| Average Customer Rating: |  4.0 |
| Release Date: | 2008-09-22 |
| Publisher: | Basic Books |
| Author | Robert B. Laughlin |
| Number of pages: | 224 |
| ISBN: | 0465005071 |
| Language: | Original Language: English; Unknown: English; Published: English; |
Product Categories
Product description
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We all agree that the free flow of ideas is essential to creativity. And we like to believe that in our modern, technological world, information is more freely available and flows faster than ever before. But according to Nobel Laureate Robert Laughlin, acquiring information is becoming a danger or even a crime. Increasingly, the really valuable information is private property or a state secret, with the result that it is now easy for a flash of insight, entirely innocently, to infringe a patent or threaten national security. The public pays little attention because this vital information is “technical”—but, Laughlin argues, information is often labeled technical so it can be sequestered, not sequestered because it’s technical. The increasing restrictions on information in such fields as cryptography, biotechnology, and computer software design are creating a new Dark Age: a time characterized not by light and truth but by disinformation and ignorance. Thus we find ourselves dealing more and more with the Crime of Reason, the antisocial and sometimes outright illegal nature of certain intellectual activities. The Crime of Reason is a reader-friendly jeremiad, On Bullshit for the Slashdot and Creative Commons crowd: a short, fiercely argued essay on a problem of increasing concern to people at the frontiers of new ideas. |
Customer reviews
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The Crime of Reason: Reviewed
»
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.
Rating:
(4
out of 5) @ 2008-12-04
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A narrow subject, well coverred.
»
I tend to agree with another reviewer that this subject is barely big enough for a book. However, the subject is important, well covered, and the book well written. The author gives good reasons for the legitimately conflicting interests when it comes to information management. However, I wish he would present more suggested solutions.
Rating:
(4
out of 5) @ 2008-11-23
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A key acquisition for any library strong in science and social issues alike
»
THE CRIME OF REASON AND THE CLOSING OF THE SCIENTIFIC MIND comes from a Nobel prize-winning professor of physics and discusses scientific delusions that science is being affected by volumes of advertising and little really valuable information, which is increasingly classified as private property. How can scientific inquiry continue when research is viewed as a threat to national security or patent infringement? Illegalities in scientific inquiry are analyzed for their far-reaching effects on science conduct, making this a key acquisition for any library strong in science and social issues alike.
Rating: 
(5
out of 5) @ 2008-11-14
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Ultimately disappointing
»
In this book, Laughlin presents some interesting--and even potentially important--reflections in an easy and readable style. Although the book is attractively produced, it seems rather over-priced--especially since the basic argument could have been thoroughly covered in a magazine article (or two if the author wanted to include the full range of applications). One might wish for a less expensive paperback edition in the future.
But the book has more serious drawbacks than just price. Laughlin may be a Nobel Prize winning physicist, but he is woefully out of his league when he deals with ideas in bioethics. Moreover, he consistently muddies key issues by confusing terms like "information" and "knowledge" (e.g., a computer file--or cellular DNA--contain information, not knowledge), and throughout the text maintains a level of sexism that is bound to put off, or even offend, many readers.
How could the editors at Basic Books have allowed Laughlin to always refer to researchers as "he", to include gratuitous wisecracks about "geeks" and Michael Jackson, and to actually conclude the whole book with a line about the inventor in the future who has relocated to the Moon in search of greater economic opportunity, but gazes longingly back to Earth wishing that they would "send up more girls"?
Rating: 
(2
out of 5) @ 2008-11-09
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An unsettling jeremiad about the crisis of our Information Age
»
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.
Rating:
(4
out of 5) @ 2008-10-26
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