…and this is a 
Deepak Chopra does it again
Category: Kooks
Posted on: October 6, 2006 11:38 PM, by PZ Myers
Deepak Chopra really is an embarrassment. I've tussled with his weird arguments before, and now he's flounced onto the Huffington Post with another article (prompted by an article on human genetics in Time, but bearing almost no relationship to it) in which he reveals his profound ignorance of biology, in something titled The Trouble With Genes. Chopra is a doctor, supposedly, but every time I read something by him that touches on biology, he sounds as ignorant as your average creationist. He also writes incredibly poorly, bumbling his way forward with a succession of unlikely and indefensible claims. This latest article is one in which I think he's trying to criticize the very idea of genes, but it's more like he's criticizing his own lack of knowledge.
It's amazing to realize that nobody really knows what a gene is or how it works, even though the word 'gene' has become the miracle of the hour.
Nobody? Or Deepak Chopra?
There are complexities in defining the details of what a gene is, and there are all kinds of fascinating exceptions and quirks; we find differences of opinion between the operational definitions of a classical geneticist and the molecular and computational approaches of a bioinformaticist, for instance. There are real papers in the literature that wrestle with what we mean by the concept of the gene, and if this were such a work, it might have been the start of an interesting discussion. As we'll quickly see, it is not such a work.
Almost every bit of important research in biology and medicine over the past decade has centered on genetics. After the successful mapping of the human genome, we were told that an enormous range of disease will prove curable through gene therapy.
OK, this is another worthwhile point—there has been a lot of hype, and the ease of translating basic research into applied therapies has been oversold. Again, this is material that could make for an interesting paper.
Instead, though, what we get is the maunderings of a third-rate mind with no understanding of even decades-old ideas. Instead of revealing any working knowledge of biological thought, Chopra gives us a list of questions about the gene that he is wondering about, and also claiming that no one else understands, and babbling foolishly. Some of these would be good questions coming from a student who seriously wanted to learn, but coming from an M.D. who routinely pontificates on how your body works, and stated with such a stunning certainty that because he doesn't know, no one else does either, this is an infuriating list. Can we get Chopra's license to practice medicine revoked, if he has one?
No one knows how genes make inanimate chemicals like hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen come to life.
This is a very peculiar complaint. Hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen don't "come to life". The fundamental activities going on in the cell are chemistry. There isn't anything magical going on.
The ability of DNA to replicate has never been explained.
How strange. You can find a short summary of the biochemistry of replication on Wikipedia. Arthur Kornberg, father of the recent winner of the Nobel in chemistry, won the Nobel himself in 1959 for the discovery of DNA polymerase (that's right, 1959. Where's Chopra been?) This has been the stuff of undergraduate cell biology courses for at least 30 years.
We don't know how genes time their actions years or decades in advance.
This doesn't make sense. We know lots of factors that regulate gene expression on various time scales, from seconds to months. We understand much of the process of maturation that leads to, for instance, new patterns of gene expression in humans at puberty. I'd suggest that Chopra look up the term epigenesis sometime, if I weren't certain he wouldn't understand it.
Having mapped the sequence of genes, we don't know what the sequence means, only that it exists.
Ah, well. This is finally a statement where he's close to saying something valid. He's wrong that we only know that the sequence exists; we do know quite a bit about some parts of the genome, and what those parts do. There is a lot more to learn, though.
Having found out that mice share 90% of human genes and gorillas over 99%, we can't explain how the tremendous differences between species should come down to such a tiny fraction of the genetic code.
Yes, we can. A great many genes carry out functions that are the same in people and mice and chimpanzees: we all carry out the same processes of basic metabolism, for instance, we all have an enzyme called pyruvate carboxylase, which adds a carbon to a 3-carbon molecule to form the 4-carbon oxaloacetate. Why should we expect this to be different between a human and a mouse, or between a human and a carrot? Our biochemistry is mostly the same, and we'll all have this similar set of genes for the essential enzymes. Then look at our overall form: we've all got lungs and livers and kidneys and teeth. The genetic substrates that will build these organs will use the same genes in all of us. Finally, what makes people distinct from mice isn't entirely the nucleotide sequence of our genes, but how those genes are switched off and on—a process modified by very small changes to the genome.
Similarity to a high degree is what we should expect.
We can't explain why people with the same genes (identical twins) turn out to be different in so many ways as they grow up and age.
Let's remember that word "epigenesis" again. Development is a process in which genes interact with each other and the environment; everyone, even identical twins, experience slightly different environments. As a trivial example, whisper a secret into one twin's ear, and not the other's. Voila, the two people have two different circumstances despite having nearly identical genes!
We don't know why over 90% of genes are inactive at any given time.
Where did this 90% number come from, I wonder? It doesn't sound right.
No matter, we do know. This is what molecular genetics/developmental genetics is all about: differential gene expression. Different interactions during development set up different patterns of gene expression in different tissues. We wouldn't expect a pancreatic cell to have all of the same genes active as a skin cell, but we know that in their nuclei pancreatic and skin cells do have the same set of genes present.
