable idea - hardly a surprise. Thats how minds work.
Finally - sorry but the chapter suggesting peer review was bad was just muddle headed. For sure its not perfect and some people use their influence inappropriately. But thats the fault of journal editors for not properly weighting opinions (for example downweighting a rival who is known to favour an alternate theory or is working on thte same topic), not the process.
If he'd said nonconformist or political I'd have been happier, but I guess 'the secret nonconformity and politics of science; isn't so snapppy.
July 9, 2012
I enjoyed this book. The author discusses the way that science is ACTUALLY conducted. Gone are the white coats and the methodical approach replete with orderly trial and error. Instead we have stories of top academics ingesting psychoactive drugs, fist fighting in hospital hallways, and experimenting on themselves when they cannot get permission to test their theories on others. The author shares these stories in the hopes that the public will see that true innovation comes at the price of messiness.
Although I enjoyed this book I gave it three stars. I felt like the author had a clear bias while writing it and that it read more like a persuasive paper than an unbiased anything. I also felt that sometimes the sensationalism used in the story didn't always match up with the argument the author was making. Lastly, although I enjoyed many of the stories and I found the book incredibly thought provoking I felt that my somewhat limited scientific background made it difficult to truly absorb some of what the author was saying. My limited background is not the author's fault, but I thought it might be useful for other readers to think about before starting the book.
Although I enjoyed this book I gave it three stars. I felt like the author had a clear bias while writing it and that it read more like a persuasive paper than an unbiased anything. I also felt that sometimes the sensationalism used in the story didn't always match up with the argument the author was making. Lastly, although I enjoyed many of the stories and I found the book incredibly thought provoking I felt that my somewhat limited scientific background made it difficult to truly absorb some of what the author was saying. My limited background is not the author's fault, but I thought it might be useful for other readers to think about before starting the book.
October 16, 2013
Although this book had a fair number of interesting tidbits of information, the way it was written annoyed me. First of all, to quote my husband, the author "uses the term anarchy the way the Smurfs use the word smurf" so that it kind of lost meaning. He used anarchy to mean not following protocol, just plain being mean, and so on.
One of my major complaints about this book is how the author stressed how a lot of ideas "just came to" the scientists as a result of dreams, drug use or almost magic. I'm sure that many scientists work on things for years, seemingly without results, and then have an "Ah-ha" moment as described by the author. However, that "ah-ha" is due to years of study, work, and pure talent. It's not like I, with very little background, would all of a sudden have an idea on, let's say, a medical cure come to me out of nowhere. I think the author deemphasizes the sheer drudgery that is needed before a discovery or invention comes about.
I am already all too aware of the competition and pettiness that comes with academia. These are usually even more intense in the hard sciences than in social science and humanities. If people aren't aware of the intellectual thievery, deceit and so forth that occurs in high level science, they might find this part of the book interesting. I just found it depressing.
One of my major complaints about this book is how the author stressed how a lot of ideas "just came to" the scientists as a result of dreams, drug use or almost magic. I'm sure that many scientists work on things for years, seemingly without results, and then have an "Ah-ha" moment as described by the author. However, that "ah-ha" is due to years of study, work, and pure talent. It's not like I, with very little background, would all of a sudden have an idea on, let's say, a medical cure come to me out of nowhere. I think the author deemphasizes the sheer drudgery that is needed before a discovery or invention comes about.
I am already all too aware of the competition and pettiness that comes with academia. These are usually even more intense in the hard sciences than in social science and humanities. If people aren't aware of the intellectual thievery, deceit and so forth that occurs in high level science, they might find this part of the book interesting. I just found it depressing.
November 22, 2014
The original title of this book was ‘Free Radicals’ so the ‘Anarchy’ shouldn’t be taken seriously. Doubtless via hasty editing, some supposedly ‘anarchic’ behaviours, such as belonging to a North American labour union, clearly are not.
Still, the book has a point. Some scientists insist we follow, or should follow, ‘the’ scientific method even though they can’t say what it is. Experiments, for example, are not vital to all sciences, such as astronomy. The book gives deserved mileage to Feyerabend’s ‘anything goes’ assessment. Although Feynman is quoted a few times, his description of science as ‘organised scepticism’ isn’t mentioned, perhaps for fear of making the book seem verbose and superfluous.
At school I was taught the ‘tongue map’ of flavour zones. In fact, if memory serves, I got different substances dropped onto my tongue and was asked to affirm the theory: doubtless I obliged. The trouble is that there’s no evidence for this theory. At least, that’s what Wikipedia says. No, I haven’t checked the primary sources: no-one can do that for everything they rely on, so there are always likely to be some false ‘facts’ circulating. One of the book’s examples is Watson and Crick being misled by incorrect textbooks, with Crick concluding that he shouldn’t ‘place too much reliance on any single piece of experimental evidence’. We’d like to think that scepticism will self-correct such errors, although this may be far from reliable (see eg last year’s ‘Trouble at the Lab’ article in The Economist).
The book’s serious and valid points are cheapened by its bluster, for example introducing a chapter on scientific rivalries by way of a bridge-blowing scene from For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Still, the book has a point. Some scientists insist we follow, or should follow, ‘the’ scientific method even though they can’t say what it is. Experiments, for example, are not vital to all sciences, such as astronomy. The book gives deserved mileage to Feyerabend’s ‘anything goes’ assessment. Although Feynman is quoted a few times, his description of science as ‘organised scepticism’ isn’t mentioned, perhaps for fear of making the book seem verbose and superfluous.
At school I was taught the ‘tongue map’ of flavour zones. In fact, if memory serves, I got different substances dropped onto my tongue and was asked to affirm the theory: doubtless I obliged. The trouble is that there’s no evidence for this theory. At least, that’s what Wikipedia says. No, I haven’t checked the primary sources: no-one can do that for everything they rely on, so there are always likely to be some false ‘facts’ circulating. One of the book’s examples is Watson and Crick being misled by incorrect textbooks, with Crick concluding that he shouldn’t ‘place too much reliance on any single piece of experimental evidence’. We’d like to think that scepticism will self-correct such errors, although this may be far from reliable (see eg last year’s ‘Trouble at the Lab’ article in The Economist).
