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The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind
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.
186 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
13 people are currently reading
239 people want to read
About the author
Robert B. Laughlin
10 books23 followersRobert Betts Laughlin (born November 1, 1950) is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University. Along with Horst L. Störmer of Columbia University and Daniel C. Tsui of Princeton University, he was awarded a share of the 1998 Nobel Prize in physics for their explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect.
Laughlin was born in Visalia, California. He earned a B.A. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1972, and his Ph.D. in physics in 1979 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Between 2004 and 2006 he served as the president of KAIST in Daejeon, South Korea.
Laughlin shares similar views to George Chapline, doubting the existence of black holes.
Laughlin was born in Visalia, California. He earned a B.A. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1972, and his Ph.D. in physics in 1979 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Between 2004 and 2006 he served as the president of KAIST in Daejeon, South Korea.
Laughlin shares similar views to George Chapline, doubting the existence of black holes.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 2, 2011
"UCLA geneticist James Grody had to stop research on congenital deafness linked to the Connexion 26 gene because the owner of its patent, Athena Diagnostics, demanded a fee he could not pay."
The Crime of Reason and the Closing of the Scientific Mind by physicist Robert B. Laughlin is an essay about the criminalization of knowledge. Some forms of knowledge, such as how to build a nuclear bomb, are banned because they are deemed too dangerous. Other forms of knowledge are sequestered away due to patent restrictions.
Nuclear bombs are certainly dangerous and distributing blueprints on how to build them should be banned. However, not just the blueprints are illegal. You could get thrown in jail for simply discussing the physical principles behind a nuclear bomb. This, of course, isn't a deterrent to wealthy countries dead set on getting the bomb, only to curious researchers.
Laughlin tells us that knowing how to use butcher knives "routinely" leads to murder and knowing how to light a match "routinely" leads to arson. Despite misusing the word "routinely" he does have a point. A lot of dangerous knowledge is legal. What makes certain knowledge illegal has nothing to do with danger and everything to do with economics.
Many countries tried to ban encryption technology because of its military application, however, encryption is so useful to so many people, banning it is impossible. In order to prevent movies and music from being illegally downloaded, many companies have attempted to criminalize pirating software, however, since this technology benefits far more people than it harms, it's difficult to stop.
Laughlin tells us that the Internet only provides the illusion of better access to information. The Internet is so full of extraneous data that finding useful information is akin to searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Also, some information is omitted altogether. If you want to find out how the flash memory on your camera works or how to make a clone, you'll find key pieces of information missing.
An important part of economic life is deception. Because of this, the free flow of information is bad for the economy. If a car salesman was perfectly honest with you about how much a car was worth, selling cars would not be profitable. This is why there are laws which make disseminating trade secrets a federal crime even though keeping this information secret is an impossibility in practical terms.
Since US law allows genes to be patented, geneticists are no longer able to research any gene they want. Some companies hold patents for broad ideas such as using frames on a website or streaming media online. Companies are allowed to patent concepts rather than inventions. Amazon.com patented the idea of one-click purchasing and successfully sued Barnes and Noble over it. Blackboard has patented the concept of online education. Since patent lawsuits often involve hundreds of millions of dollars, inventing and researching have become risky activities.
Laughlin obviously didn't have enough material for a full book, which explains the large print. He sometimes seems alarmist, like when he claims that companies patenting the wind and the English language is in our not too distant future or computer technicians will all decide to become lawyers or doctors because intellectual property laws are too restrictive. His stream of conscious writing is often hard to follow and I found myself rereading several of his chapters trying to make sense of them. It's often difficult to tell his tangents and his main points apart.
For some reason, he spends a chapter comparing human clones to computer software. I'm not sure if he's joking or not in his chapter devoted to spam emails evolving into robot lawyers. I'm really not. I've got to admit the following "jokes" sailed right over my head:
"Knowledge about life, like any other kind of knowledge, can be excessive. Everyday versions of this problem make good jokes. Discussing how cats eats their breakfast isn't polite. People who grew up on dairy farms often don't care for dairy products. Students who pay too much attention in human reproduction, the best course in high school for everyone else, become tiresome."
I think this book would have been better if instead of going off on wild tangents, he took a journalistic approach by interviewing some of the people whose lives had been affected by banned knowledge such as the geneticist who was prevented from researching deafness due to a patent lawsuit or the Princeton undergraduate whose thesis on how to build a nuclear bomb was confiscated by the FBI. As it is, this book is not worth the read.
The Crime of Reason and the Closing of the Scientific Mind by physicist Robert B. Laughlin is an essay about the criminalization of knowledge. Some forms of knowledge, such as how to build a nuclear bomb, are banned because they are deemed too dangerous. Other forms of knowledge are sequestered away due to patent restrictions.
Nuclear bombs are certainly dangerous and distributing blueprints on how to build them should be banned. However, not just the blueprints are illegal. You could get thrown in jail for simply discussing the physical principles behind a nuclear bomb. This, of course, isn't a deterrent to wealthy countries dead set on getting the bomb, only to curious researchers.
