The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: nuclear knowledge, Atomic Energy Act, Information Age, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The provocative premise of this short book is that even as we appear to be awash in information, governments and industry are restricting access to knowledge by broadening the concept of intellectual property to include things as diverse as gene sequences and sales techniques . According to Laughlin, the right to learn is now aggressively opposed by intellectual property advocates, who want ideas elevated to the status of land, cars, and other physical assets so the their unauthorized acquisition can be prosecuted as theft. With examples drawn from nuclear physics, biotechnology and patent law, Laughlin, a Nobel laureate in physics, paints a troubling picture of a society in which the only information that is truly valuable in dollars and cents is controlled by a small number of individuals. But while Laughlin poses urgent questions, he provides neither in-depth analysis nor potential solutions. Many intriguing arguments—for example, that electronic technologies such as the Internet, which inundate us with useless information, are not instruments of knowledge dissemination at all but agencies of knowledge destruction—are offered but none are usefully explored. (Oct.)
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From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Al Gore, in his Assault on Reason, elevated our consciousness of the sharp decline of reason, logic, and truth in public discourse. Physics Nobel laureate Laughlin (A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down) delves deeper into the problem, focusing on efforts to sequester technical knowledge using the cloak of a freely available information-rich world. With humorous honesty (it can be fun to think apocalyptically from time to time), Laughlin uncovers the barriers scientists, engineers, and laypeople encounter when they try to learn how the world works by standing on the shoulders of giants, the discoveries of others. Intellectual-property advocacy and voluntary self-censorship are creating gaps in our records of knowledge. Legislatures are criminalizing understanding and speech, because it is easier than criminalizing behaviors that challenge economic stability and national security. While this short essay can sound like the ramblings of an old man, his argument is profound and not easy to dismiss. Strongly recommended for academic and public libraries.—James A. Buczynski, Seneca Coll. of Applied Arts & Technology, Toronto
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (September 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465005071
• ISBN-13: 978-0465005079
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #583,830 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An unsettling jeremiad about the crisis of our Information Age, October 26, 2008

By	Roy E. Perry "amateur philosopher" (Nolensville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In this jeremiad against the stifling constraints of commercialized culture, Laughlin writes, "At the dawn of the Information Age we find ourselves dealing with the bizarre concept of the 'crime of reason,' the unsocial nature or outright illegality of understanding certain things."

A widespread attack on Enlightenment rationality, he gloomily asserts, threatens to end in the criminalization of learning. More and more, the act of reasoning something out for yourself is potentially a crime.

The author contends that the Information Age should be called "the Age of Amnesia." The Internet promises a wide dissemination of useful information, but paradoxically there has been a steep decline in public accessibility of important information.

Laughlin explains the problems clearly and well, but provides little hope and virtually no solutions to the crisis.

About the author: Robert B. Laughlin is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Physics at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1985. In 1998 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the fractional quantum Hall effect. He has also won the Oliver F. Buckley Prize, the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Physics, and the Department of Energy's Earnest O. Lawrence Award for Physics. The author of A Different Universe (2005), he lives in Stanford, California.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Crime of Reason: Reviewed, December 4, 2008

By	A. Hampton (Santa Monica, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I picked this book up on a whim at the library and was able to complete it one sitting (thank you kindergarten spacing & font size). A fair amount of content was interesting to muse including the concept of thought crimes, the drama of economics, the over indulgence of disposable knowledge, & the restriction of technological progress by the current patent law. The more we restrict creative thought (through current public education, absurd laws, & excessive disposable knowledge), the sooner we will become the worlds described by authors such as Orwell & Huxley.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can minds be closed down?, June 12, 2009

By	Alireza Moharrer (La Verne, CA) - See all my reviews

I know Robert Laughlin from my free study of a lot of his works and also through his popular science writing. This book while written to address a growing problem of monopolizing scientific discoveries toward economic incentives is not an easy read/or to swallow if the reader fails to have the overview as it is argued in this book.

Robert is a distinguished applied physicists and is well aware of the fuzzy lines between what's in one's head and what's out there; he has written at times on delicacies between confusing realms of theories vs experiment and in my view this is where his views in this book tie into the complex web of society, survival and progression of science.

In my view the problem is like the analogy of fish in water; while science by nature is open to free inquiries of all sorts without any hint of repercussions of its discoveries nevertheless these scientific inquiries are made by people who live in and depend on societies that their rules transcend the ideal goals of curious investigations, that's where economic reasoning can at times contain or threaten the spirit of free scientific minds but again these inquiries are driven by engines of economic progress that were set in place to direct these minds. This sounds like a circular argument but may also be described as a non-dual nature of science and society, they are co-dependent.

In my view Robert Laughlin is daring enough of a distinguished scientist to speak freely for a system, suffering from internal inconsistencies ie promote free thinking and speech but also apply restriction to certain manners of thinking!

The kinds of thinking proposed in this book is like the common challenge for an engineer to think scientifically or for a scientist to see things through the eyes of an engineer; both instances seem to involve pains for each other and digression from focus area but are of the same nature. I would say our societies tend to evolve in unpredictable ways to get beyond the type of current contradictions between allowing free scientific thinking/pursuits without running into risks of infringing on someone's (economic) interests. That's my hope.

Alireza