The book’s serious and valid points are cheapened by its bluster, for example introducing a chapter on scientific rivalries by way of a bridge-blowing scene from For Whom the Bell Tolls.
February 28, 2013
Some good stories, but it got repetitive at times.
November 5, 2015
Eigentlich dreieinhalb Punkte, hier fehlen sie mir ausnahmsweise mal. Nach oben gerundet, weil ich doch viele Stellen zur Weiterverwendung markiert habe.
January 11, 2019
Easy pop-science read with some interesting titbits. I read it only because it was on the shelf and I wanted a pop-science book and this satisfied that in the moment. As another review said the book "uses the term anarchy the way the Smurfs use the word smurf", which was a pretty transparent and often shoehorned attempt to unify the books anecdotes around a theme. It would have read better as just a "interesting science anecdotes" book with a concluding essay that concealed the books message.
Not to say the overall message, that science isn't an organized, uniformly progressing, perfectly implemented Method, isn't interesting or a message that should be made easily understood in the form of a pop science book. Only to say that the moments I actually enjoyed from this book were the bits that made me go "oo thats a fun anecdote" and the rest wasn't enough of an Argument for me to accept it's thesis.
Not to say the overall message, that science isn't an organized, uniformly progressing, perfectly implemented Method, isn't interesting or a message that should be made easily understood in the form of a pop science book. Only to say that the moments I actually enjoyed from this book were the bits that made me go "oo thats a fun anecdote" and the rest wasn't enough of an Argument for me to accept it's thesis.
Want to Read
July 22, 2011Ignore my rating - I rated the wrong book!!
March 31, 2020
A lot of interesting cases are presented in the book. There is no deep analysis however, and the author jumps from one case to another and that confused me a bit. Also I cannot agree with his conclusions that contemporary science is all dull and boring, and most of all that fraud and bullying are praiseworthy comportments and should be a part of science. Science changes, i.a. with technology (such as big data and its obtaining and processing methods), and this should be taken into account when giving norms of how to do science.
June 8, 2026
As mentioned by others, this is not a book about anarchists. Brooks seems to have mistaken scientific anarchism as being merely a rascally rebrand of the successful scientific personality. He uses this to be provocative, and offers a scandalous history of science that supposedly scientists don't see in themselves. However, in most cases, I think scientists are fully willing to own up to this history. It's perhaps more likely that cognitive scientists would froth at the mouth at Brooks' audacity in describing a scientific attitude and psyche that supposedly fuels success. This book comes dangerously close to being a thinly veiled psychological self-help book for scientists. Certainly Brooks partakes in his own rapscallion practice believing that his attitude alone would leave a mark. Unfortunately for him, I don't think it really will. Unlike the scientific results he describes, it's easy to find counter examples in history, and his development of the successful scientific drive is not particularly systematic cognitively speaking. In fact, it seems that the longest lasting impact this book has had is as a humorous footnote in internet meme history (as noted by Colin Milburn) not science.
Why It's Not Anarchy
While the content of the book mostly does the job of getting the point across, the only reason it seems that he wants to call scientists anarchists is due to Feyerabend's (in)famous description of anarcho-epistemology. But in most cases, Brooks' description of anarchy isn't even epistemic in the sense Feyerabend meant. While the meaning of "epistemological anarchy" is highly disputed even on its own turf, Brooks isn't on the same ground. Epistemological anarchy is about methodologies of a so-called "scientific discipline" in order to convince one's peers of some knowledge claim. To put it in a sentence, epistemological anarchy is the position that there is no Scientific Method of which all science must follow. However, Brooks only mentions methodologies in about half of his cases. More often than not, what Brooks is discussing is attitudes of scientists and their frequent deviousness in behavior.
Further, Brooks' representation of anarchism is not just wrong for Feyerabend's philosophy of science, but also misrepresents anarchist ideology more generally. What is foundational to almost every anarchist ideology is the self- and social-criticality they have towards hierarchies and the authority that comes along with them. While often they accept specific hierarchies situationally, an anarchist defends that no hierarchy should exist peacefully outside of scrutiny, and that most of them need to be torn down. That includes many statements of authority that scientists regularly consider fundamentally true. Also, never mind that most anarchist theories argue from the perspective that has a very strong personal ethic (despite the populist belief to the contrary) that harming people that are, just living their lives with very little authority of their own, is out of bounds. It's when people actively wield authority or power against others that the anarchist position appears more radical. Contrary to how anarchists are depicted, they argue most people deserve more resources and respect than the current political, social, and economic circumstances allow. This is entirely contrary to how Brooks portrays his protagonists.
It's fairly clear that almost every one of Brooks' characters audaciously assumed their own authority and sometimes used their curated authority explicitly in authoritarian ways. In this pursuit, they often harmed many people along the way (sometimes even themselves). Any academic will recognize that accepting a Nobel laureate (those scientists which shape the vast majority of Brooks' narrative) is an act of accepting that one is the new vanguard of knowledge in a specific area at the very least. When one garners the authority to stand at the podium above everyone else (in a laureate speech no less) in a field, that person actively embodies the position of authority, and their work represents the concerns that every other scientist within that paradigm of research must in some way represent or build upon to the end of that paradigm, especially with medically related laureates.
While there is a lot of interesting history and content in this text about perhaps surprising behaviors of scientists, most of Brooks' characters are better cast as being in pursuit of establishing authority. Many of these scientists were overtly using every rhetorical and administrative leverage as well as capital at hand to get it.
From that perspective, Brooks' scientist behaves more like an epistemological capitalist. But this is different than a traditional capitalist in the way in which scientific material history works for laboratories and their research outputs. Scientists rarely own the capital they use to produce their papers, nor do they typically make any kind of money from their publications. Although they certainly do gain scientific cultural capital that can enable more grants for their laboratory work, it would be more fair to say Universities function more capitalistically than particular laboratories do, although laboratories can gain the status of being an epistemic authority: a specific kind of cultural capital. The ideological analogy doesn't hold particularly well since it becomes more complicated than it has to be to get Brooks' idea across.
So, What's It Really Arguing?
