Martin Gardner

From RationalWiki

Martin Gardner is an American mathematics and science writer. He specializes in "recreational mathematics", and for many years he wrote the column "Recreational Mathematics" in Scientific American magazine. He also studies magic, pseudoscience, literature, philosophy, and religion. Gardner is also a prolific author, and has written numerous books across many subjects (The Annotated Alice, a critical edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland being one of the most famous),

His book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, (originally published in 1952, later updated and republished in its current form in 1957), is regarded as a seminal work of the skeptical movement, describing a number of the popular forms of woo that were current in the day (including the works of Wilhelm Reich and L. Ron Hubbard, as well as American racism before the Civil Rights Movement and Christian fundamentalism (which he addressed well before its heyday in American politics several decades later). Gardner wrote a great deal on the paranormal and was a harsh critic of the Human Potential movement. He has also long been a prominent opponent of Israeli magician/"psychic" Uri Geller.

Gardner is unusual among prominent skeptics for being a theist (though not a Christian). Gardner is believed to have coined the term "fideist" for someone who chooses to believe in a god or gods because it is comforting, and not because there is evidence.