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, we need a voice of sanity. Enter internationally acclaimed science writer Martin Gardner who has compiled his latest collection of columns and recent reviews.
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 channelled by Jesus. Other columns address E-prime, a language that omits all forms of the verb "to be"; Norman Vincent Beale’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.
Gardner offers thoughtful reviews of books by such famous authors and scientists as Joseph Campbell, Freeman Dyson, Sheldon Glashow, Stephen Jay Gould, and Heinz Pagels, on a wide range of topics: modern cosmology, superstring theory, mathematical beauty, archaeological nonsense, how to make a Permanent Paranormal Object, the role of symmetry in science and art, and the theology of astronomers.
MARTIN GARDNER (Henderson, NC), a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), authored the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American for many years. Among his many books are Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus, The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher, On the Wild Side, and Urantia.
260 pages ISBN 1-57392-096-7 Cloth
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