In order to understand what this book actually is about, we have to remove ourselves from the political-economic ideological frame Brooks forced us into. It is better to see this book as providing an awareness of scientists' willingness to "misbehave" within the 20th century Hollywood-esque populist view of scientific norms. You know, the one. That gentleman-gendered, scientist in a perfectly crisp and clean white lab coat, rationally following the rigorously perfected Scientific Method, that is politically neutral about the Cold War, or being politically motivated to crack the Enigma code, all in the name of capital-T Truth, fully funded by agencies with acronyms like DARPA that constantly appear antagonistic to Truth despite them being on the same team. Brooks doesn't explicitly note that's the scientific image he's deconstructing, but it is. Any self-reflexive scientist today knows that's not the image they hold themselves to, but it is worth pointing out that the average person probably still has that image of Scientist burned into their minds, even if they know it isn't true.
From the perspective of critiquing the cognitive possibility of logical positivism, perhaps Brooks is on more stable ground. For a logical positivist, anything other than following specific logical rules of investigation would be seen as "misbehaving," so this isn't an especially lofty or provocative claim to anyone who's done a little philosophy of science reading. The post-positivistic behaviors that Thomas Kuhn historically described his fellow physicists following were seen by Karl Popper as a sad state of epistemological affairs. Nevertheless, Kuhn had actual history and science background to give the accurate state of affairs, and Kuhn's claims were further radicalized by actor-network theorists' ethnographic studies of scientific laboratories. That is, they get much closer to confirming Feyerabend's anarchist epistemology than Brooks has in this book. Popper was merely a philosopher theorizing the proper etiquette of "scientific" rationality by contrast. Kuhn shows their actual methodological and theoretical choices. While Brooks does a little history not unrelated to Kuhn's kind of scientific progression, he more frequently associates conceptual histories and methodological choices as being caused by the irrational stubbornness of their attitudes and desires. While there might be something to that association, they are definitely cherry picked narratives. There's some p-hacking going on.
Despite all this critique, this book does do a good job of showing that high level scientists are willing to do all manner of irrational things to get their ideas accepted by scientific peers, the public, and practitioners. This is an accessible explanation of what all scientists mostly kind of know about their own fields. Sometimes science is reckless, questionable, egotistical, and entirely unethical. But it also shows that sometimes scientists who make wild choices can drag us into a better world while we follow kicking and screaming.
Unnecessary Historical Notes
A minor historical criticism I have is one that the book actively could have benefited from as another point of misbehavior. The discovery of DNA announced by Watson and Crick did win the Nobel for the discovery of DNA's double helix. However it occurred through the controversial use of data from Rosalind Franklin. The precise story around this controversy is still under some dispute as documents and other historical records suggest that Photo 51 wasn't exactly "stolen." However, at the very least, it was Franklin's data and Watson and Crick could have done more to promote their development's affiliation with Franklin's data. It would be unfair to say that Brooks could have had a fully informed decision about the level of misbehavior of this particular case in 2011 since the story still is not entirely ironed out nearly 15 years later. Nevertheless, it is worth noting as being just another instance that furthers Brooks' main argument.
Also, it perhaps is worth noting that the "eureka" moments that are a huge Hollywood trope are in almost a full quarter of the stories provided. This is almost always a bad characterization of major scientific discoveries, and I don't trust that Brooks did the homework to say that's the real story. Take the case just previously mentioned. Franklin, Watson, and Crick had a long history of discussing what Photo 51 actually helped discover spanning a presentation by Franklin followed by a couple of publications that ultimately won Watson and Crick the Nobel. The historical record confirms they had three different documented moments in interacting with the image before publication. The double-helix discovery was far from a "eureka" moment, and that's the norm. There's even clear quantitative science of science literature to back this up. There are exceptions, of course, but most major discoveries come from slow and deliberate developments waiting for a sprinkle of serendipitous luck. Could you imagine if someone tried to describe LIGO's detection of black holes as a "eureka" moment? It was decades of technological development, millions in grants, and generations of scientists before they got their first black hole. The EXAMPLE of large laboratory contributions in physics where they refuse to be cutthroat and backstabbing. Also, they have to follow rules! Every change is documented. Don't believe me, go look up their aLOG files for Hanford, Livingston, and Virgo labs reporting their activities. You can know what they're doing and why they're doing it if you follow closely enough. And you know what? Won a Nobel. None of Brooks' supposed anarchy required.
Physics Really Needs the Humanities, Huh?
On an ethical note, the author very clearly sides with misbehavior embodying the mindset of scientific progress. He has a very "boys-will-be-boys" attitude about scientists that I find more than a little uncritical at best, if not outright harmful to portray as "good scientific behavior." While the idea that "rules are made to be broken" rings somewhat true in science, especially as we have seen through developments in philosophy of science, science and technology studies, and occasionally in science of science, Brooks' idea of what scientific "rules" are seems not about science at all. It's more about embodying the behavior, the attitude, the Nobel laurel's audacity. Despite the history being mostly good, the moral of the story suggests the author wants scientists to overtly be a societal menace because that's the Nobel Prize mentality, baby! Maybe Brooks should consider that if that mentality is what wins the Nobel, it probably isn't such a great thing within his own framing. Nobody ethically innocent ever wins the Presidency, and perhaps more glaringly, that person could never in good faith claim to be an anti-authoritarian, never mind an anarchist. While scientists might constantly break the rules of our populist picture of them, they mostly break the social rules of their training sparingly; yes, even the Laureates. While they may not be the caricature we picture them as, University scientists are mostly regular people that aren't particularly radical about anti-authoritarianism, even when they portray themselves that way. They follow rules. When was the last time you read a highly cited empirical science journal article that didn't have something analogous to the abstract, introduction, lit review/background, methodology, results, discussion, conclusion structure? Breaking the disciplinary rules and making a major contribution is quite clearly the exception. It should be obvious why; it confuses the rule followers. It has to have some kind of backward compatibility to get people to agree with you, even if you bend the rules a little. Most of basic research is rule following, yes even for the supposedly anarchistic Nobel Laureate.
