Martin Gardner - Controversy

Controversy

Although personally shy and almost never willing to make public appearances, Gardner was an avid controversialist through the medium of his many publications and letters. Best known are his stances against pseudoscience (especially parapsychology) and conservative Christianity, but over the years he held forth on many contemporary issues, arguing for his points of view in a wide range of fields, from general semantics to fuzzy logic to watching TV (he once wrote a negative review of Jerry Mander's book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television). His philosophical views are described and defended in his book The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener (1983, revised 1999). Under the pseudonym "George Groth", Gardner panned his own book for the New York Review of Books. Although Gardner was a fierce critic of paranormal claims, under his "George Groth" pseudonym he wrote an article for Fate magazine (October 1952, pp. 39–43) titled "He Writes with Your Hand," which touted the psychic abilities of mentalist Stanley Jaks as genuine.

Gardner was known for his sometimes controversial philosophy of mathematics. He wrote negative reviews of The Mathematical Experience by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh and What is mathematics, really? by Hersh, each of which were critical of aspects of mathematical Platonism, and the first of which was well received by the mathematical community. While Gardner was often perceived as a hard-core Platonist, his reviews demonstrated some formalist tendencies. Gardner maintained that his views are widespread among mathematicians, but Hersh has countered that in his experience as a professional mathematician and speaker, this is not the case.