Martin Gardner, 1914-2010

Acabo de enterarme del fallecimiento de Martin Gardner, ocurrido el 22 de mayo de 2010, uno de los autores que más he disfrutado leyendo, De su vastísima obra solo tengo la compilación de Penguin, The Night Is Large. Collected Essays, 1938-1995, pero muchos de sus artículos están disponibles en la web. Ver por ejemplo algunos de sus últimos textos en Skeptical Inquirer:

http://www.csicop.org/si/archive/category/notes_of_a_fringe-watcher

Gardner fue un filósofo dedicado a la divulgación científica y matemática, con una amplísima producción periodística y ensayística. Fue una suerte de militante del uso de la ciencia y del razonamiento científico como antídotos al dogmatismo, a la superstición, a los razonamientos conspirativos, a la "seudociencia", a la alienación religiosa, al embrutecimiento de las masas a través de los medios. De esta manera, es parte de la estirpe a la que pertenecen Richard Dawkins o Stephen Jay Gould. Sobre Gardner ver:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/us/24gardner.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner
http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2008/09/the-martin-gardner-interview/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=profile-of-martin-gardner
http://www.economist.com/node/16271035?story_id=16271035 (de allí tomé la foto)

Para mantener el espíritu "gardneriano" recomiendo seguir:

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
http://richarddawkins.net/

The Committee for Skeptical Inquirer
http://www.csicop.org/

SkepticBlog
http://skepticblog.org/

Con el tiempo me he convencido de que la actitud y el pensamiento crítico, el razonamiento basado en la evidencia y en los rudimentos del método científico, una desconfianza frente a lo que parecen verdades absolutas y sentidos comunes establecidos, un moderado escepticismo frente a las certezas y convicciones propias y ajenas, la disposición a dudar de uno mismo y aprender de los demás, de contrastar nuestras ideas con otras maneras de ver las cosas y con nueva información, deben formar parte de un hábito cotidiano ciudadano, y no solo consideraciones propias de la academia. En el fondo, se trata de una receta contra el autoritarismo, la intolerancia, la indiferencia, una defensa del pluralismo y del reconocimiento de la dignidad de los demás.

Para terminar, reproduzo parte de un reciente post de Brian Dunning en skepticblog, en el cual glosa un texto de Gardner publicado en Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science (1957), en el que este caracteriza a un "crank". Como ellos abundan en la "blogósfera", me pareció pertinente citarlo. Cuidado con estos personajes, y evitemos comportarnos como ellos:

"Gardner didn’t really put his points into the form of a list, so I’m taking some liberties here and rearranging them into bullet points. So here are the things you need to make sure you’re not doing:

- Cranks tend to work in isolation from their colleagues. This is conducive to drifting far afield. If you want to stay abreast of the latest developments, you usually want to be part of the community. If you’re not, you proceed unchecked, and you lack the checks and balances and corrections of peer review. Isolation is rarely or never the best way to insure that your work is on track.

- Cranks tend to be paranoid. They worry that their important discoveries are being spied upon, that evil forces are out to destroy their reputations, that colleagues are conspiring to suppress their discoveries. Nobody doing legitimate science, or working within the scientific method, has any plausible reason to be paranoid about such things. Can any legitimate scientist recall the last time they conspired to suppress good work?

- Cranks tend to consider themselves geniuses. Cranks tend to learn early on that their work is pretty unique. For some reason they often fail to consider the possibility that this uniqueness is for any reason other than its utter brilliance. “I’m the only one smart enough to see this” a pretty clear red flag. Beware of anyone who claims unique insight.

- Cranks tend to regard their colleagues and critics as stupid. The Dunning-Kruger effect (no relation to me) is expressed when people of mediocre ability are unable to perceive their own mediocrity, and unable to comprehend that others may be smarter or more capable than they. When a crank sees a colleague doing different work or coming to different conclusions, it may well be that his own incompetence prevents him from understanding that it’s possible for others to be smarter. Therefore, the colleagues’ different conclusions can only be due to their stupidity.

- Cranks tend to believe there is a conspiracy against them. Why will nobody publish their paper or invite them to speak at conferences? Is it because their work is poor? No, it must be a conspiracy to protect to status quo and to suppress innovation. A crank is so convinced of his own correctness that there doesn’t seem to be any rational reason for the community to dispute his work, therefore a conspiracy seems to be a better explanation.

- Cranks tend to criticize the work of big names in science. Einstein is usually the favorite. When a good scientist finds a flaw in established theory, that theory rarely happens to be from one of the big names in science; not because the big names are special or infallible, but simply because the huge number of scientists in the world dilutes the big names down to a tiny percentage. Cranks probably tend to go after big names because their own limited expertise makes them more familiar with the big names than with the actual science being done in the field. Have you ever doubted Einstein, at a time when you could genuinely claim to have a thorough understanding of all the work done since his time?

- Cranks tend to invent their own terminology, sometimes their own sciences, and tend to write in their own overcomplicated jargon. Beware of the article that discusses a science with terminology not found on Wikipedia. Beware of any scientist that invents his own name for a new science. Obviously all new sciences do originally need to be named, but the number of crank theories with made-up names is much, much larger. And beware of any article that is written with such jargon in an overcomplicated way that makes no sense. Don’t jump to the conclusion that the author is smarter than you; he may simply be a crank".

http://skepticblog.org/2010/07/08/martin-gardners-signs-of-a-crank/