Michael Brooks: Alleged hacker is my biggest fan

Jake Davis, the teenager accused of hacking into News International and the Serious Organised Crime Squad networks, carried my new book, Free Radicals: The secret anarchy of science into court. Today, I woke up to find myself hot property, with news articles examining why Davis would be so interested in a science book. The thing everyone wants to know is, how does it make me feel? Well, it's nice to see a reader. And it's nice to appeal to teenagers in particular.
So many of his generation think science is dull, beyond them and something that has no need of their input. That's because every generation before them has colluded in creating the myth that science is boring, that scientists are dull, passionless, cold and logical.
Science is far too important to our futures to let that situation just roll on through another generation. After all, these are the people who will have to make decisions about climate change, genetic engineering, medical technologies and energy production.
The book is about what scientists really do - the lengths they go to to make discoveries. They fight and brawl, they sometimes cheat and take drugs. They perform reckless experiments on themselves. They lie when they have to. There are no rules - or at least they act as if there are no rules. So, yes I'm very happy that more people - especially teenagers - are now going to see scientists as they really are: adventurers and risk-takers.
We're all living twice as long as people 200 years ago because of pioneering scientists who have created extraordinary medical advances - sometimes through life-threatening experiments on themselves. We have mobile phones and the internet because of risk-taking, adventurous scientists (we have iPods because of Steve Jobs of Apple, who says that taking LSD was one of the most important things he ever did in his life). Even just being a scientist often involves defending your work from the rabid attacks of colleagues. It's not for wimps.
I can imagine Davis sees himself as someone who lives outside the law, who isn't afraid of authority, who is smart and driven to do bigger, more audacious things than anyone around him. In that sense, he's very like some of the characters in Free Radicals. I'm not endorsing drug use, hacking or reckless self-experimentation, but If there's one thing I'd like to see come out of this strange moment in my life, it is having more of the risk-taking, adventurous teens view science as something they would like to get involved with.
Michael Brooks @'New Scientist'
Read Michael Brooks's exclusive New Scientist feature based on his book, Free Radicals.