[FOM] Response / critical review of Franzen's Gödel book

[charlie]

	    What exactly is meant by "serious" abuses of G's thms?  I'm puzzled, since throwing around mistaken versions of G's th'm, Russell's Paradox, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle etc., are ubiquitous.  I wouldn't know what would make them "serious".   It seems clear to me that the purpose writers have in alluding to these principles is simply to appear impressive to their audience.  Sokal & Bricmont indicate that flawed technical references often achieve this purpose.

On Mar 26, 2012, at 6:28 PM, // ravi wrote:

> [to the moderators: apologies if this is outside the scope of this list]
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> while I have come across many positive reviews of Torkel Franzén’s "Gödel’s Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to Its Use and Abuse” such as Panu Raatikainen’s in the AMS (http://www.ams.org/notices/200703/rev-raatikainen.pdf), searches do not yield any critical treatment of the book or a defence by those [implicitly] accused of “abuse” of the result(s). I am curious if there are any serious ones and I would greatly appreciate any pointers.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 	—ravi
> 
> 
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