How Martin Gardner Bamboozled the Skeptics
by Greg Taylor
The modern skeptical ‘movement’ has grown and thrived in recent years to the point where the public generally views self-appointed ‘skeptics’ as arbiters of the truth and defenders of rational thought. But how much of what they say can we really trust as being objective truth? Are self-described skeptics championing critical thinking, or are they simply defending one particular worldview? The late Marcello Truzzi came to think so: despite being the co-founding chairman of the influential skeptical group CSICOP (the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), Truzzi soon became disillusioned with the organization, saying they “tend to block honest inquiry, in my opinion… Most of them are not agnostic toward claims of the paranormal; they are out to knock them.” Truzzi claimed that by using the title of ‘skeptic’, biased debunkers had claimed an authority that they were not entitled to, opining that “critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves ‘skeptics’ are actually pseudo-skeptics and have, I believed, gained a false advantage by usurping that label.” Should we be more skeptical of the skeptics?
If there is one skeptic who stands above all others in terms of being regarded as an authoritative voice, it must surely be Martin Gardner. Through the course of his life, Gardner – who passed away aged 95 in May 2010 – published more than seventy books on such diverse topics as mathematics, science, philosophy, literature and skepticism. For a quarter of a century he was also the writer of the ‘Mathematical Games’ column in Scientific American, and as a consequence he has influenced many of the modern day’s top academics in the hard sciences. His opinion therefore commands much respect from intellectuals. Every two years a ‘Gathering for Gardner’ is held to celebrate his lifelong contributions (to maths in particular), and has been attended by the likes of Stephen Wolfram and John Conway. Douglas Hofstadter described Gardner as “one of the great intellects produced in this country in this century,” and Arthur C. Clarke once labeled him a “national treasure.”
Gardner has also long been one of the major voices in the skeptical movement; George Hansen describes him as “the single most powerful critic of the paranormal in the second half of the 20th century”. Gardner was writing ‘skeptical’ books long before the modern movement ‘began’ in earnest with the inception of CSICOP (now known as CSI) in the 1970s – his seminal deconstruction of pseudoscience, In the Name of Science (later renamed Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science), had been published two decades previous in 1952. Gardner’s antipathy towards the supernatural was perhaps a natural outgrowth of his academic interests, skepticism,
proficiency and understanding of conjuring techniques, and – improbably – his religious beliefs. Gardner was not a Christian, but he did believe in God; a primary motivation for his criticisms of parapsychology might be found in an essay he wrote titled “Prayer: Why I Do Not Think It Foolish”, in which he says “I am among those theists who, in the spirit of Jesus’ remark that only the faithless look for signs, consider such tests both futile and blasphemous… Let us not tempt God”. Nevertheless, Gardner’s esteemed standing amongst academics has allowed his skeptical writings to be widely accepted as the final word on controversial topics. In the words of Stephen Jay Gould: “For more than half a century, Martin Gardner has been the single brightest beacon defending rationality and good science against the mysticism and anti-intellectualism that surrounds us.”
As an example of Gardner’s influence on discourse about paranormal topics, consider the reference to one of his essays in the New York Times review of Deborah Blum’s book Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. Blum’s book tells the (partial) story of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) – a group of academics, including the likes of William James, Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge, who came together in the late 19th century to try to solve the question of life after death – and its investigation of Mrs. Leonora Piper, one of the most successful mediums of modern times. Anthony Gottlieb’s New York Times review suggests that Blum might have taken a different view of Mrs. Piper’s mediumship if she had read Martin Gardner’s critique of the SPR’s research prior to writing Ghost Hunters:
In this particular instance all of Blum’s narratives, sourced from documents written by the original researchers, are painted over with one broad brush-stroke by invoking Gardner’s name. His essay, it seems, lays bare the techniques of deception used by Mrs. Piper – a mix of fishing (also known as cold reading) and devious information mining – which have over the course of a century fooled researchers and writers lacking the critical thinking skills and magical insights of a Martin Gardner. This is a bold claim – the original SPR reports on the Piper case had contributions from some of the finest minds of the time, and run to thousands of pages in total length. In short, the investigation of the mediumship of Mrs. Piper is one of the most comprehensive and well-documented in the history of psychical research. Is Gardner’s authority in this case being overstated?
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The rest (Skeptiko has a far too low maximum-character setting) -> http://dailygrail.com/Essays/2010/11/Skeptical-Skeptic
by Greg Taylor
The modern skeptical ‘movement’ has grown and thrived in recent years to the point where the public generally views self-appointed ‘skeptics’ as arbiters of the truth and defenders of rational thought. But how much of what they say can we really trust as being objective truth? Are self-described skeptics championing critical thinking, or are they simply defending one particular worldview? The late Marcello Truzzi came to think so: despite being the co-founding chairman of the influential skeptical group CSICOP (the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), Truzzi soon became disillusioned with the organization, saying they “tend to block honest inquiry, in my opinion… Most of them are not agnostic toward claims of the paranormal; they are out to knock them.” Truzzi claimed that by using the title of ‘skeptic’, biased debunkers had claimed an authority that they were not entitled to, opining that “critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves ‘skeptics’ are actually pseudo-skeptics and have, I believed, gained a false advantage by usurping that label.” Should we be more skeptical of the skeptics?
If there is one skeptic who stands above all others in terms of being regarded as an authoritative voice, it must surely be Martin Gardner. Through the course of his life, Gardner – who passed away aged 95 in May 2010 – published more than seventy books on such diverse topics as mathematics, science, philosophy, literature and skepticism. For a quarter of a century he was also the writer of the ‘Mathematical Games’ column in Scientific American, and as a consequence he has influenced many of the modern day’s top academics in the hard sciences. His opinion therefore commands much respect from intellectuals. Every two years a ‘Gathering for Gardner’ is held to celebrate his lifelong contributions (to maths in particular), and has been attended by the likes of Stephen Wolfram and John Conway. Douglas Hofstadter described Gardner as “one of the great intellects produced in this country in this century,” and Arthur C. Clarke once labeled him a “national treasure.”
Gardner has also long been one of the major voices in the skeptical movement; George Hansen describes him as “the single most powerful critic of the paranormal in the second half of the 20th century”. Gardner was writing ‘skeptical’ books long before the modern movement ‘began’ in earnest with the inception of CSICOP (now known as CSI) in the 1970s – his seminal deconstruction of pseudoscience, In the Name of Science (later renamed Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science), had been published two decades previous in 1952. Gardner’s antipathy towards the supernatural was perhaps a natural outgrowth of his academic interests, skepticism,
As an example of Gardner’s influence on discourse about paranormal topics, consider the reference to one of his essays in the New York Times review of Deborah Blum’s book Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. Blum’s book tells the (partial) story of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) – a group of academics, including the likes of William James, Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge, who came together in the late 19th century to try to solve the question of life after death – and its investigation of Mrs. Leonora Piper, one of the most successful mediums of modern times. Anthony Gottlieb’s New York Times review suggests that Blum might have taken a different view of Mrs. Piper’s mediumship if she had read Martin Gardner’s critique of the SPR’s research prior to writing Ghost Hunters:
The book is peppered with narratives reporting ghost stories and seances. Blum writes that these are “derived from” documents, often from the society’s archives, although the telling of them is her own. But these narratives obscure the methods that mediums like Mrs. Piper used – methods that have been explained by debunkers like Martin Gardner, who in 1992 published a long exposé called “How Mrs. Piper Bamboozled William James.” For example, Blum’s ghost narratives do not show, as Gardner did, how Mrs. Piper fished for information by gauging her sitters’ responses to all her wrong answers, or mined the information available from earlier sittings, from sittings with others and from things said while her sitters believed she was unconscious in a trance.
In this particular instance all of Blum’s narratives, sourced from documents written by the original researchers, are painted over with one broad brush-stroke by invoking Gardner’s name. His essay, it seems, lays bare the techniques of deception used by Mrs. Piper – a mix of fishing (also known as cold reading) and devious information mining – which have over the course of a century fooled researchers and writers lacking the critical thinking skills and magical insights of a Martin Gardner. This is a bold claim – the original SPR reports on the Piper case had contributions from some of the finest minds of the time, and run to thousands of pages in total length. In short, the investigation of the mediumship of Mrs. Piper is one of the most comprehensive and well-documented in the history of psychical research. Is Gardner’s authority in this case being overstated?
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The rest (Skeptiko has a far too low maximum-character setting) -> http://dailygrail.com/Essays/2010/11/Skeptical-Skeptic
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