Laughlin tells us that knowing how to use butcher knives "routinely" leads to murder and knowing how to light a match "routinely" leads to arson. Despite misusing the word "routinely" he does have a point. A lot of dangerous knowledge is legal. What makes certain knowledge illegal has nothing to do with danger and everything to do with economics.
Many countries tried to ban encryption technology because of its military application, however, encryption is so useful to so many people, banning it is impossible. In order to prevent movies and music from being illegally downloaded, many companies have attempted to criminalize pirating software, however, since this technology benefits far more people than it harms, it's difficult to stop.
Laughlin tells us that the Internet only provides the illusion of better access to information. The Internet is so full of extraneous data that finding useful information is akin to searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Also, some information is omitted altogether. If you want to find out how the flash memory on your camera works or how to make a clone, you'll find key pieces of information missing.
An important part of economic life is deception. Because of this, the free flow of information is bad for the economy. If a car salesman was perfectly honest with you about how much a car was worth, selling cars would not be profitable. This is why there are laws which make disseminating trade secrets a federal crime even though keeping this information secret is an impossibility in practical terms.
Since US law allows genes to be patented, geneticists are no longer able to research any gene they want. Some companies hold patents for broad ideas such as using frames on a website or streaming media online. Companies are allowed to patent concepts rather than inventions. Amazon.com patented the idea of one-click purchasing and successfully sued Barnes and Noble over it. Blackboard has patented the concept of online education. Since patent lawsuits often involve hundreds of millions of dollars, inventing and researching have become risky activities.
Laughlin obviously didn't have enough material for a full book, which explains the large print. He sometimes seems alarmist, like when he claims that companies patenting the wind and the English language is in our not too distant future or computer technicians will all decide to become lawyers or doctors because intellectual property laws are too restrictive. His stream of conscious writing is often hard to follow and I found myself rereading several of his chapters trying to make sense of them. It's often difficult to tell his tangents and his main points apart.
For some reason, he spends a chapter comparing human clones to computer software. I'm not sure if he's joking or not in his chapter devoted to spam emails evolving into robot lawyers. I'm really not. I've got to admit the following "jokes" sailed right over my head:
"Knowledge about life, like any other kind of knowledge, can be excessive. Everyday versions of this problem make good jokes. Discussing how cats eats their breakfast isn't polite. People who grew up on dairy farms often don't care for dairy products. Students who pay too much attention in human reproduction, the best course in high school for everyone else, become tiresome."
I think this book would have been better if instead of going off on wild tangents, he took a journalistic approach by interviewing some of the people whose lives had been affected by banned knowledge such as the geneticist who was prevented from researching deafness due to a patent lawsuit or the Princeton undergraduate whose thesis on how to build a nuclear bomb was confiscated by the FBI. As it is, this book is not worth the read.
April 29, 2012
In light of the SOPA/PIPA/CISPA/etc. propositions, this sentence struck me hardest, I think:
"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 that their unauthorized acquisition can be prosecuted as theft."
The recent DOJ case involving Amazon and other e-book peddlers and major publishing houses crops up in my mind, too, because there's a fine line between an idea and the execution of an idea. One should be free. The other can generate a profit, without which, one loses the incentive for anyone to execute ideas. That line, however, is very very thin sometimes, especially in the sciences, and that's largely what this book is about.
"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 that their unauthorized acquisition can be prosecuted as theft."
The recent DOJ case involving Amazon and other e-book peddlers and major publishing houses crops up in my mind, too, because there's a fine line between an idea and the execution of an idea. One should be free. The other can generate a profit, without which, one loses the incentive for anyone to execute ideas. That line, however, is very very thin sometimes, especially in the sciences, and that's largely what this book is about.
January 15, 2010
A very odd little book, somewhere between a passionate essay and academic treatise on the efforts by governments to prevent information freedom and access in a variety of areas. The book ranges from interesting to provocative, offering both concrete examples of ways information access has been denied and the problems it has caused, to proposing extensions of such limitations (all possible, some more probable then others) and pointing out the consequences of those limitations as well.
February 10, 2012
A little conspiracy theory, a little reality. i enjoyed this a lot especially when dealing with copyright law and cloning and what it has to do with out right to "know" and "reason". Fascinating if you are looking for a quick read on something you've never thought about before.
November 16, 2024
The topics that Prof. Laughlin engages with in The Crime of Reason—a discussion of knowledge, "dangerous knowledge," spam, and what he sees as a subsequent assault on reason—are highly intriguing and I am glad I picked the book up. It is just that there is a lot to be desired with regards to the execution.
The book is relatively short, with a larger font size, not-so-big pages, and untight spacing. However, while reading it, I feel that I gained quite little—only the basic concepts and ideas. The work expounded on them a lot, but these left little impressions on me. It certainly did not feel like a layman's book; discussions on copyright and how companies or government bodies may try to hide knowledge from public view are not light by any means.
Overall, the work touched on an interesting topic, however, because of its lackluster execution, I drew relatively little from it. (Then again, this might be a me problem; it just so happens that the person giving this review is coincidentally also me.) Given how short a time it took to read the whole book, however, it was definitely still worth it.