We don't know why evolution developed genes that cause cancer, and why such genes weren't weeded out after they appeared.
Is this a rather muddled interpretation of oncogenes? There are genes that are known to be involved in cancer, called oncogenes. They are mutated or otherwise modified forms of genes called proto-oncogenes. For example, some of these genes are important in causing cell death; if some kind of somatic mutation causes a cell to proliferate uncontrollably, these genes respond to the abnormal activity by triggering destruction of the cell. These genes evolved to suppress cancers (they obviously have a selective advantage, because people with them live longer—they don't keel over at an early age, riddled with tumors).
Proto-oncogenes are genes that prevent cancer. They are called cancer genes because patients with damage to these genes in certain cells get cancers.
Isn't it a little embarrassing for an M.D. like Chopra to not know this?
We don't know if genes cause or prevent aging. In the same vein, we don't know if they cause or prevent cellular death, since there is evidence that they do both.
We know that some genes are involved in aging. We know that the environment is also important in aging. Of course there are genes involved in both causing and preventing cell death—this is a process in a kind of dynamic tension, with cells balanced between healthy growth and death.
Chopra is just babbling to himself here, trying to sound profound, I think.
We haven't unraveled the significance of the space on the DNA strand, even though the blank spots in our genetic code may be just as important, if not more, than the genetic material itself.
Uh, the spaces between genes are part of the genetic material. In general, this looks like incomprehension of basic ideas in genetic structure. There are various classes of repetitive DNA, there are pseudogenes, there are random stretches of nucleotides, there are specific regulatory regions, there are coding regions of DNA (there are, however, no blank spots). While there are still mysteries in there, it's not as if we don't know anything…and in particular, there is no evidence that junk DNA (which is what I presume he means by "blank spots") is more important than the rest. That claim sounds rather goofy, actually.
Genes respond to the outside world as well as to behavior and thoughts, but we don't know how or why except in the most general terms.
Thoughts? We don't think genes on or off, unless he's talking about such processes as learning and memory, where mental activity leads to patterns in gene expression, and a couple of guys, including Eric Kandel, won Nobels for figuring out mechanisms of signal transduction in the nervous system. We also know in great detail how many developmental genes regulate their activity.
I would like to give Deepak Chopra a prescription. Read Molecular Biology of the Cell(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). The answers he's looking for are all in there.
Comments
I understand that doctors generally do not have the extensive theoretical framework that biologists will delve into, but this is inexcusable.
Posted by: A,Y. | October 6, 2006 11:54 PM
What's the point of Chopra even writing something like this? If he wants to fool around with some sort of "mind-body" whatever, I say "go for it". I didn't realize anyone had to abandon their scientific endeavors for his to continue! Talk about ego...
Posted by: Daephex | October 7, 2006 12:27 AM
Deepak Chopra is the main reason I don't read the Huffington Post.
Posted by: John | October 7, 2006 12:35 AM
Deepocket's shtick is his quasi-mystical sense of the wonders of the human body and the world around us. So I wonder if his apparent ignorance of genetics is just a play to his audience of mystico-scientific New Age readers. His books sell remarkably well (sadly) because he knows how to couch his language to sell to his target audience. Most of what he writes is drivel, but his readers must love drivel.
Posted by: wheatdogg | October 7, 2006 12:37 AM
Chopra is not a scientist, no matter what his credentials. He writes pop-fad crap to suck money out of yokels, and it's little wonder he'd hurry to cash in on this new "evolushun bad" thing. It might help to think of the difference between a climatologist and a TV weatherman (or review the lyrics to Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry").
Far as his audience is concerned, might as well criticize P.T. Barnum for flawed anatomy on the pickled mermaids, for all the good it does.
Talking science is always worthwhile. But Chopra's audience will never hear you over the sound of the calliope and the distant chant of pop-carnival barkers: HURRAY, HURRAY! STEP RIGHT UP! SEE DEEPAK CHOPRA TAKE A CHEAP SHOT AT DARWIN! HURRAY, HURRAY!
Posted by: Hank Fox | October 7, 2006 12:38 AM
It's so easy to go around shouting that We Don't Know stuff! And scare people with the Nuclear Bogeyman of Science!
The folks in the comments section there are really taking Deepak behind the woodshed though.
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 7, 2006 1:01 AM
This guy's ignorance is both astonishing and horrifying.
Was he snorting curry powder when he was taking biology classes in college?
Posted by: Stanton | October 7, 2006 1:12 AM
I'm stunned whenever anybody mentions Chopra, except of course, Deepak himself. The guy might as well put on a wizard hat on. Anything this hard to understand must be magic.
Posted by: Robster | October 7, 2006 1:18 AM
They also seem to be beating up on Time. I looked over that article, and I couldn't find any huge glaring mistakes. Did I miss something, or are the commenters assuming that Time got it wrong because Chopra got it wrong?
Posted by: RCP | October 7, 2006 1:19 AM
That is an amazingly bad article. Chopra is really ignorant.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | October 7, 2006 1:26 AM
People aren't embarrassed by their own stupidity anymore. They flaunt it. It's frightening.
He's just making stuff up to sell books. He's been doing it for years and years. He's like a one man stupidity-spreading operation.
He says things like this:
"The physical world, including our bodies, is a response of the observer. We create our bodies as we create the experience of our world."
"The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years."
"You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices."
And people eat it up. Why? They want to believe a lot of new age b.s. to feel better about themselves.
Posted by: George | October 7, 2006 1:34 AM
How genes make hydrogen, oxygen, etc. become alive? Chemistry does not explain it.
Choprak is more than ignorant. He is purposefully creating a sense of mystery where there is none. He must be making a lot of money with this nonsense.
Posted by: jaimito | October 7, 2006 1:52 AM
I pretty much gave up after the very first words of the article:
It's amazing to realize that nobody really knows what a gene is or how it works...
Yikes. What a total fucking tool. Is any further comment really warranted here?
Posted by: Millimeter Wave | October 7, 2006 4:19 AM
We haven't unraveled the significance of the space on the DNA strand, even though the blank spots in our genetic code may be just as important, if not more, than the genetic material itself.
I think even PZ may be interpreting Chopra to be less ignorant than he is. To me this is him claiming that the space between the actual nucleotides in the double-helical structure of DNA (i.e., the hydrogen bonds) is what "may just as important, if not more" than the genes themselves.
It sounds like a blatant ploy to invoke a new version of elan vital.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | October 7, 2006 4:49 AM
This has been the stuff of undergraduate cell biology courses for at least 30 years.
Nope wrong, this has been the stuff of undergraduate biology courses for at least 36 years because that was when I was taking those courses. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny 'What a maroon'
Posted by: Natasha Yar-Routh | October 7, 2006 5:03 AM
Is this guy trying to sell another new age book?
Posted by: Gun Of Sod | October 7, 2006 6:10 AM
"The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years."
Actually, this is true in some cases. For instance, thinking that eating a sizable quantity of rubidium is a good idea, then acting on it, will have a profound effect on the length of your life.
Posted by: Azkyroth | October 7, 2006 6:47 AM
I became thoroughly disillusioned with Chopra after his earlier idiotic essay on Huffington Post during the Kitzmiller trial. It was a equally nonsensical piece supposedly presenting the 'alternative' to ID - by ignoring real science even more than the ID wackos do. This is just more of the same drivel and I wish he'd stop embarrassing himself.
Posted by: stefan | October 7, 2006 7:46 AM
Chopra is a bona fide crackpot, and a charlatan. He came to speak at a school where I worked once and gave a talk where he went on an on about the connection between your physical body and your "quantum body". It was clear that there was nothing deeper in his idea of the word "quantum" than a sort of confused sense of weirdness that came from skimming a copy of "The Tao of Physics".
Posted by: dr. dave | October 7, 2006 7:52 AM
Apparently Chopra gets his information on genetics from Time Magazine (then no doubt misinterprets it). Strange source of information for one who is supposed to be a medical doctor. I wonder where his degree came from?
I went over to Huffinton post to look at the comments. Every one is against Chopra (their label: abusive). My favorite:
"You have proven yourself as guilty as all those lazy, ignorant and bumblings MSM journalists who are so prevalent these days in so-called respected newspapers, newsmagazines, television and radio.
Shame on you."
Posted by: oldhippie | October 7, 2006 8:18 AM
You know how I was complaining about people like Alton Verm were giving me headaches by making me slap my forehead in disbelief?
Turns out Chopra is a walking migraine.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 7, 2006 9:02 AM
This is one of the clowns educational [sic] tv likes to trot out during fundraising month (which seems to come every three weeks). Hmmm...maybe that's why it's now referred to as public tv.
Posted by: mark | October 7, 2006 10:11 AM
Not exactly, PZ. You seem to be discussing tumor suppressor genes, not proto-oncogenes. Proto-oncogenes are not usually genes that prevent cancer.
Proto-oncogenes tend to be genes that are involved in critical growth processes. Most often, they are involved in the mitogenic signal transduction pathways that lead to proliferation (Think Her-2/neu or c-myc, for example.) Generally, they are classes of genes for which certain mutations can result in transformation because overexpression or inability to shut off their function is pro-proliferative and anti-differentiation. Some common classes of oncogenes include receptor tyrosine kinases, growth factors, serine/threonine kinases, pro-proliferative transcription factors (c-myc, again). Mutations that either increase the expression of these gene products or eliminate the regulation that shuts them off result in them becoming oncogenic.
It is tumor suppressor genes, on the other hand, whose function is generally pro-apoptotic, anti-proliferative, and pro-differentiation and whose loss of function results in transformation. Think Rb, APC, PTEN (involved in cell arrest due to DNA damage; when inactivated it lets cells with damaged DNA continue to replicate rather than undergoing apoptosis). Some homeobox genes appear to be tumor suppressors: for instance, HOXA5 in breast cancer.
The granddaddy of all tumor suppressor genes, p53, is a rather interesting example that illustrates the difference between proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressors. When first identified, it was thought initially to be an oncogene, because its levels were increased in many tumors. It was later realized that overexpressing the wild type p53 protein did not result in transformation. In fact, p53 is a tumor suppressor. It has been sometimes called the "guardian of the genome," because of its function in shutting down cell replication when DNA damage is detected until the DNA can either be repaired or apoptosis pathways are activated, thus preventing the propagation of mutations. It has a major role in regulating cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, and cell senescence. It turns out that the p53 protein that was found at such high levels in many tumors is, in fact, a mutated and inactive form of the gene, and many p53 mutations have now been characterized.
Posted by: Orac | October 7, 2006 11:01 AM
As I mentioned on The Panda's Thumb, Chopra was recently at one of my alma maters for an invited talk. I think it was in the faculty of religious studies, but I am not sure. Regardless, I suspect that he had another auditorium full of fawning followers and not a critic in sight ... academics are too polite, sometimes.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | October 7, 2006 11:06 AM
As a group, it seems academics are too polite all of the time, excepting only when they are unspeakably rude.
Posted by: Caledonian | October 7, 2006 11:08 AM
We don't know why over 90% of genes are inactive at any given time.
Where did this 90% number come from, I wonder? It doesn't sound right.
Didn't you know, PZ? 84% of statistics are made up on the spot!
Posted by: Junk Jungle | October 7, 2006 11:10 AM
You became disillusioned then? Chopra's been spouting idiocy for many years now. He's a total flake, and his ignorance of basic molecular biology is appallling.
Posted by: Orac | October 7, 2006 11:18 AM
Everytime someone says "Deepak like Deepak Chopra", I cringe ... not that fraud. There is a good reason that he isn't taken seriously back in India.
Posted by: Deepak | October 7, 2006 11:51 AM
So he's figured out that skittish IDiots are more likely to buy his worthless books than people who are comfortable with the idea of a godless universe? How shocking.
Posted by: junk science | October 7, 2006 12:02 PM
The whole point of Chopra's post is revealed in the last two paragraphs - it's to push his "mind-body" healing drivel. Genetics are still a "mystery" so stick to "mind-body" healing.
Posted by: Skeptico | October 7, 2006 12:27 PM
A couple of years ago (I'm a journalist) I was sent to report on Chopra's "Creating Health" seminar, a five-day retreat for people who are (or feel) sick...cost - about $5,000 to receive nutritional counseling, yoga classes, and a "personal mantra," all of which is supposed to cure any ailment.
I had little sympathy for the self-absorbed yuppies who spent the $$$ to cure their perceived sniffles, migranes, and spiritual malaise...what was appalling was that there was a woman there with her ten-year old son, who was suffering from inoperable brain cancer. She was a social worker - clearly not wealthy - and had spent the money for her and her son to attend Chopra's seminar as a last ditch attempt. During our single, 30 minute "audience" with Chopra, he told the boy that "he had the power within himself to heal the cancer, and if he failed at it, it was because he'd been unable to harness the power."
Nice thing to say to a dying kid and his mother - especially after you've taken their money.
Chopra is more than just a glib, ignorant pop-culture ninny - he's a classic huckster, a fraud, and a criminal. I don't understand why - when he consistently offers information that is wrong at best, and dangerous at worst - he doesn't have his medical license revoked.
Posted by: DK | October 7, 2006 12:38 PM
That's unspeakably cruel, DK. But I've noticed a selective morality in altie circles, where outrages like that committed by circuit personalities never gain traction the way everyday jerkdom committed by MDs or pharma do.
Once in massage school we were taught Louise Hay's preaching that birth defects are a result of bad karma in a previous life, and everyone else in the class was nodding and absorbing. No way I should have been the only one protesting that that assertion was not only cruel and unprovable, it was nothing more than "blame the victim" dressed up in pseudo-Buddhist language--and yet, somehow I was.
Posted by: RavenT | October 7, 2006 12:51 PM
I understand that doctors generally do not have the extensive theoretical framework that biologists will delve into, but this is inexcusable.
Doctors. In my "critic of the aquatic ape theory" persona, I've dealt many times with a doctor, Marc Verhaegen, who denies basic facts of physiology. For instance, when I pointed out that "it [human body temperature] does fluctuate even in resting humans (exercise of course makes it fluctuate even more). Temperature typically varies in a resting human through the day in a range of 2-3 degrees C." Verhaegen's reply was "That's nonsense, as every doctor knows." It's not the only facts he doesn't know, but it's so basic that even a medical doctor :) really ought to know it.
Posted by: QrazyQat | October 7, 2006 12:57 PM
It sounds as if Chopra is a vitalist. He's probably only unusual in coming out an admitting it. IDers aren't stupid enough to do so. I think that if you drill deeper on the ignorance of most Americans about biology, you'd find that they don't merely reject evolution, but don't really believe that life follows from the same natural laws governing non-living material.
