Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic

By Martin Gardner

Book Overview

At a time when popular knowledge of basic science has sunk to a new low and books promoting angels, parapsychology, and bizarre forms of medicine and healing outnumber skeptical books by more than a thousand to one, Americans need a voice of sanity.Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic introduces readers to mind-wrenching probability paradoxes, recent attacks on the Big Bang Theory, and Marianne Williamson's success promoting The Course of Miracles, which is said to have been channeled by Jesus. Other columns address E-prime, a language that omits all forms of the verb "to be"; Norman Vincent Peale's beliefs in the paranormal; repressed memory therapy; science blunders by famous writers; the influence of Transcendental Meditation on the career of Doug Henning; a critique of "Klingon" and other artificial languages; and much more.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573920967
• ISBN13: 9781573920964
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Lancing the boils

Nothing is more fascinating than to follow a lively mind poking about for curiosities. And nobody had a livelier mind than Martin Gardner. The Oklahoma philosopher played with ideas as varied as the background to Lewis Carroll and mathematical games and brain-teasers. Other writers, too, have been interested in "Alice in Wonderland" and in brainteasers. Gardner was a unique national asset because of the effort he expended on cranks. For many years, a main outlet for his inquiries was Skeptical Inquirer magazine, the journal of what used to be the Center for the Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal and is now just PSICOP. Sixteen of his "Notes of a Fringe-Watcher" columns are reprinted in "Weird Water & Fuzzy Logic," along with almost 50 book reviews. He gives most attention to repressed memory therapy and false memory syndrome. The explosion of claims by adults that they were sexually abused as children is called "the greatest scandal of the century in American psychology." Gardner does not deny that there are many case of unreported child sexual abuse -- who would dare? -- but he does contend that these cases are hidden, not forgotten. His book was written well before the revelations of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. What we learned from that tends to confirm Gardner's opinion. Already, he wrote, a vast industry of memory creators was at work. It includes -- it is with us yet -- therapists, most with dubious or non-existent credentials; gullible cops and social workers; and prosecutors run amok. Gardner does not say so, but in some of the worst witchhunts, it seems pretty clear that prosecutors pushing these cases were deranged. What else can explain going to court with cases of horrible physical assaults that children describe, but which leave not a mark on their bodies? The claims of the people who believe these wild tales are not noted for the rigor of their evidence, and the repressed memory people are heavily cross-fertilized with believers in alien abductions and satanic cults, for which evidence is equally lacking. Hundreds of people already have been imprisoned by these witchhunts and more hundreds have had their lives ruined. A lot of what Gardner writes about is more goofy than anything else, but false memory syndrome is another matter altogether. In recommending Lawrence Wright's book "Remembering Satan," which recounts a monstrous Washington case, Gardner states solemnly: "It is a book every American should read. Someday you may be called for jury duty on a repressed-memory case that can result in terrible injustice unless you and your fellow-jurors are adequately informed." Usually, however, Gardner is involved in realms where the looniness is comparatively harmless. These include a famous case in which scads of Ph.D.s in mathematics made fools of themselves over a fairly simple problem in logic, Margaret Mead's humbug in Samoa and a collection of scientific blunders in novels. The blunders are original

Only a dupe could review this book negatively

Fantastic book, nearly ever essay a clear and brillant piece attacking superstition and blatant pseudoscience