The book is relatively short, with a larger font size, not-so-big pages, and untight spacing. However, while reading it, I feel that I gained quite little—only the basic concepts and ideas. The work expounded on them a lot, but these left little impressions on me. It certainly did not feel like a layman's book; discussions on copyright and how companies or government bodies may try to hide knowledge from public view are not light by any means.
Overall, the work touched on an interesting topic, however, because of its lackluster execution, I drew relatively little from it. (Then again, this might be a me problem; it just so happens that the person giving this review is coincidentally also me.) Given how short a time it took to read the whole book, however, it was definitely still worth it.
December 29, 2024
This is a confused and confusing essay. There's a kernel of a valid rant in there somewhere but then it goes off the rails quickly.
-A big part of his argument is that patents make knowledge secret. Except the whole point of patents (as opposed to trade secrets) is that they make stuff public. This distinction needs to be fleshed out more to get at the real problem.
-He also seems to believe that NIH and the rest of the US government is so laser-focused on improving health outcomes that it doesn't fund basic biology research! This is patently upside down and backwards.
-He seems to be missing that the big impact of Bayh-Dole has been to turn academic medical centers into patent-chasing "non-profit" businesses. I would love to know more about the self-funded ivory towers of pure medical research in the resistance against Big Pharma.
-In a country where about half the people reject Darwin, his arguments about hiding science knowledge seem bizarrely irrelevant.
-A big part of his argument is that patents make knowledge secret. Except the whole point of patents (as opposed to trade secrets) is that they make stuff public. This distinction needs to be fleshed out more to get at the real problem.
-He also seems to believe that NIH and the rest of the US government is so laser-focused on improving health outcomes that it doesn't fund basic biology research! This is patently upside down and backwards.
-He seems to be missing that the big impact of Bayh-Dole has been to turn academic medical centers into patent-chasing "non-profit" businesses. I would love to know more about the self-funded ivory towers of pure medical research in the resistance against Big Pharma.
-In a country where about half the people reject Darwin, his arguments about hiding science knowledge seem bizarrely irrelevant.
November 30, 2017
Written in 2008, this book is a bit outdated in 2017.
August 19, 2015
Poorly argued...Laughlin is rather inconsistent, so it's not even very clear what he's arguing for. He fails to make several crucial distinctions, so that the freedom to think about certain subjects (say, nuclear physics) is not clearly distinguished from the freedom to act on one's knowledge (such as the freedom to sell nuclear secrets to North Korea if you feel like it). The basic problem running throughout the book is a moral-practical dichotomy, so that he argues for a sort of platonic ideal of intellectual freedom, while regularly being forced to recognize that it is not at all practical or even desirable in many cases. And his basic premise that information should be equally available to everyone isn't just false, it's impossible![return][return]Surprisingly, the best chapter is probably the one on patent law, which he concludes: "This unhappy state of affairs has now led to loud cries for tort reform, both from concerned individuals and from businesses being bled dry by legal costs. Yet while legislatures may enact reforms soon, most people think they are unlikely to do what it takes to restore respect for technical law: ban patents for methods of reasoning, methods of communicating, discovery of things widely viewed as self-evident, and discovery of phenomena that occur on their own when humans are not present." That's more or less accurate, though it could stand to be more clear (it depends, for instance, on what exactly he means by "methods of communicating"), but this is about as clear and accurate as he gets.
July 9, 2023
I’m not sure how to review this. There were times I’d felt more like a personal essay with anecdotal ideas and others when it felt more like the book I had been for ting. It raised some interesting points about what information society is happy to have ‘locked away’ whilst pointing out the absurdity of this.
June 14, 2015
The Crime in Reason is in part reasoned argument, screed, and silly humor. It was an enjoyable and quick read, but given the seriousness and depth of the topics covered, I didn't feel like I walked away with much new insight or a different perspective. Maybe my views on intellectual property, gambling, nuclear hysteria, and the right to open learning were already inline with Laughlin, though he's thought, and certainly written, about them in more depth than me. On the other hand, I'm not as keen to live on the moon.
August 26, 2010
Let me apologize for not providing a detailed and insightful review of this book, but this book simply does not warrant it. The author is clearly a distinguished scholar, but I after reading this book I had the feeling that this work was a halfhearted attempt to toss together a collection of recent ideas. It left me without any clear new insights, nor any compelling reason to recommend it to anyone else. I was left mainly with the feeling that Dr. Laughlin could have written a better book.
April 1, 2009
Two stars doesn't seem right, but three stars isn't justified because the secret is the book is advertised as something very serious, but in the end it's a work of humor.
As a result I have a hard time giving this more than two stars because it's funny, just not funny enough.
As a result I have a hard time giving this more than two stars because it's funny, just not funny enough.
May 25, 2011
Muy pocos son los que hablan de este problema. Menos aún son aquellos que lo comprenden.
February 6, 2013
Gulp.
And funny.
And funny.
August 16, 2025
The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind points to the reader dangers of patent theft. It's a small book worth reading from a great mind in a time of AI.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews