Inquiry: Robert Laughlin - The Crime of Reason and The Closing of the Scientific Mind

Inquiry has a thought provoking conversation with Nobel Laureate ROBERT B. LAUGHLIN, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Professor Laughlin has written an impassioned polemic about politics, law, economics and “dangerous knowledge.” Why is simply inquiring about the construction of a nuclear bomb considered a highly illegal activity? How does intellectual activity change character when it becomes valuable enough to be bought and sold? How does patent law allow courts to “create” inventors? Is there now a corporate rush to patent everything under the sun and what does this mean for the future of open scientific research?  The answers to these questions are complex and important in quite surprising ways.  Be sure to tune in for wild and challenging conversation about the our freedom of access to knowledge and whether that freedom even exists . Professor Laughlin’s book is titled THE CRIME OF REASON AND THE CLOSING OF THE SCIENTIFIC MIND.