If you really want to write a book about scientific anarchy, write a history of makerspaces, biohackers, and outcast or rogue scientists that find a way to work outside the University. Alternatively, point to intellectuals that actually inspire actual anarchists. Anarchist academics are for sure going to prefer the cosmology of Spinoza over Newton's as even Einstein did. They also are more likely to glorify his pursuit of truth even after his expulsion from the Jewish community for his direct challenge to both religious and intellectual authorities of his day. Brooks could have taken stylistic inspiration from the way Gilles Deleuze outlined "minor philosophy" as a history of authentic outcasts of the academic community who all eventually "won" mental space within the academy, often posthumously. There are plenty of examples of this kind of intellectual life in science. Take for example, the alternative theories of Einstein's Simultaneity of Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead; both of whom were notoriously devious in breaking actual academic rules, but were particularly speckless in any other context (a couple of false negatives to Brooks' hypothesis). Also Marie Curie's story is oddly absent of our Laurels in how productive research occurs despite being literally the only person to have won more than one Nobel (a silently ignored false positive). Instead the book seems content to be more stylistically provocative than genuinely interested in a theory of the anarcho-scientific attitude.
Okay, I've Said Enough I Guess: TL;DR...
In the end, I think this book merely describes a rampant and often toxic scientific drive for recognition more than it describes anything else; and it does that under the heading that it's scientifically productive. I think it describes the former correctly as a history of science being filled with highly problematic men (and a few women), but it should have been much more critical about the latter even if it appears the ends justified the means. If you start looking at how the Laurel's behave, of course the ends seem to justify the means. It's an obvious case of survivorship bias. For sure, as I would hope the author would agree, the people of Tuskegee never deserved any of that study and science absolutely could have done without it. Einstein being unabashed about his adultery is probably not the best explanation of a successful scientific attitude either. A stubborn pursuit of truth doesn't usually require being reckless to everyone around you even if a few scientists were cornered into harming themselves, knowing the risks. Occasionally Brooks admits those risks were somewhat calculated in regards to societal benefits. But in many instances, Brooks' ethical point needs to be dismissed entirely.
Why It's Not Anarchy
While the content of the book mostly does the job of getting the point across, the only reason it seems that he wants to call scientists anarchists is due to Feyerabend's (in)famous description of anarcho-epistemology. But in most cases, Brooks' description of anarchy isn't even epistemic in the sense Feyerabend meant. While the meaning of "epistemological anarchy" is highly disputed even on its own turf, Brooks isn't on the same ground. Epistemological anarchy is about methodologies of a so-called "scientific discipline" in order to convince one's peers of some knowledge claim. To put it in a sentence, epistemological anarchy is the position that there is no Scientific Method of which all science must follow. However, Brooks only mentions methodologies in about half of his cases. More often than not, what Brooks is discussing is attitudes of scientists and their frequent deviousness in behavior.
Further, Brooks' representation of anarchism is not just wrong for Feyerabend's philosophy of science, but also misrepresents anarchist ideology more generally. What is foundational to almost every anarchist ideology is the self- and social-criticality they have towards hierarchies and the authority that comes along with them. While often they accept specific hierarchies situationally, an anarchist defends that no hierarchy should exist peacefully outside of scrutiny, and that most of them need to be torn down. That includes many statements of authority that scientists regularly consider fundamentally true. Also, never mind that most anarchist theories argue from the perspective that has a very strong personal ethic (despite the populist belief to the contrary) that harming people that are, just living their lives with very little authority of their own, is out of bounds. It's when people actively wield authority or power against others that the anarchist position appears more radical. Contrary to how anarchists are depicted, they argue most people deserve more resources and respect than the current political, social, and economic circumstances allow. This is entirely contrary to how Brooks portrays his protagonists.
It's fairly clear that almost every one of Brooks' characters audaciously assumed their own authority and sometimes used their curated authority explicitly in authoritarian ways. In this pursuit, they often harmed many people along the way (sometimes even themselves). Any academic will recognize that accepting a Nobel laureate (those scientists which shape the vast majority of Brooks' narrative) is an act of accepting that one is the new vanguard of knowledge in a specific area at the very least. When one garners the authority to stand at the podium above everyone else (in a laureate speech no less) in a field, that person actively embodies the position of authority, and their work represents the concerns that every other scientist within that paradigm of research must in some way represent or build upon to the end of that paradigm, especially with medically related laureates.
While there is a lot of interesting history and content in this text about perhaps surprising behaviors of scientists, most of Brooks' characters are better cast as being in pursuit of establishing authority. Many of these scientists were overtly using every rhetorical and administrative leverage as well as capital at hand to get it.
From that perspective, Brooks' scientist behaves more like an epistemological capitalist. But this is different than a traditional capitalist in the way in which scientific material history works for laboratories and their research outputs. Scientists rarely own the capital they use to produce their papers, nor do they typically make any kind of money from their publications. Although they certainly do gain scientific cultural capital that can enable more grants for their laboratory work, it would be more fair to say Universities function more capitalistically than particular laboratories do, although laboratories can gain the status of being an epistemic authority: a specific kind of cultural capital. The ideological analogy doesn't hold particularly well since it becomes more complicated than it has to be to get Brooks' idea across.
So, What's It Really Arguing?
In order to understand what this book actually is about, we have to remove ourselves from the political-economic ideological frame Brooks forced us into. It is better to see this book as providing an awareness of scientists' willingness to "misbehave" within the 20th century Hollywood-esque populist view of scientific norms. You know, the one. That gentleman-gendered, scientist in a perfectly crisp and clean white lab coat, rationally following the rigorously perfected Scientific Method, that is politically neutral about the Cold War, or being politically motivated to crack the Enigma code, all in the name of capital-T Truth, fully funded by agencies with acronyms like DARPA that constantly appear antagonistic to Truth despite them being on the same team. Brooks doesn't explicitly note that's the scientific image he's deconstructing, but it is. Any self-reflexive scientist today knows that's not the image they hold themselves to, but it is worth pointing out that the average person probably still has that image of Scientist burned into their minds, even if they know it isn't true.
From the perspective of critiquing the cognitive possibility of logical positivism, perhaps Brooks is on more stable ground. For a logical positivist, anything other than following specific logical rules of investigation would be seen as "misbehaving," so this isn't an especially lofty or provocative claim to anyone who's done a little philosophy of science reading. The post-positivistic behaviors that Thomas Kuhn historically described his fellow physicists following were seen by Karl Popper as a sad state of epistemological affairs. Nevertheless, Kuhn had actual history and science background to give the accurate state of affairs, and Kuhn's claims were further radicalized by actor-network theorists' ethnographic studies of scientific laboratories. That is, they get much closer to confirming Feyerabend's anarchist epistemology than Brooks has in this book. Popper was merely a philosopher theorizing the proper etiquette of "scientific" rationality by contrast. Kuhn shows their actual methodological and theoretical choices. While Brooks does a little history not unrelated to Kuhn's kind of scientific progression, he more frequently associates conceptual histories and methodological choices as being caused by the irrational stubbornness of their attitudes and desires. While there might be something to that association, they are definitely cherry picked narratives. There's some p-hacking going on.
Despite all this critique, this book does do a good job of showing that high level scientists are willing to do all manner of irrational things to get their ideas accepted by scientific peers, the public, and practitioners. This is an accessible explanation of what all scientists mostly kind of know about their own fields. Sometimes science is reckless, questionable, egotistical, and entirely unethical. But it also shows that sometimes scientists who make wild choices can drag us into a better world while we follow kicking and screaming.
Unnecessary Historical Notes
A minor historical criticism I have is one that the book actively could have benefited from as another point of misbehavior. The discovery of DNA announced by Watson and Crick did win the Nobel for the discovery of DNA's double helix. However it occurred through the controversial use of data from Rosalind Franklin. The precise story around this controversy is still under some dispute as documents and other historical records suggest that Photo 51 wasn't exactly "stolen." However, at the very least, it was Franklin's data and Watson and Crick could have done more to promote their development's affiliation with Franklin's data. It would be unfair to say that Brooks could have had a fully informed decision about the level of misbehavior of this particular case in 2011 since the story still is not entirely ironed out nearly 15 years later. Nevertheless, it is worth noting as being just another instance that furthers Brooks' main argument.
Also, it perhaps is worth noting that the "eureka" moments that are a huge Hollywood trope are in almost a full quarter of the stories provided. This is almost always a bad characterization of major scientific discoveries, and I don't trust that Brooks did the homework to say that's the real story. Take the case just previously mentioned. Franklin, Watson, and Crick had a long history of discussing what Photo 51 actually helped discover spanning a presentation by Franklin followed by a couple of publications that ultimately won Watson and Crick the Nobel. The historical record confirms they had three different documented moments in interacting with the image before publication. The double-helix discovery was far from a "eureka" moment, and that's the norm. There's even clear quantitative science of science literature to back this up. There are exceptions, of course, but most major discoveries come from slow and deliberate developments waiting for a sprinkle of serendipitous luck. Could you imagine if someone tried to describe LIGO's detection of black holes as a "eureka" moment? It was decades of technological development, millions in grants, and generations of scientists before they got their first black hole. The EXAMPLE of large laboratory contributions in physics where they refuse to be cutthroat and backstabbing. Also, they have to follow rules! Every change is documented. Don't believe me, go look up their aLOG files for Hanford, Livingston, and Virgo labs reporting their activities. You can know what they're doing and why they're doing it if you follow closely enough. And you know what? Won a Nobel. None of Brooks' supposed anarchy required.
Physics Really Needs the Humanities, Huh?
On an ethical note, the author very clearly sides with misbehavior embodying the mindset of scientific progress. He has a very "boys-will-be-boys" attitude about scientists that I find more than a little uncritical at best, if not outright harmful to portray as "good scientific behavior." While the idea that "rules are made to be broken" rings somewhat true in science, especially as we have seen through developments in philosophy of science, science and technology studies, and occasionally in science of science, Brooks' idea of what scientific "rules" are seems not about science at all. It's more about embodying the behavior, the attitude, the Nobel laurel's audacity. Despite the history being mostly good, the moral of the story suggests the author wants scientists to overtly be a societal menace because that's the Nobel Prize mentality, baby! Maybe Brooks should consider that if that mentality is what wins the Nobel, it probably isn't such a great thing within his own framing. Nobody ethically innocent ever wins the Presidency, and perhaps more glaringly, that person could never in good faith claim to be an anti-authoritarian, never mind an anarchist. While scientists might constantly break the rules of our populist picture of them, they mostly break the social rules of their training sparingly; yes, even the Laureates. While they may not be the caricature we picture them as, University scientists are mostly regular people that aren't particularly radical about anti-authoritarianism, even when they portray themselves that way. They follow rules. When was the last time you read a highly cited empirical science journal article that didn't have something analogous to the abstract, introduction, lit review/background, methodology, results, discussion, conclusion structure? Breaking the disciplinary rules and making a major contribution is quite clearly the exception. It should be obvious why; it confuses the rule followers. It has to have some kind of backward compatibility to get people to agree with you, even if you bend the rules a little. Most of basic research is rule following, yes even for the supposedly anarchistic Nobel Laureate.
If you really want to write a book about scientific anarchy, write a history of makerspaces, biohackers, and outcast or rogue scientists that find a way to work outside the University. Alternatively, point to intellectuals that actually inspire actual anarchists. Anarchist academics are for sure going to prefer the cosmology of Spinoza over Newton's as even Einstein did. They also are more likely to glorify his pursuit of truth even after his expulsion from the Jewish community for his direct challenge to both religious and intellectual authorities of his day. Brooks could have taken stylistic inspiration from the way Gilles Deleuze outlined "minor philosophy" as a history of authentic outcasts of the academic community who all eventually "won" mental space within the academy, often posthumously. There are plenty of examples of this kind of intellectual life in science. Take for example, the alternative theories of Einstein's Simultaneity of Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead; both of whom were notoriously devious in breaking actual academic rules, but were particularly speckless in any other context (a couple of false negatives to Brooks' hypothesis). Also Marie Curie's story is oddly absent of our Laurels in how productive research occurs despite being literally the only person to have won more than one Nobel (a silently ignored false positive). Instead the book seems content to be more stylistically provocative than genuinely interested in a theory of the anarcho-scientific attitude.
Okay, I've Said Enough I Guess: TL;DR...
In the end, I think this book merely describes a rampant and often toxic scientific drive for recognition more than it describes anything else; and it does that under the heading that it's scientifically productive. I think it describes the former correctly as a history of science being filled with highly problematic men (and a few women), but it should have been much more critical about the latter even if it appears the ends justified the means. If you start looking at how the Laurel's behave, of course the ends seem to justify the means. It's an obvious case of survivorship bias. For sure, as I would hope the author would agree, the people of Tuskegee never deserved any of that study and science absolutely could have done without it. Einstein being unabashed about his adultery is probably not the best explanation of a successful scientific attitude either. A stubborn pursuit of truth doesn't usually require being reckless to everyone around you even if a few scientists were cornered into harming themselves, knowing the risks. Occasionally Brooks admits those risks were somewhat calculated in regards to societal benefits. But in many instances, Brooks' ethical point needs to be dismissed entirely.
June 23, 2017
One of the best quotes:
"If we want more scientific progress, we need to release more rebels, more outlaws, more anarchists. The time has come to celebrate the anarchy, not conceal it."
--from epilogue, pg. 260
"If we want more scientific progress, we need to release more rebels, more outlaws, more anarchists. The time has come to celebrate the anarchy, not conceal it."
--from epilogue, pg. 260
November 13, 2022
Can't say I did not like the book, but whatever the message was suppose to be, I found it to be too enigmatic. Is it that the science, behind the doors, works differently than what most people think? Well, what is not? Politics, art, etc, I am sure, are on the inside different from what we may naively believe. Is that the scientists are only humans with all their human imperfections? Not much of a surprise neither.
Michael Brooks is great science journalist and his science stories are fun to read, but he was not able to find the right connective tissue to stitch this book together. So the only reason to read it, after all, are those amazing stories.
One a side note, I din't quite like the contradiction between Brooks criticizing scientists for not being publicly outspoken (often out of fear of being wrong), while chapter before criticizing scientists who were outspoken for being "merchants of doubt" if their scientific opinions were contrary to prevalent beliefs (even if eventually turned out to be wrong).
Michael Brooks is great science journalist and his science stories are fun to read, but he was not able to find the right connective tissue to stitch this book together. So the only reason to read it, after all, are those amazing stories.
One a side note, I din't quite like the contradiction between Brooks criticizing scientists for not being publicly outspoken (often out of fear of being wrong), while chapter before criticizing scientists who were outspoken for being "merchants of doubt" if their scientific opinions were contrary to prevalent beliefs (even if eventually turned out to be wrong).
February 27, 2013
One of the best books I have read in a while. There is no need to have a firm understanding of science to enjoy this book. Sometimes sensational but always entertaining, Brooks take on the scientific community is thoughtful and necessary. I highly recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in the history of science, how ego affects science, how drugs helped some scientists make discoveries, or why we we make our kids hate science and promote sports culture (this last point is in epilogue and is fantastic.) This books provides an easy, fast paced, light (yet comprehensive) read. Bravo Michael Brooks. Well done!
August 19, 2011
An enjoyable peak into the politics of science they don't tell you about at school or at university. Apparently the world of scientists is not a noble as they would have us believe. This book is an interesting read full of great statistics, stories and anecdotes that you wouldn't have thought scientists would be capable of. It also confirms what i have begun to suspect recently, that scientists don't really play by the rules they're supposed to at all which is kind of funny given that they invented them.
Want to Read
April 28, 2012I have not read this book yet. Brainpickings reviewed it though. Sounds interesting: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.ph...
February 11, 2015
Ugh. Bad arguments. But excellent trove of anecdotes for use in essays.
October 18, 2026
The character of Walter Bishop in TV’s ‘Fringe’ was a wonderfully played mad scientist. Alternately kindly, callus, inquisitive and ruthless. A man who’s mind connected to everyday reality the way a skipping stone connects to water, he was addicted to a variety of psychotropic substances, talked to cows and did his best work while on recreational hallucinogens. Not at all like the real, conscientious, white-coated purveyors of distilled truth we know professional scientists to be.
However, if we are to believe Michael Brooks, it would seem that scientists, even the greats (perhaps especially the greats), have a lot more in common with Walter Bishop than the ‘monks of our time’ image many would like to project. OK, maybe not the talking to cows part, but everything else.
I mean, it’s almost understandable that scientists would quaff down slurries of bacteria, infect themselves with parasitic worms and engage in a little light DIY heart surgery to test their theories (incidentally, unless you have a strong stomach, this chapter does not make good after-dinner reading… or before-dinner reading come to that) but who would expect that;
Real doctors would deliberately leave syphilis untreated in 400 men to see how it progressed?
Answer: the US public health service from 1932 to 1972.
Great men would fudge the figures to support their theories then wield their reputation like a cudgel to silence opposition?
A: Einstein, Galileo, Newton and a long (long) list of other notable names.
Major scientific advances would come from dreams, mystic visions or LSD?
A: Einstein (again) Girolamo Cardano, Tesla, Francis Crick.
Brooks presents us with a parade of household names of the great and the good – and sometimes the undeservedly obscure – past and present. Sciences’ ‘secret anarchists’ who’s stories often read more like some biblical prophet than rational men of careful hypothesis and measurement. There’s another biblical parallel to be drawn too. Often these secret anarchist will struggle through the scientific wilderness for years while orthodoxy ignores or silences their revelations before returning in triumph to establish a new orthodoxy.
Usually that means a fight.
That the ‘scientific method’ is more honoured in the breach than the observance is not itself a new concept. Brooks quotes Carl Sagan who wrote of ‘the roiling see of jealousies, ambition, backbiting, suppression of dissent and absurd conceits’ in scientific fields. Something Sagan was familiar with as his first wife, Lynn Margullis, was one of the greatest pugilists.
Her work was on endsoymibiosis – the symbiotic relationship bacteria play in our cells. It wasn’t an original idea but unlike earlier researchers, she didn’t give up after the first 15 rejections of her research paper. She fought – and fought dirty in the eyes of the scientific establishment by writing a book– until she was proven right. Richard Dawkins referred to her work as “the greatest achievement of 20th century evolutionary biology”.
