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Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries?: Discourses on Godel, Magic Hexagrams, Little Red Riding Hood and Other Mathematical and Pseudoscience Topics
 
 

Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries?: Discourses on Godel, Magic Hexagrams, Little Red Riding Hood and Other Mathematical and Pseudoscience Topics (Hardcover)

by M Gardner (Author) "The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce somewhere remarked that unfortunately universes are not as plentiful as blackberries ..." (more)
3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.; 1 edition (5 Aug 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0393057429
  • ISBN-13: 978-0393057423
  • Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 16.3 x 2.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 731,081 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Review
"Even as Gardner exposes the foolishness and cruelties of phony science, he praises with awe and wonder the work of true science in revealing ... the natural world."

Product Description
Martin Gardner, debunker of scientific fraud and chicanery, explores in this title startling scientific concepts, such as the possibility of multiple universes and the theory that time can go backwards. Armed with his expert, sceptical eye, he examines the bizarre tangents produced by Freudians and deconstructionists in their critiques of "Little Red Riding Hood" and reveals the fallacies of pseudoscientific cures, from Doctor Bruno Bettelheim's erroneous theory of autism to the cruel farces of Facilitated Communication and Primal Scream Therapy.

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The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce somewhere remarked that unfortunately universes are not as plentiful as blackberries. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A delectable collection, 4 Nov 2003
By Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This is the fifth collection of Martin Gardner's essays that I have read, and as usual I found them a pleasure to read. Once again the venerable champion of common sense assumes his role as the sorcerer's apprentice trying to sweep back the tide of pseudoscience. And once again he provides insight into just how overwhelming that task really is.

The thirty-one essays, many of which appeared in The Skeptical Inquirer, are sorted into five parts: Science, Mathematics, Religion, Literature, and Moonshine. As a special treat (!?) some clerihews and other poetic bits by Gardner's "friend" Armand T. Ringer are sprinkled throughout, especially at the beginning of chapters. One notes in passing that "Armand T. Ringer" is an anagram of "Martin Gardner." Also included is a short story by Gardner from The College Mathematics Journal entitled "Against the Odds" (Chapter 6), a pleasant tale about a gifted black boy and a prejudiced schoolmarm notable for a happy ending and a thoroughgoing sense of the politically correct.

The first essay, "Multiverses and Blackberries" is a discussion of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. I was surprised to learn that this mind-boggling take on QM has been "defended by such eminent physicists as Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg." (p. 3) I think they may have defended it at one time or another, but I doubt that they embraced it wholeheartedly! A physicist who has of course is Oxford University's David Deutsch. What Gardner reveals in this interesting piece is that there are two versions of the MWI of QM, one in which the many worlds are "abstractions such as numbers and triangles," and the other in which the many worlds are real. (p. 5)

The second and third essays are on the philosophy of science, a favorite Gardner topic, and a topic that he actually makes readable and interesting, one deflating Karl Popper and the other partly a personal remembrance and appreciation of Rudolf Carnap. And then we have "Some Thoughts About Induction" in which Gardner aligns himself with David Hume, Bertrand Russell and others on the possibility that we can really prove anything by induction. This essay includes this glancing blow at those who would imagine that we might discover the ultimate nature of things: "[Electrons] may be made of superstrings. If so, what are superstrings made of?"

Other essays include "The Strange Case of Garry Wills," and "The Vagueness of Krishnamurti" from Part III on Religion in which Gardner reveals his consummate interest in the intimate details of the lives of the famous, especially the non-flattering details. I was surprised to learn of Krishnamurti's various episodes of hanky-panky. Like Gardner I had always found him unreadable, but herein I learned that the probable sufficient secret of his success was his charismatic personality.

In Part V on Moonshine Gardner has some fun with the idea that Little Red Riding Hood is a symbolic story of emerging womanhood complete with the red hood symbolizing menstrual blood and the wolf's appetite being not entirely gastronomic. I think here revealed is Gardner's limited appreciation of the nature of certain kinds of literature, of which fairy tales and religious works are examples. Such works are necessarily symbolic since what they are about cannot be expressed in a strictly denotative way because to do so would offend or be in conflict with some particulars of whatever the current wisdom might be. Such "evolved" literatures must be accessible regardless of the taboos of the present society. Better than any of the commentary from Gardner or those he quotes on the tale is the amazing print on page 180 by Gustave Doré of Little Read Riding Hood in bed with the wolf. The primeval nature of the tale is exemplified by Little Red Riding Hood's appearance simultaneously as a little girl and as a small woman, and the wolf's large mouth and ready claws. Doré knew that this was one scary tale that penetrated the listener's subconscious.

Perhaps the most valuable essays in the book are "The Brutality of Dr. Bettelheim" and "Facilitated Communication: A Cruel Farce" (chapters 23 and 24). In the first, Gardner reminds us how Dr. Bruno Bettelheim in particular, and psychoanalytic theory in general, mistreated a generation (or two or three) of autistic children and especially their so-called "refrigerator mothers" through a gross misunderstanding of autism and how to treat it. Some of the material comes from Edward Dolnick's Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis (1998), a book I reviewed favorably and recommend highly. In the second, Gardner reminds us of the fraudulent Quija board technique employed by some health workers using autistic children that had its heyday in the late eighties and early nineties before being exposed on Frontline and 60 Minutes. The disturbing thing about Gardner's report is that one of the true believers, Professor of Education Douglas Biklen, is still at Syracuse University and is still plying his trade.

One of the best reasons for reading Gardner is to appreciate how clear his expression is, and how readable he makes just about any subject. He has a gift for making the abstract concrete and the obtuse transparent.

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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Gardner loses his bearings., 5 Oct 2007
By M. Wilkinson (Portsmouth, Hampshire) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
I suppose that after becoming famous as a debunker of silly and pernicious pseudo-science (after his famous and amusing 'fads and fallacies in the name of science') that he might have let it go to your head.

I did not finish this book, the first essay is a critique of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Defended by many top physicists - indeed, men of a much higher calibre than Gardner himself. Gardner's only point of attack seems to be that he finds it personally absurd. Well, much of quantum mechanics and einstein's relativity seem absurd and paradoxical to the unschooled, but that has no bearing on their truth. Niels Bohr said 'if you are not shocked by quantum mechanics, you have not understood it'. Feynman said something similar. Gardner would prefer if the other worlds were mere abstractions, like mathematical symbols - except that the many worlds interfere with this one - the famous 2 slit diffraction experiment shows that quite clearly.

Far from being a resounding and welcome voice of reason, this latest tirade from Gardner sounds like a bitter old man who is annoyed at modern science because he does not understand it. Far better is 'voodoo science' by Robert Park and The demon haunted world' by Carl Sagan.
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