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

by Martin Gardner

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393325725
• ISBN13: 9780393325720
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A delightful probe of 'pseudoscience' evolves

At the age of 90 author Martin Gardner has already been much applauded for his books on math, science, philosophy in literature: Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries? Shows he hasn't lost any of his touch, providing essays which gathers the best of his recent journalism writings, which have appeared in Scientific American and other notable publications. Essays are organized into five broad categories and survey many theories or 'miracles' which have fooled readers over the years. A delightful probe of 'pseudoscience' evolves.

Cut the guy some slack

Although this collection is not his best, Gardner is after all getting older and so I seems likely to me that after of lifetime of battling superstition and pseudoscience, the effects are wearing upon him. His mentioning and warnings about fundamentalism are indeed important as not only are we fighting Islamic fundamentalists, but Christian ones in our own country who want to degrade public education, oppress certain minorities and restrict freedom of the press and speech. Martin Gardner is still a national treasure and will be sorely missed when he passes on. It must be a compliment when your least important collection of essays still have several ones that pack a whollop.

Close, but no cigar

I love the Skeptical Enquirer and its no-nonsense way of getting to the truth of the matter. Martin Gardner, author of many science-for-the-people books is a contributor to that magazine and his articles are always delightful, sometimes controversial, always opinionated and extremely erudite. This book is really a collection of some of these articles, arranged by category. He is at his best when on the attack against the New Agers, the superstitious, horoscopes, ESP, magic, channelers, charlatans, Pyramid power and the like. He demonstrates, step by step, the fallacy of their thinking and is just, even fair, in presenting the opposing viewpoint. The first article from the title of the book sets the tone. In it he discusses how a theoretical flight of fancy (there are as many universes as we can imagine) became, for some, scientific fact despite not one scintilla of evidence. But more than a discussion of the Multiple Universe Theory, it is an examination of the trend of mixing Eastern religious thought with science and producing a mishmash of pseudo-scientific lingo that is as trendy as it is illogical. He takes on many icons - Karl Popper, Hemingway, Bettelheim and Gary Wills - and, like Paul Johnson in his great tome, INTELLECTUALS - finds monsters, egos and irrationality just around the bend.He tackles various cultural movements, traces their history and their tragic results: Cult leaders, Primal Screaming, psychoanalysis, Facilitated Communication and weird and little known individuals who made a mark at the time. The quality of the essays are uneven and there is this infuriating obsession with fundamentalists of the Protestant persuasion. He takes after them as if they were the Great Evil yet, as far as I know, no fundamentalist has murdered millions in religious wars, conquered nations in the name of God, slaughtered people due to their size or tortured millions "for the Faith". For that, one must point to (respectively) European Christians, Islam, African tribes and Catholicism. THis does not include the tens of millions slaughtered by secular regimes in this century. All in all, a good book, a quick read and another valuable lesson in the phrase "seeing is not believeing."

A delectable collection

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 comp

Gardner strikes again

Martin Gardner continues to publish many good skeptical books very late into his long life. If you like to read books by Stephen Jay Gould, James Randi, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, or Carl Sagan, then the writings of Gardner will be something you very much want to be informed about.Gardner writes about many varied topics in science, mathematics, pseudoscience, religion, psychics and the so-called paranormal, and other delusions -- always from a skeptical viewpoint. If Gardner thinks somebody is wrong, crazy or foolish he points it out without hesitation. He doesn't care if they are thought to be great people. He calls them like he sees them. Gardner pulls no punches. Many of the essays in this book are from his column "Notes of a Fringe Watcher" that regularly appear in the Skeptical Inquirer magazine. He has a curiously dry sense of humor that goes unnoticed by many who read him, especially if they disagree with the position Gardner is taking. This makes for some rather colorful angry letters to the Skeptical Inquirer and other publications that Gardner's writings have appear in. Many other of Gardner's books have included them in the past; we don't appear to get many of these exchanges in the addendums to some of the columns this time. That is my only disappointment with this book. It would have liked to see more of those. You can't always get everything you want. Which is a point that Gardner has continually been making for several years now.