Are Universes Thicker Blkberie Pa

by Gardner,Martin

• ISBN13: 9780393325720
• ISBN10: 0393325725
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-07-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Martin Gardner'”"one of the most brilliant men and gracious writers I have ever known," wrote Stephen Jay Gould'”is the wittiest, most devastating debunker of scientific fraud and chicanery of our time. In this new book Gardner explores startling scientific concepts, such as the possibility of multiple universes and the theory that time can go backwards. Armed with his expert, skeptical 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 Dr. Bruno Bettelheim's erroneous theory of autism to the cruel farces of Facilitated Communication and Primal Scream Therapy. Ever prolific, and still engaging at the spry age of eighty-eight, Gardner has become an American institution unto himself, a writer to be celebrated.

Author Biography

Martin Gardner is the author of more than seventy books, including The Colossal Book of Mathematics, Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?, and The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Science
Multiverses and Blackberries	p. 3
A Skeptical Look at Karl Popper	p. 12
Rudolf Carnap, Philosopher of Science	p. 19
Some Thoughts About Induction	p. 23
Can Time Go Backward?	p. 29
Mathematics
Against the Odds (a story)	p. 49
Fun with Mobius Bands	p. 57
Is Mathematics "Out There"?	p. 61
Ian Stewart's Flatterland	p. 64
Kurt Godel's Amazing Discovery	p. 67
New Results on Magic Hexagrams	p. 74
Religion
The Strange Case of Garry Wills	p. 85
Mad Messiahs	p. 94
Oahspe	p. 101
The Vagueness of Krishnamurti	p. 112
Literature
Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday	p. 125
Ernest Hemingway and Jane	p. 135
Three Parodies of Famous Poems	p. 144
Edgar Wallace and The Green Archer	p. 147
Afterword to The Green Archer	p. 159
The Tin Woodman of Oz	p. 164
Moonshine
Little Red Riding Hood	p. 177
The Brutality of Dr. Bettelheim	p. 188
Facilitated Communication: A Cruel Farce	p. 195
Distant Healing and Elisabeth Targ	p. 203
The Therapeutic Touch	p. 211
Primal Scream Therapy	p. 215
Eyeless Vision	p. 225
Magic and Psi	p. 244
How Mrs. Piper Bamboozled William James	p. 252
"Dr." Henry Slade, American Medium	p. 263
Index	p. 273
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