When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish: And Other Speculations About This and That

Martin Gardner was the longtime writer of the Mathematical Games column for Scientific American and spent decades debunking what he called "fads and fallacies in the name of science." This essay collection showcases his work primarily in this debunking role. When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish targets a range of subjects, including Ann Coulter's credentials as an evolutionary biologist, the logical fallacies of precognition and extrasensory perception, Santa Claus, The Wizard of Oz, mutilated chessboards, and the poet Langdon Smith, who wrote the line that inspired this volume's title. The essays are organized into seven categories: Science, Bogus Science, Mathematics, Logic, Literature, Religion and Philosophy, and Politics. Throughout, Gardner combines extensive knowledge with humor.