Michael Brooks nimmt sich in diesem Buch die Zunft der Forscher zur Brust. Mit einer Fülle faszinierender Geschichten zeigt er, dass Wissenschaftler durchaus keine objektiven, abwägenden, gerechten „Übermenschen“ sind, sondern Individuen, die ein Ziel, eine Vision antreibt und die dieses Ziel auch gegen Widerstände, auf eigene Kosten wie auf Kosten anderer, in der Überzeugung, recht zu haben, verfolgen und dabei nicht selten „unordentliche“ Pfade einschlagen – „freie Radikale“ eben.
Informationstext zur englischen Ausgabe: How did Newton, Galileo, Einstein and myriad Nobel laureates create the modern world? Through anarchy. In science, anything goes ...For more than fifty years, scientists have been involved in a cover-up that is arguably one of the most successful of modern times. It has succeeded because even the scientists haven’t understood what has been going on. The public image of science - cool, logical, rational, level-headed; rather boring, in other words – was a careful creation. The reality of science is very different. To make a breakthrough or to stay on top, scientists take drugs, they follow crazy dreams, they experiment on themselves and on one another, and occasionally they die in the process. They fight – sometimes physically, but mostly in intellectual battles that can wreck careers and end in suicide. They break all the rules of polite society, trampling on the sacred and showing a total disregard for authority. They commit fraud or deceive or manipulate others in order to get to the truth about how the world works. They conjure up seemingly ridiculous ideas, then fight tooth and nail to show that the ideas are not only far from ridiculous, but exactly how things really are. Some challenge the interests of government and business, occasionally sacrificing their reputations for the greater good. Science is peppered with successes that defy rational explanation, and failures that seem even more illogical. There are moments of euphoria and – just once in ten thousand working lifetimes – world-changing success...