I've harped on this point before, but the process by which a single cell with an genetic encoding becomes a complex multicellular organism contains plenty of "gaps" in the sense that there is no need to close the journals any time soon, and grad students are in no danger of running out of dissertation topics. I would argue that the existence of self-replicating, self-repairing multicellular organisms with a robust genetic encoding is itself far more remarkable than the fact that evolution occurs given the former. But the process of development, unlike evolution, is something we can readily study in human time scales and repeat in the lab. That's the only reason that IDers are not stupid enough to challenge the entire basic of the life sciences and push some form of vitalism. It's certainly not because it is a less mysterious process than evolution. Admittedly, Chopra is also probably not stupid. He just has a different audience of suckers to get rich on.
Posted by: PaulC | October 7, 2006 1:09 PM
Will everybody please stop calling for Chopra's medical license to be revoked? He doesn't have one. (He did, apparently, have a successful medical career, which he gave up for ayurvedic medicine & Transcendental Meditation (TM) in 1985.)
According to http://www.answers.com/topic/deepak-chopra-m-d -
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | October 7, 2006 1:17 PM
Oh, jeez...
Just to pile on, the 90% inactive genes thing sounds a lot like the old "we only use 10% of our brains" myth.
Oh, and cancer and aging: after an organism reproduces and does what it can to ensure it's offspring's survival, there is no selective pressure to continue to be perfectly healthy. In fact, there is the argument that members of a species that are no longer reproducing (or taking care of their offspring, depending on lifestyle) may actually be hurting their offspring's chances of success by competing with them for resources.
In the case of salmon, which are perfectly healthy, and then, as soon as they spawn, rapidly degenerate and die, in a process that looks a lot like rapid aging, it seems that aging and death is genetically programmed to get them out of the way to make room for the next generation.
Posted by: dAVE | October 7, 2006 1:18 PM
Ah, the old romanticist "it's spiritual not to know" crap. I don't call him Deep Choke for no reason.
Posted by: Kristine | October 7, 2006 1:31 PM
dAVE, I've always found that line of thought compellingly interesting, not only biologically, but in terms of how people have addressed philosophical issues of meaning, among other topics, in the context of mortality. Here's a blog post I had fun writing along those lines last year.
Posted by: RavenT | October 7, 2006 1:33 PM
Pierce, thanks for the info on Chopra's license. Perhaps the reason people continue to call for revocation is that Chopra - if not claiming that he is a doctor - does everything he can to encourage that perception.
Posted by: DK | October 7, 2006 1:34 PM
Ken Wilber is another spiritually oriented thinker that has some basic problems with science. However, unlike Chopra, WIlber has made valuable contributions to several fields, noticably psychology. I believe I understand the world much clearer after reading him, even though I don't agree with all his ideas.
In his book Grace and Grit, Wilber speaks from multiple viewpoints about his wifes experience dying of cancer. In this book he offers insightful criticisms of both conventional and new age approaches to medicine. His criticism of new age bullshit centers on the idea of levels. His idea is that people have different levels, for example, a biological level, and a psychological level, and an abstract level, and a spiritual level, etc. He postulates that different formulations of the self across cultures share this same basic shape, some (like psychoanalysis) clumping two levels together and others (some hindu beliefs) doing further subdivisions.
Anyway, his point was that illness can occur on different levels. You can have a biological sickness (like cancer), or a spiritual sickness (like some manifestations of alcoholism), and each is best treated by therapies on that same level. His point is that both types of healers try and apply the techniques of their level to illnesses at other levels. This is disasterous. Trying to treat a spiritual crisis with antidepressants is ineffective, and harms the patient. Likewise, trying to treat a biological problem, like cancer, from a spiritual perspective is ineffective and harmful to the patient. In this case, the patient is made to feel guilty for being unable to change the course of a biological illness via spiritual means. These spiritual teachers are ignorant that biological illness has biological causes. Thus, they fradulently hoist non-biological cures that won't work.
It is important to make this distinction though, because spiritual teachers (who might be very ignorant of science) do help people with spiritual crisis all the time. They are as valuable at this role as the doctor is at treating biological illness. I work with people who are dying day in and day out, and based on this work, I believe how a human responds to dying is related to the spiritual aspect people like Deepak Chopra speak to. Because of this, I find some of the work people like him do valuable, because it does offer comfort to people who are dying or going through other spiritual crisis. That said, I would prefer if he kept working on spirituality instead of trying to co-opt biology.
Posted by: TomK | October 7, 2006 1:47 PM
BTW, I just remember another thing Chopra told us during that week - his ASTONISHING proof for the existence of the immortal human soul...
"In science," he said, "you learn that a radio signal that is broadcast on earth travels into space, continuing outward forever. So, if you had a radio or televsion on Alpha Centauri, you could watch a show that was originally broadcast 40 years ago [or however long it took for the signal to reach the specific star or planet in question.]...
"Your soul," he continued, "is just like that signal. It has been 'tuned' by your body here on earth, but in fact it is on an endless journey, received throughout time by different beings and objects, just like a broadcast."
This is incredible theology - the human soul, subject of millennia of inquiry, introspection, and debate, by the greatest minds in history - reduced: it - and we - are basically episodes of "Gilligan's Island."
BTW, he described this theory as "Quantum Physics." !!!!!!
Posted by: DK | October 7, 2006 1:50 PM
"Hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen don't "come to life". The fundamental activities going on in the cell are chemistry. There isn't anything magical going on"
This is rather dismissive. There is obviously a considerable breach between chemical reactions and "come to life".
"the discovery of DNA polymerase" is one of the novelties that question the plausibility of evolution. The check and repair role of this enzyme during DNA replication presents a serious internal conflict in the theory. Since polymerase serves to inhibit replication errors to the tune of one per billion, evolution then, has supposedly produced processes which serve to prevent mutation and thus prevent evolution.
"Of course there are genes involved in both causing and preventing cell death..."
This too, is a snap disposal. There is no simple explanation for the selection of genes which deliberately age and destroy an organism, whether it be a single cell or a mammal.
"this is a process in a kind of dynamic tension, with cells balanced between healthy growth and death" recognizes that there is a paradox, but does not a rationally account for it.
Posted by: Phil Corn | October 7, 2006 1:52 PM
Tom, you're right that people are entitled to - and often need - spiritual support during difficult times. What bothers me isn't just that Chopra represents what he does as science - it's that he charges megabucks for it.
Posted by: DK | October 7, 2006 1:53 PM
Phil Corn:
Nonsense. A key driver of evolution is the process of reproduction: organisms produce multiple viable offspring that resemble themselves very closely. You cannot begin to talk about evolution until you have the possibility of exponential population growth, and this requires very faithful copying of DNA. Obviously, mutation plays an important role in evolution as well, but only in the context of mostly accurate replication.
Posted by: PaulC | October 7, 2006 1:59 PM
Indeed, and that's probably one reason why genes predisposing to diseases more common in the elderly are probably not as strongly selected against. By the time people enter the period of their lives when they are most susceptible to cancer, the vast majority of them have already reproduced as much as they are going to. You can make the same argument for other diseases of aging, like cardiovascular disease. Childhood cancer, fortunately, is a fairly rare disease, at least compared to cancer in adults and especially the elderly.
Posted by: Orac | October 7, 2006 2:14 PM
"Your soul," he continued, "is just like that signal. It has been 'tuned' by your body here on earth, but in fact it is on an endless journey, received throughout time by different beings and objects, just like a broadcast."
Wait... I'm receiving a broadcast, I'm getting something... wait... "fuck"... wait... wait... "de-men-ted"... Message received: "I, Deepak Chopra am a demented fuckwit!"
Posted by: George | October 7, 2006 2:36 PM
Imagine how muh of an embarrassment he is to Indians. Here we (Indians) are, thumping our chests about IITs and out comes this...sorry excuse for a doctor...
Posted by: SS | October 7, 2006 3:51 PM
PaulC:
"Nonsense. A key driver of evolution is the process of reproduction: organisms produce multiple viable offspring that resemble themselves very closely. You cannot begin to talk about evolution until you have the possibility of exponential population growth, and this requires very faithful copying of DNA. Obviously, mutation plays an important role in evolution as well, but only in the context of mostly accurate replication."
So then, faithful replication is a driving force in getting from a single-celled organism to millions of species.
This is not exactly one of the strong points of evolutionary thought.
Posted by: Phil Corn | October 7, 2006 4:44 PM
Hello, Pharyngula Readers, Everybody, Mind, and Spirit! :)
"This is a metaphysics of the New Agers, or gurus like Deepak Chopra--a physician turned metaphysician--and the likes!"
This is exactly what I've had commented elsewhere, Quantum mechanics: Who is the observer? (PhysOrgEU; September 14).
Upon deeper analysis--of "Genes respond to the outside world as well as to behavior and thoughts, but we don't know how or why except in the most general terms."--Chopra must have had gotten his misinterpretation of Genetics from Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, thereby "selfish gene" can be enacted by Chopra's interpretation of "behavior and thoughts!"
What a Dawkinsian fashionable nonsense, begetting another Chopra-metaphysician nonsense--please see also the ID neocreationism nonsense as a result of The Selfish Gene here, Wells: "Darwinism is doomed" because we keep making progress (ScienceBlogsUSA; September 27)!
Thank you all for your kind attention and cooperation in this matter--just a food for thought, from a self-introspective Darwinist evolutionist perspective. Happy reading, thinking, scrutinizing, and enlightening! :)
Best wishes, Mong 10/7/6usct4:01p; author Gods, Genes, Conscience and Gods, Genes, Conscience: Global Dialogues Now; a cyberspace hermit-philosopher of Modern Mind, whose works are based on the current advances in interdisciplinary science and integrative psychology of Science and Religion worldwide; ethically, morally; metacognitively, and objectively.
Posted by: Mong H Tan, PhD | October 7, 2006 5:01 PM
Hello, Pharyngula Readers, Everybody, Mind, and Spirit! :)
"This is a metaphysics of the New Agers, or gurus like Deepak Chopra--a physician turned metaphysician--and the likes!"
This is exactly what I've had commented elsewhere, Quantum mechanics: Who is the observer? (PhysOrgEU; September 14).