In fairness to the naysayers, Brooks does point out that the scientific underdog is not necessarily truth’s struggling champion. With the gift of hindsight, we can see that Margulis’ work was unfairly dismissed and her refusal to follow the rules justified. But later she supported Donald Williamson’s theory that caterpillars and butterflies are separate species that somehow merged and contended that HIV does not cause AIDS. How much credence would you have given her ‘crazy’ ideas? More importantly, if you controlled the purse strings, how much money would you have given her research?
So here are our scientists as Brooks entertainingly and insightfully presents them; heirs of the Enlightenment, brilliant and bull-headed, petty and patrician in equal measure. More human and fallible than they would like you (or funding committees) to think but perhaps more engaging and engageable for that.
However, if we are to believe Michael Brooks, it would seem that scientists, even the greats (perhaps especially the greats), have a lot more in common with Walter Bishop than the ‘monks of our time’ image many would like to project. OK, maybe not the talking to cows part, but everything else.
I mean, it’s almost understandable that scientists would quaff down slurries of bacteria, infect themselves with parasitic worms and engage in a little light DIY heart surgery to test their theories (incidentally, unless you have a strong stomach, this chapter does not make good after-dinner reading… or before-dinner reading come to that) but who would expect that;
Real doctors would deliberately leave syphilis untreated in 400 men to see how it progressed?
Answer: the US public health service from 1932 to 1972.
Great men would fudge the figures to support their theories then wield their reputation like a cudgel to silence opposition?
A: Einstein, Galileo, Newton and a long (long) list of other notable names.
Major scientific advances would come from dreams, mystic visions or LSD?
A: Einstein (again) Girolamo Cardano, Tesla, Francis Crick.
Brooks presents us with a parade of household names of the great and the good – and sometimes the undeservedly obscure – past and present. Sciences’ ‘secret anarchists’ who’s stories often read more like some biblical prophet than rational men of careful hypothesis and measurement. There’s another biblical parallel to be drawn too. Often these secret anarchist will struggle through the scientific wilderness for years while orthodoxy ignores or silences their revelations before returning in triumph to establish a new orthodoxy.
Usually that means a fight.
That the ‘scientific method’ is more honoured in the breach than the observance is not itself a new concept. Brooks quotes Carl Sagan who wrote of ‘the roiling see of jealousies, ambition, backbiting, suppression of dissent and absurd conceits’ in scientific fields. Something Sagan was familiar with as his first wife, Lynn Margullis, was one of the greatest pugilists.
Her work was on endsoymibiosis – the symbiotic relationship bacteria play in our cells. It wasn’t an original idea but unlike earlier researchers, she didn’t give up after the first 15 rejections of her research paper. She fought – and fought dirty in the eyes of the scientific establishment by writing a book– until she was proven right. Richard Dawkins referred to her work as “the greatest achievement of 20th century evolutionary biology”.
In fairness to the naysayers, Brooks does point out that the scientific underdog is not necessarily truth’s struggling champion. With the gift of hindsight, we can see that Margulis’ work was unfairly dismissed and her refusal to follow the rules justified. But later she supported Donald Williamson’s theory that caterpillars and butterflies are separate species that somehow merged and contended that HIV does not cause AIDS. How much credence would you have given her ‘crazy’ ideas? More importantly, if you controlled the purse strings, how much money would you have given her research?
So here are our scientists as Brooks entertainingly and insightfully presents them; heirs of the Enlightenment, brilliant and bull-headed, petty and patrician in equal measure. More human and fallible than they would like you (or funding committees) to think but perhaps more engaging and engageable for that.
August 5, 2019
"Science is a quest to convince yourself and others of something you only guess to be true. That's a hard task, and requires tenacity and ingenuity - and, occasionally, questionable tactics."
Science is by nature free spirited. Greatest discoveries, breakthroughs and achievements of the past were the result of one single thing: human curiosity. To satisfy scientific curiosity, rules hardly work.
What we know as Science today is the post-war rebranded version of science in which it is presented as a straightforward, systematic journey. Brand Science presents scientists to be rational, robotic and disciplined investigators who proceed methodically from emergence of ideas to carefully testing them with microscopic precision and then coming up with a working theory. This is hardly so.
This publicized version of Brand Science conveniently overlooks pumped up egos, fudged data (or at least cherry-picked data), discredited juniors, side-lined outsiders, furious infighting among peers, scientists risking their own lives, drug use, deception, superstitions and whatnot. Brooks argues that some of the greatest scientific discoveries had a more sinister side to them, covered up or overlooked. Book is filled with such examples ranging from all major branches of science and involving Nobel laureates and people as prominent as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.
However, despite these shenanigans, Brooks argues that this is real science as done by human beings, and this is good science: torments, dreams, visions, restlessness, lying, cheating, despair, brawling, bullying, desperation and - in the end when everything works out - the euphoria that makes it all worthwhile. Brooks does not offer any moral defense of scientists' behavior (there can hardly be any, unless you are a die hard Utilitarian), but argues that this is the way progress has happened. Too many regulations and ethics boards have slowed down the progress of science.
Brooks argues that post-war rebranding of Science has turned scientists into docile workers on a production line, rather than what they know themselves to be: curious and creative. Ethics boards, strict (and too many) regulations and peer reviews have turned wolves into domesticated dogs. As a consequence, they only advise, not influence.
Finally, Brooks opine that our children are being taught the letter, but not spirit, of science. Class room practical emphasize on getting the right results, instead of teachers using this experience to explain the challenges and rewards involved in making breakthroughs. Brooks says that we need to change this; "if we want more scientific progress, we need to release more rebels, more outlaws and more anarchists. The time has come to celebrate the anarchy, not conceal it."
Science is by nature free spirited. Greatest discoveries, breakthroughs and achievements of the past were the result of one single thing: human curiosity. To satisfy scientific curiosity, rules hardly work.
What we know as Science today is the post-war rebranded version of science in which it is presented as a straightforward, systematic journey. Brand Science presents scientists to be rational, robotic and disciplined investigators who proceed methodically from emergence of ideas to carefully testing them with microscopic precision and then coming up with a working theory. This is hardly so.
