The New Age | Martin Gardner

This book is a classic of skeptical literature and a bountiful offering of the delightful drollery and horse sense that has made Martin Gardner the undisputed dean of the critics of pseudoscience. It is also a quick way to get up to speed on many topics.

Thirty-three chapters examine topics as diverse as Project Alpha, magicians in the Psi lab, perpetual motion, psychic surgery, the face on Mars, psychokinesis, channeling, primetime preachers, and creationism.

Gardner is not afraid to examine the process of critical examination itself in chapters on debunking, relevance of belief systems, and chicanery in science.