Martin Gardner has been hailed as one of the great thinkers in this country. If that's true, then America must be pretty hopeless.His collection of essays certainly proves the scope of his knowledge--as well as the superficiality. Mr. Gardner knows a little about everything, but the little that he knows doesn't stop him from making seemingly authoritative comments. To be blunt, much of this is rather cheap journalism, with the pretension of erudition . Mr. Gardner, alas, gets too many things wrong. And I will not be surprised when, twenty years later, the world finds him forgotten.