This publicized version of Brand Science conveniently overlooks pumped up egos, fudged data (or at least cherry-picked data), discredited juniors, side-lined outsiders, furious infighting among peers, scientists risking their own lives, drug use, deception, superstitions and whatnot. Brooks argues that some of the greatest scientific discoveries had a more sinister side to them, covered up or overlooked. Book is filled with such examples ranging from all major branches of science and involving Nobel laureates and people as prominent as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.
However, despite these shenanigans, Brooks argues that this is real science as done by human beings, and this is good science: torments, dreams, visions, restlessness, lying, cheating, despair, brawling, bullying, desperation and - in the end when everything works out - the euphoria that makes it all worthwhile. Brooks does not offer any moral defense of scientists' behavior (there can hardly be any, unless you are a die hard Utilitarian), but argues that this is the way progress has happened. Too many regulations and ethics boards have slowed down the progress of science.
Brooks argues that post-war rebranding of Science has turned scientists into docile workers on a production line, rather than what they know themselves to be: curious and creative. Ethics boards, strict (and too many) regulations and peer reviews have turned wolves into domesticated dogs. As a consequence, they only advise, not influence.
Finally, Brooks opine that our children are being taught the letter, but not spirit, of science. Class room practical emphasize on getting the right results, instead of teachers using this experience to explain the challenges and rewards involved in making breakthroughs. Brooks says that we need to change this; "if we want more scientific progress, we need to release more rebels, more outlaws and more anarchists. The time has come to celebrate the anarchy, not conceal it."
June 5, 2025
I started out trying to read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Kuhn. Apparently a classic. The academic tone was not what I was looking for. Also published in 1960. A lot has happened since then. Free Radicals, was much easier and recently published.
What do Steve Jobs and Francis Crick Have in common?
...
...
They both admitted that they would not have been near as productive without the use of LSD. Not exactly what I was thinking either.
What do Einstein and Gregor Mendel have in common?
..
..
They both were a bit cavalier about their data that supported their theories. Flirting with fraud, and certainly cherry picking data.
It seems as though the public view of how scientists they get their job done is not exactly what happens. Fraud, self administration of experiments drugs, back stabbing, and more are all covered. Yes scientists are human too. Most interesting to me is those that believe in their theory independent of what the data shows. Some are correct, some are wrong. Sometimes charisma wins out over convincing data.
The modern phrase "fake it to you make it" has a rich history.
What do Steve Jobs and Francis Crick Have in common?
...
...
They both admitted that they would not have been near as productive without the use of LSD. Not exactly what I was thinking either.
What do Einstein and Gregor Mendel have in common?
..
..
They both were a bit cavalier about their data that supported their theories. Flirting with fraud, and certainly cherry picking data.
It seems as though the public view of how scientists they get their job done is not exactly what happens. Fraud, self administration of experiments drugs, back stabbing, and more are all covered. Yes scientists are human too. Most interesting to me is those that believe in their theory independent of what the data shows. Some are correct, some are wrong. Sometimes charisma wins out over convincing data.
The modern phrase "fake it to you make it" has a rich history.
March 28, 2024
DNF, I got about halfway through and couldn't convince myself to follow through. The concept was there, but the writing is so flagrantly biased and borderline haphazardly thrown together that I struggled to take any of their points seriously. For example, I'm glad that they did talk about HeLa for half a page, but there was such a focus on medical ethics for a full chapter and that is one of the most infamous cases of dubious ethics at play so why didn't they talk about it more? The perspective is just so off. And the author has some fixation on LSD and buzzword anarchy (not really anarchy, but possibly revolutionary), which gives off the vibe of this being written by a high school boy in chemistry class. Not a great case of scicomm I'm afraid, but definitely something to find for cheap at the used book store
February 9, 2026
If I had to summarize the book in one sentence it would be "I guess anarchy just means anything!" I feel that the author uses the word anarchy loosely to fit a lot of different types of borderline unethical or eccentric behaviors under one broader term. In a lot of instances I feel that it was silly to romanticize the antisocial behaviors some of the scientists engaged in . Where the book shines is how it shows the scientists are human too and often have their own personal misgivings and agenda that directly effect their research and relationships within their respective fields.
However, the writing itself was engaging and at a reading level that is easily accessible to a large audience. I think this the type of book best opened for a quick read on a plane when you just need something to entertain you while learning something easy to digest.
However, the writing itself was engaging and at a reading level that is easily accessible to a large audience. I think this the type of book best opened for a quick read on a plane when you just need something to entertain you while learning something easy to digest.
October 23, 2025
Some very different perspectives in this book that i really appreciate such as the fear and misunderstanding behind scientists, their competitive nature and relationships between historical figures. I understood the drugs implication on creativity and inspiration but wasn't fond of that chapter compared to the rest. From the very first page about Stephen hawking being spoon fed, i loved the raw human aspect of scientists in this book. Refreshing to read
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 25, 2018
Zanimljivi prikazi života znanstvenika koji nisu prezali pred korištenjem raznih smicalica i varki da dođu do otkrića (u Nobelove). Ipak, autor olako koristi termin anarhija, ne ulazeći u njen politički kontekst: tek ovlaš spominje anarhiste iz Španjolskog građanskog rata, a Kropotkina i Reclusa kao slučajeve pravih znanstvenika-anarhista ni ne spominje.
July 28, 2017
Interesting history behind some discoveries but he seems to be saying and in fact advocating that all scientific progress is based on flawed data filtered to prove someone's theory. Climate change deniers would have a field day with this book.
October 9, 2017
Unfortunately, scientists and researchers are people who have egos and a tendency to stick with the status quo. This book explores how science can be held back for by the very people whose job it is to lead us into the future. Very insightful.
February 25, 2018
Through our education we build picture on how things happen. After reading this book, Free Radicals, one may change the picture, things or solutions are coming in one, slightly, different way. Michael Brooks has stile that makes reading exciting.
February 11, 2022
“This is science: torment, dreams, visions, restlessness, lying, cheating, despair, brawling, bullying, desperation and–in the end, when everything works out–a moment of euphoria that makes it all worthwhile.”
July 20, 2022
Funny and detailed account of some of the misadventures in the area of science.
February 24, 2024
Free radicals definitely gets you intrigued about science. The stories behind some of the most storied men and women of all time are undoubtedly fascinating to read.
January 2, 2025
Dropped 🫣
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