Upon deeper analysis--of "Genes respond to the outside world as well as to behavior and thoughts, but we don't know how or why except in the most general terms."--Chopra must have had gotten his misinterpretation of Genetics from Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, thereby "selfish gene" can be enacted by Chopra's interpretation of "behavior and thoughts!"
What a Dawkinsian fashionable nonsense, begetting another Chopra-metaphysician nonsense--please see also the ID neocreationism nonsense as a result of The Selfish Gene here, Wells: "Darwinism is doomed" because we keep making progress (ScienceBlogsUSA; September 27)!
Thank you all for your kind attention and cooperation in this matter--just a food for thought, from a self-introspective Darwinist evolutionist perspective. Happy reading, thinking, scrutinizing, and enlightening! :)
Best wishes, Mong 10/7/6usct4:01p; author Gods, Genes, Conscience and Gods, Genes, Conscience: Global Dialogues Now; a cyberspace hermit-philosopher of Modern Mind, whose works are based on the current advances in interdisciplinary science and integrative psychology of Science and Religion worldwide; ethically, morally; metacognitively, and objectively.
Posted by: Mong H Tan, PhD | October 7, 2006 5:01 PM
Posted by: Chris Beck | October 7, 2006 5:09 PM
Posted by: Chris Beck | October 7, 2006 5:16 PM
As far as I can tell, whenever Deepak Chopra comes to town to give a seminar, he avoids having critics pop up in his audience by charging stupendous ticket prices. The critics won't pay that much to heckle, but the credulous fools that already buy his babble call it a bargain.
There are people who fly in to town to attend his seminars. They are proud of themselves.
Yuck.
Posted by: Crosius | October 7, 2006 6:59 PM
Chris Beck,
"And why is extreme inter-generational fidelity not a strong point of evolutionary thought?"
Because evolution is about change, and "extreme inter-generational fidelity" has to mean the extreme lack of chamge.
"Every generation would be randomly different from the previous. As this does not happen, we see that faithful replication _is_ key."
A key to what? Faithful replication means stasis. That's more of a lock than a key.
"It actually doesn't have anything to do with evolution per se - it is an a priori condition for evolution."
So then, enzyme activity which inhibits change is a baseline condition for evolutionary change to occur.
This is the internal conflict I mentioned in my first post above.
Posted by: Phil Corn | October 7, 2006 7:11 PM
Phil Corn said: "So then, faithful replication is a driving force in getting from a single-celled organism to millions of species."
Phil, I think you're really missing the point here. In order for an organism to produce offspring that will function, there has to be pretty much exquisite fidelity in the replication process. Low-fidelity DNA replication is obviously not a wise genetic strategy for most organisms: they would simply produce completely inviable progeny as a result. For selection to work there has to be near perfect fidelity with only very low-level errors.
The lo-fidelity strategy may work for some organisms that are capable of reproducing very quickly in extremely large numbers, and therefore evolving very rapidly (like HIV, for instance). Interestingly, it seems that some organisms (E. coli, for instance) can down-regulate the fidelity of their DNA replication under extreme selective pressure, apparently in hopes of speeding up the production of extra-fit variants.
Posted by: Don Price | October 7, 2006 7:39 PM
dAVE and RavenT,
It's true that there's no selective advantage to individuals for prolonging post-reproductive lifespans. In fact, there's often a discernable bias in populations favoring shorter post-repro. lifespans, i.e. there's a nonlinear probability of death in some species which increases with post-repro. age, unlike the linear probablity of a teacup - or teapot - being broken as it "ages". Senescence studies describe and offer explanations for the nonlinearities. The fundamental logic is evolutionary, and the variety of proximal mechanisms involved is idiosyncratic between species.
But I'd be cautious about analyzing senescence as a way to 'make room' for others ... that way lies group selection.
Humans are among the species which face senescence. But we do have relatively long post-reproductive lifespans (potentially) from the positive adaptive value of grand-parenting - so it's been argued for a while. As to RavenT's speculations of the psychosocial repercussions of human age - well, human cultural intuitions about biology are whimsically variable.
Posted by: thwaite | October 7, 2006 7:52 PM
"Group selection" is neither a dirty word nor an invalid concept. Don't disparage it.
Posted by: Caledonian | October 7, 2006 8:10 PM
Good point, thwaite--in case I was not clear, I'm interested in the range of possibilities for how people interpret the biological reality, which--as you point out--can be whimsically variable, without affecting the underlying reality itself.
Posted by: RavenT | October 7, 2006 8:17 PM
dAVE wrote:
What resources would the salmon and its offspring be competing for? The juveniles will stay in the river for at least a year, several years in some species. And there's plenty of room in the sea, the salmon are not likely to encounter (or eat) their offspring when they do get there...
Another theoretical possibility is that nutrients released from the dead adults could boost production in the river and therefore help feed the juveniles. But in this case the adults would have to die upstream from their spawning site!
Posted by: windy | October 7, 2006 8:37 PM
I think Phil Corn is underestimating how unstable the genome actually is. The human genome is about 3 billion base pairs. With the error rate being 10^-10 according to my molecular bio textbook (not 10^-9 that Phil initially stated) this means there will be an error introduced every three replications of the genome. This is just the error rate of reading the template and isn't counting the errors that are caused by damage to DNA that can change the template strand. I would think this second method of introducing errors would have a greater effect on evolution, since it's more likely to be the source of things like duplications that can lead to new proteins being made.
So while I agree with the others that it is necessary to have a relatively stable genome for life to be able to funcion, I think there's still plenty of source for change to allow evolution to occur.
Posted by: mcmillan | October 7, 2006 8:58 PM
This page has a nice critique of Chopra's mind-body "quantum" healing and other nonsense:
http://skepdic.com/chopra.html
Posted by: Zetetic | October 7, 2006 9:14 PM
Posted by: John Owens | October 7, 2006 9:27 PM
Don,
"Phil, I think you're really missing the point here."
That is entirely possible Don, but so far I'm not seeing a strong presentation for the mechanisms that supposedly generated countless species. Selection of enzymes as effective as polymerase to monitor the replication process looks like a severe complication for evolutionary theory to me. Do you think my inquiry is unreasonable?
"In order for an organism to produce offspring that will function, there has to be pretty much exquisite fidelity in the replication process."
Check.
"Low-fidelity DNA replication is obviously not a wise genetic strategy for most organisms: they would simply produce completely inviable progeny as a result."
No check on this point. Random mutations and "wise genetic strategy" are incompatible concepts in my mind. Strategy is not a good word to use as it implies reason and purpose.
" For selection to work there has to be near perfect fidelity with only very low-level errors."
So then, selection only works when DNA copy errors are inconsequential. Again, this is not a good accounting for the evolution of millions of plant and animal species.
Also, there is the problem I mentioned above about mutations and selection respectively assembling and retaining genes which cause their owners to self destruct. That has to be the ultimate unwise "genetic strategy".
"The lo-fidelity strategy may work for some organisms that are capable of reproducing very quickly in extremely large numbers, and therefore evolving very rapidly (like HIV, for instance). Interestingly, it seems that some organisms (E. coli, for instance) can down-regulate the fidelity of their DNA replication under extreme selective pressure, apparently in hopes of speeding up the production of extra-fit variants."
But bacteria don't react collectively "in hopes of" anything. Anthropopathisms complicate discussions about evolution as they tend to temporarily lose track of the reality that all mutation and selection processes are accidental and without purpose.
Posted by: Phil Corn | October 7, 2006 9:32 PM
Phil - I think perhaps the issue you are having is with the magnitude of the numbers. As you've already understood, a high transcription error rate means non-viable offspring - not to mention a cancer-riddled parent individual. However, when you multiply the very low probability of error by millions of reproductive events over thousands of generations, you eventually end up with enough changes for natural selection to act on them.
Posted by: Owen | October 7, 2006 10:07 PM
Phil,
I don't see how polymerase fidelity represents a complication for evolutionary theory at all. In order for life to be possible, its replicative mechanisms have to function at such a level that the ensuing copies are similar enough to the template so as to retain some function. A complete loss of fidelity equals utter chaos which equals no function, which equals no heritance. Meanwhile, enough errors do creep through even the most stringent proofreading mechanisms that they serve as the material for genetic selection.
"No check on this point. Random mutations and "wise genetic strategy" are incompatible concepts in my mind. Strategy is not a good word to use as it implies reason and purpose."
OK... If you're going to stickle over my convenient use of anthropomorphism, you force me to re-phrase:
Low-fidelity DNA replication is obviously not successful for most organisms: they would simply produce completely inviable progeny as a result. Happy now?
"So then, selection only works when DNA copy errors are inconsequential. Again, this is not a good accounting for the evolution of millions of plant and animal species."
Who said anything about inconsequential? See my point above... Enough errors do slip through over time and vast numbers of gametes and progeny that there is clearly plenty of variation for selection to act upon.
"Also, there is the problem I mentioned above about mutations and selection respectively assembling and retaining genes which cause their owners to self destruct. That has to be the ultimate unwise "genetic strategy"."
Genetic fitness is measured in terms of propagating one's genes... Not in some sort of longevity contest.
"But bacteria don't react collectively "in hopes of" anything. Anthropopathisms complicate discussions about evolution as they tend to temporarily lose track of the reality that all mutation and selection processes are accidental and without purpose."
Yes... Very cute of you to (again) point out the anthropomorphization... But you haven't addressed the point of what I said above at all... Individuals that mutate adaptively under severe selection will generate more viable progeny than those that don't. I was merely trying to point out that modulation of polymerase fidelity does happen on an observable scale in response to genetic selection. This can "speed up" the natural selection process under extreme selection
Posted by: Don Price | October 7, 2006 10:13 PM
Just to pile on, the 90% inactive genes thing sounds a lot like the old "we only use 10% of our brains" myth.
To throw him a little (very little) credit, perhaps he's trying to get at the idea of heterochromatin. However, it's not "inactive genes", since it's mostly not genes. And his 90% is a few percent bit off. And he admits that he doesn't know what a gene is, anyway.
Why does anyone waste any of their time listening to him again?
Posted by: Carlie | October 7, 2006 11:58 PM