The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific MindWe 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. |
Other editions - View all
The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind Robert B Laughlin No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
Acacia Technologies advertising Alamos Atomic Energy Act become behavior Biological Biotech Bioterror Campana Jr can’t Chimera communication computer programs costs court create crime criminal Cryptography dangerous knowledge Digital disease drug economic Embryos encrypted Estakhri ethical example Flash Memory fundamental gene Genentech genetic genomes human Hynix idea imagine important Information Age infringement intellectual property Internet invented isn’t issue jokes knowl Lady Justice logical matter ment Microsoft million Morland national security nature nuclear weapons numbers patent law people’s person poker practice Press principles problem Rambus reason Research robots S. G. Stolberg Science Scientists secret Sequence smallpox someone spam Stem Cell Streaming Media T. J. Campana Jr technical television terrorists There’s things threat tion Transgenic U.S. Patent understand Univ Wen Ho Lee York Yurt
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind |
| Author | Robert B Laughlin |
| Publisher | Basic Books, 2008 |
| ISBN | 0786726318, 9780786726318 |
| Length | 192 pages |
| Subjects | › Science / General Technology & Engineering / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |