Apparently my handy-dandy Only Response You'll Ever Need To Choprawoo, written in response to the last volley of Choprawoo to hit the blogosphere, hit a nerve. Chopra sycophant and blog comment spammer extraordinaire "ChopraFan" was none too pleased with it.
Good.
I have to wonder if "ChopraFan" is either Chopra himself or whether he or she just works for Chopra, scanning the blogosphere for negative reactions to Chopra's woo that can be spammed with plugs for the latest installment of still more Choprawoo. Whatever the case, he/she/it led me to The God Delusion? Part 7 (also found here). Geez, I'd never have believed that Chopra could keep repeating the same fallacies and misunderstandings of science and straw men about what Dawkins actually said so many times, but he can. Truly, he is the Energizer Bunny of Woo. Reading all seven of his "critiques" of a book that he does not appear to have actually read (or that, if he did read, he clearly did not understand) must be a taste of what reading an entire book by Deepak Chopra would be like.
The horror. The horror.
In any case, he's at it again. PZ boiled the Choprawoo down to its essence, but nonetheless there were a couple of statements so breathtakingly, inanely woo-ey, that I couldn't resist a quick mention. Yes, it's even stupider than his statement last time that "A field that can create something new and then remember it would explain the persistence of incredibly fragile molecules like DNA, which by any odds should have disintegrated long ago under the pressure of entropy, not to mention the vicissitudes of heat, wind, sunlight, radiation, and random mistakes through mutation." I know it's hard to top that one, but Chopra does his best. So here we go. There are so many silly statements that I'm only going to pick three.
Woo-ey statement #1:
What if memory is an attribute of Nature itself? All around us we see memory at work. The insulin that functions in primitive organisms retains the same function in higher mammals. The chemical reaction that propels a butterfly's wings to beat is duplicated to make human heart cells beat.
No, actually the fact that the structure of insulin and other macromolecules, as well as sets of chemical reactions that convert chemical energy to work, are retained are evidence for evolution, not some "universal consciousness" or "memory." Highly adaptive molecules or molecular mechanisms tend to be retained.
Woo-ey statement #2:
Why can you remember your birthday and the face of someone you love? Because DNA can remember how to produce generations of human beings. Why does DNA remember? There's the mystery. We can link memory as a human attribute to chemical memory. But when we ask where chemicals learned to remember, science is baffled
DNA "remembers" because of a chemical reaction. As one of the commenters on Pharyngula put it, DNA "remembers" in the same way that water "remembers" to freeze at 0 degrees C. Or, I would add, the same way that CO2 "remembers" how to turn into carbonic acid when mixed with water. The pairing of DNA strands represents a chemical equilibrium that can be observed in solution by mixing two complimentary DNA molecules together at high temperatures and then slowly cooling them, and the replication of DNA is a chemical reaction that is catalyzed by enzymes, all of which evolved to their present highly complex form.
Woo-ey Statement #3:
Nature is constantly remembering. Nature is constantly creating, exercising imagination, discovering quantum leaps. When hydrogen and oxygen combined, the result wasn't another inert gas. It was water, and water represents a huge imaginative leap on the part of the universe. The reason one can say this with confidence is simple: if the universe didn't have imagination, neither would we.
Note how Chopra assumes his premise that the universe has "consciousness" must be true and tries to fit all physical phenomena into that premise without any actual--oh, say--evidence to support it. In essence, his is a big argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument from ignorance). Just because Chopra cannot imagine how such mysteries can ever be solved by science, he assumes that these mysteries will never be solved. Therefore, in Choprawoo, they must be due to God. It's nothing more than a "God of the gaps" fallacy gussied up in New Age woo. Maybe today it is true, as Chopra puts it, that using MRIs and CT scans to study the brain is "like putting a stethoscope to the outside of the Astrodome and and trying to figure out the rules of football," but it is highly likely that science will not only figure out a strategy to come to an ever closer approximation of what these rules are but will in the future develop tools far more powerful than our present tools, tools that will allow us, metaphorically speaking, to rip a hole into the top of the Astrodome and watch the game itself.
Believe it or not, though, I look forward to Chopra's last installment of this particular woo, because he promises to address some of the comments and criticisms that he has received. Please feel free to use the comments here to predict what Chopra will say. I take dibs on prediction that he will use the term "arrogant skeptics" (or some variant thereof) somewhere in his response...
This batch of Chopra-woo sounds a lot like Sheldrake-woo. (Sheldrake seems to be smarter, so I suspect he is the Master and Chopra is the Parrot).
My guess is that he'll respond by slowly drinking a glass of room-temperature water, and spewing it on his monitor in a flash of self-awareness at his own inanity.
Okay, that was a fantasy. In reality he'll throw more non sequiturs up against the wall and run for the door. But I can dream, can't I?
If he did that, he'd just be amazed that the water remembered to drip into the electronics and that the electronics remembered to spark.
If we're lucky, though, he might also be amazed that the papers on his desk remembered to catch fire, and that the fire remembered to consume the entirety of his room.
My guess is that he will respond to comments that no one made, except for straw-men posted by his followers making guesses as to what real commentors would say.
Did DC ever think anything through? Since we have imagination, the universe must too. Since we have murder and pedophilia, the universe is a murderous nambla-member? Since we are intolerant, the universe is too. Since we are bigoted, the universe is too. Since we are cannibalistic, so too the universe? You can go on and on, but somehow, if he actually thought that far, he'd say that the universe is only good, and the bad is the fault of humans only. Although, now that I think about it, the fact that humans get alzheimers might explain a lot about the universe...
I think it was mentioned on Pharyngula already, but I'll go with him attacking strawmen of the actual criticisms. Assuming he even read the criticisms. And could comprehend them.
I'll also take dibs on him claiming that we're the ones who don't understand science.
@Richard "Sheldrake seems to be smarter"
(Rupert) Sheldrake is equally embarrassing. Supposedly, he is an enzymologist (like me); yet he asks questions about enzymes that display profound ignorance. For example, does the catalysis displayed by an enzyme depend on who measures it? (Not talking about the physical conditions of measurement; but the person.) If that were a problem, the field of enzymology could not exist.
Sheldrake also thinks that the concentration of a solution depends on who measures it. And the melting points of pure compounds rise over the course of time. What could possibly make you think that Sheldrake is smarter than a box of rocks?
I also forgot another prediction to make: How long before ChopraFan shows up to spam the comments of this post?
My prediction: Thursday, because Chopra's been averaging between three and four days between parts of his "critique" of Dawkins.
Sounds to me as though this woo-meister has misunderstood the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. ;-)
Heh, I haven't commented on this topic yet, but I've finished the work I want to get done at work today so...
In 1988 I was stationed in Sacramento CA, and decided to attend one of the SF conventions out there. It was a nice con in it's first year, so there wasn't many people and everyone got along pretty well.
Of one of the many conversations I got into, one was with an aging hippie who seemed enthralled with the fact that I was actually listening to what he was saying.
Waxing eloquent, he indicated that he had a mathematical proof which would revolutionize modern science and philosophy. He had copies with him. So I let him lead me to his hotel room, and while he partook of the fumes of burning hemp, I looked over his forty page 'proof'.
The thing was filled with mathematical symbols and equations, and wasn't particularly easy to follow. It took me awhile to determine what he was trying to say, but it was the same thing Chopra is claiming. Everything in the universe was conscious!
There is was! Mathematical proof the consciousness is embodied in every object in the universe!
And the error in his proof was very easy to find.
Right there, on the first page, he confused the meaning of identity in the mathematical sense of equivalence with meaning of identity as the condition of being a specific person.
I wonder if I still have the copy of that paper in my archives somewhere....
Reading Chopra is like reading ancient literature from the beginnings of science. It's as if someone never got past Aristotle, and is still sitting in an armchair speculating on matters like how heat "gets into" fire and where does the speed go when an object stops. It's all speculation from above.
Blake Stacey used the memorable analogy of comparing Deepok Chopra to someone who has never gotten over Grandma not actually being in the telephone. From what I can tell, Chopra is also like the naive apologist who argues that God must exist because "you can't hold love in your hand, but it's real."
I'll vote with JonA and Nes -- Chopra will respond with non sequiturs and "cutting edge science." And I'll add in a prediction that his straw man caricature of the materialist position will not only use the term "arrogant skeptics," but will employ both greedy reductionism and some form of "you can't hold love in your hand."
Orac:
Elsewhere you suggested doing a Skeptic's Circle on Deepok Chopra. I love the idea. Although his form of pseudoscientific creationism doesn't have the numbers the monotheistic versions do, it seems to be appealing to a more intelligent, well-educated crowd by successfully managing to promote itself as both cutting-edge science AND the moderate position between extremes. Modern science may not support religion, but look how it's supporting spirituality!
In specifically targeting "liberal intellectuals," I think Holistic Consciousness Creationism might in some ways be more pernicious -- and frustrating -- than the Creationism which markets to plain folks and common sense.
Anyone who can say that hydrogen and oxygen are "inert" isn't even at the level of basic high school chemistry! The term "inert gas" is usually reserved for the noble gases. (Remember, D-Chop? Those elements at the far right of the periodic table? Periodic table? Element? Oh, never mind...)
Considering the fact that the root of the word "inert" is from the latin for "unskilled" and also how nebulously intangible DC's writings are, the main "inert gas" around seems to be the stuff he attempts to fill the wooniverse with. However, those emissions are anything but noble!
Why can you remember your birthday and the face of someone you love? Because DNA can remember how to produce generations of human beings.
This is a testable prediction. If there is a link between the ability to reproduce and human memory, then someone who is sterile should not be able to remember their birthday, nor the face of someone they love.
So for a start every woman who has gone through menopause should be suffering from amnesia.
I think you're going about this backward. You ought to be talking about the amazing ability of computer RAM and hard drives to "remember" things (never mind that magnetism stuff) and then see if you can manipulate Chopra&fans into publicly concluding computers are conscious and should be granted civil rights.
Incidentally, it is worth noting that no football of any sort is being played in the poor abandoned Astrodome anymore, and apparently the last anyone heard it was going to be converted into... a hotel. A sad fate for the eighth wonder of the world...
Orac wrote:
Hey! I called that yesterday:
From Woo-ey statement #3:
Several people have already commented in earlier threads about how this use of the phrase "quantum leap" is profoundly ignorant. Quantum leaps are small, old fellow. We're talking about an electron's orbit changing its radius by less than one ten-billionth of a meter.
As anyone who has actually exposed hydrogen to an open flame can testify, it is far from an "inert gas".
I had to try to kick his ass on my site for uttering the dumbest thing I think I've ever heard. His quote of the universe being "amazingly hospitable to human life."
He truly is Douchepak Chumpra.
Sastra: "Reading Chopra is like reading ancient literature from the beginnings of science"
...or watching preschoolers eat paste.
On the hydrogen and oxygen = water thing: We know why they combine into a liquid. Water molecules are polar and tend to form attractions that keep it from scattering as easily at room temperature as other gases. The result is a liquid. Water is polar because its shape is determined by electromagnetic laws. It mindlessly follows the rules built into the universe.
You might as well tell me that rocks are conscious because they Intelligently Fall when you let go of them in the air.
THE GURU DELUSION, Canto 7, Entropy Baffles Him
A poem
"How did evolution overcome entropy, the ceaseless march of the physical universe toward chaos and the deep freezer of "heat death"?"
~Deepak Chopra
***
God overcomes entropy
For living things to live.
God wins. Guru wins!
Nothing new from the guru.
His ignorance shines
Again and again.
Unaware that in open systems
Can exist subset of systems,
Decreasing their entropy at
The expense of surroundings'.
Organisms suck nutrients/
Energy from their surroundings,
Their internal order increasing
While the external, decreasing.
The guru understands little
Science, and like his Vedic
Ancestors, sees God everywhere--
Thermodynamics fails him.
~white wings
For more poems on the post by Deepak Chopra visit this site
THE GURU DELUSION, Canto 7, Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam
A poem
"There is nothing outside the field. It displays omnipresence and omnipotence, being all-pervasive and containing all matter and energy..... This new God will be the source of mind. Its ability to orchestrate evolution will make sense because it must. Humans cannot have any knowledge except knowledge of ourselves. "
~Deepak Chopra
***
When he cannot understand
something, and there are
many, he speculates
and then his god enters
into things like DNA
and space that baffle him
science progresses slowly
sometimes rapidly
but he always regresses
in his quantum leaps and
assumes the mysteries
yet unexplained will
never be explained
for God so tells him
whispers to him
thus he argues
ad nauseam - argumentum
ad ignorantiam.
~white wings
THE GURU DELUSION, Canto 7, Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam
A poem
"There is nothing outside the field. It displays omnipresence and omnipotence, being all-pervasive and containing all matter and energy..... This new God will be the source of mind. Its ability to orchestrate evolution will make sense because it must. Humans cannot have any knowledge except knowledge of ourselves. "
~Deepak Chopra
***
When he cannot understand
something, and there are
many, he speculates
and then his god enters
into things like DNA
and space that baffle him
science progresses slowly
sometimes rapidly
but he always regresses
in his quantum leaps and
assumes the mysteries
yet unexplained will
never be explained
for God so tells him
whispers to him
thus he argues
ad nauseam - argumentum
ad ignorantiam.
~white wings
Steady now, you're not falling into your own 'woo-shill' gambit are you?
Right, talk about hydrogenation reactors which are always in buildings with one wall intentionally missing. And of course the deep respect every chemist shows when using oxygen as a reagent. Oxygen can kill you fast.
Well, that is true. Over time the compound will be isolated in ever purer forms, thus the m.p. thats reported will rise. On the other hand, the same sample will show an ever lower m.p. as more and more impurities get in. But thats basic chemistry, nothing to worry about.
In fact, the idea of figuring out the rules of football via a stethoscope is interesting. Should be possible, shouldn´t it? At least one research program can be derived from that crap.
It's not necessarily a "gambit." For one thing, I have actually had alties hawking wares infest the comments of some of my posts a few times in teh past. "ChopraFan's" persistence and his spamming of PZ's blog make me wonder....
@bcpmoon "Over time the compound will be isolated in ever purer forms, thus the m.p. thats reported will rise."
You are correct that happens; but not to all compounds as Sheldrake suggests. IF he has any data to support his claims, I am sure that is what he saw. Sheldrake thinks there is a Universal force that permeates everything (animal, vegetable and mineral) which somehow causes the supposed effect.
Deepak isn't the only one who watched too much Star Wars, I see.
Can you Sciencebloggers look up the IP addresses of comment posters? I vaguely recall PZ publishing the IP of a troll (and then maybe retracting it, my memory's not so sure). It might be an illuminating piece of information — over on Wikipedia, they caught Christopher Michael Langan shilling his own pseudoscience in much the same way.
Why don't you all visit intentblog.com (or choprablog.com) and make your comments, objections, refutations, cynicism etc? Criticism and skepticism is welcome in his site. The Admin doesn't screen the comments unless they are outright abusive or vulgar. You will hear from the regular visitors of the blog. You will learn something from them too.
Deepak Chopra cares about Intentblog(with contributions from him, his family and friends) than anything else. He often responds there. He doesn't care about Huffingtonpost. If you have anything to say visit Intentblog and make your voice heard. If you arrange a skeptics circle or let someone host a festival inanely bashing Chopra, you will have fun, but you will not get the kick. Here's the challenge...hit him where it hurts like a man...and you will be hit back for all your woo....
ABOUT INTENTBLOG:
"IntentBlog was started in 2005 by Mallika Chopra, Gotham Chopra, Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur. We seek to reach critical mass with a message of personal, social, environmental and spiritual wellness.
IntentBlog serves the global community by providing a platform for dialogue, debate and action around topics such as the environment, economy, conflict resolution, human rights, business and technology, spirituality, health and healing.
We use media (blogs, articles, video, audio clips, etc.) contributed by international influencers across different fields to engage a community that is respectful, active and committed to implementing change on a personal and social level. Our voices are diverse, intelligent, provocative, fresh, and timely.
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD:
COMMENTS: IntentBlog is only as dynamic as the comments contributed by the community.
OPEN THREAD: Every Wednesday, a new Thread begins. Your perspective guides the direction and shape of each thread.
WEEKLY INTENT: Every Sunday, IntentBlog features a post by one of our commenters. If you are interested in blogging, please email us at intentblog (at) gmail.com.
NOTE: We do not tolerate comments that are disrespectful, slanderous, or generally unrelated to fulfilling a mission of collective empowerment. If community members are found to consistently violate this mission, they are banned from contributing. "
No thanks fanboy.
yeah...I thought so. Lazy thinkers cannot spare a couple of minutes to register for an account..that I think is the scientific reason why so many are so lethargic.
ROFL. Reason requires work. Woo requires imagination. Big difference. It takes work to throw off being a sheep. Fanboys are sheep.
I agree that a sheep sometimes strays away from the herd to see what's going on over the fence. What I find is not eye-opening. Wolves can howl as much as they want in the woods but it doesn't scare the sheep which are protected inside the fence nor does it give sleepless nights to the herdsmen. Is there a wolf out there brave enough to cross the fence and take on the watch dogs and get the price? I don't think so. Your alpha male is a sheep! Disguised in wolf's cloth. What can you do? Nothing you keep howling...
So you admit you are a sheep?
Following along with all the woo-woo stuff, without even questioning the fact that hydrogen and oxygen are very reactive gasses and all the other claptrap put out by Chopra. Perhaps you should open your mind and read some good books like these:
http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781592575145,00.html
and
http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781592575312,00.html
Truthfully, all this silly science stuff is much more fascinating than any woo-woo that your imagination can think up.
Why should I provide material for Chopra instead of writing it up for my own blog? I do enough writing as it is, and if I'm going to fisk another blogger's post, be it Chopra or anyone else, I'm going to use it as material for my blog, rather than putting the same amount of effort in to post it on someone else's blog.
You obviously see it; perhaps even Deepak Chopra himself sees it. So the end result is the same, as far as I'm concerned, with the added advantage that I've fed the never-ending hunger my blog has for new material.
Given that to my knowledge I haven't seen Deepak Chopra show up around my blog or PZ Myers' blog, the same thing could be said of your "alpha male"--unless, of course, you happen to be Chopra, rather than just a sycophant.
OK, ChopraFan has now officially become more boring than amusing. My ScienceBlogs killfile grows one name in length.
So does this qualify literally as spamming yet?
The God Delusion -- Answering Responders
"Discussing Richard Dawkins' book 'The God Delusion' has aroused a lot of emotional responses (reminding me that Darwin considered strong emotions to be a survival trait). I'd like to emphasize that I was not attacking Dawkins personally---he represents an old paradigm that is reductionist in its insistence on limiting science to materialism, a model that is quickly crumbling."
Deepak Chopra
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-god-delusion-answe_b_35…
HCN: Following along with all the woo-woo stuff, without even questioning the fact that hydrogen and oxygen are very reactive gasses and all the other claptrap put out by Chopra.
"P.S.
Some responders have problems with a sentence from this post: "When hydrogen and oxygen combined, the result wasn't another inert gas. " I meant, of course, another inert gas like radon or neon. If I thought that oxygen and hydrogen were inert gases, I wouldn't have stated that they combine, since by definition inert gases can't combine. They have no free electron(s) in their outer orbits with which to combine.
This discussion will be more productive if we all grant each other the respect we would like to receive.
Love, Deepak"
www.intentblog.com/archives/2006/12/the_god_delusio_8.html
www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-god-delusion-part-7_b_35513.ht…
HCN: Following along with all the woo-woo stuff, without even questioning the fact that hydrogen and oxygen are very reactive gasses and all the other claptrap put out by Chopra.
"P.S.
Some responders have problems with a sentence from this post: "When hydrogen and oxygen combined, the result wasn't another inert gas. " I meant, of course, another inert gas like radon or neon. If I thought that oxygen and hydrogen were inert gases, I wouldn't have stated that they combine, since by definition inert gases can't combine. They have no free electron(s) in their outer orbits with which to combine.
This discussion will be more productive if we all grant each other the respect we would like to receive.
Love, Deepak"
www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-god-delusion-part-7_b_35513.ht…
HCN: Following along with all the woo-woo stuff, without even questioning the fact that hydrogen and oxygen are very reactive gasses and all the other claptrap put out by Chopra.
"P.S.
Some responders have problems with a sentence from this post: "When hydrogen and oxygen combined, the result wasn't another inert gas. " I meant, of course, another inert gas like radon or neon. If I thought that oxygen and hydrogen were inert gases, I wouldn't have stated that they combine, since by definition inert gases can't combine. They have no free electron(s) in their outer orbits with which to combine.
This discussion will be more productive if we all grant each other the respect we would like to receive.
Love, Deepak"
www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-god-delusion-part-7_b_35513.ht…
Methinks Deepak is perturbed that he's been caught showing his ignorance of chemistry. ;-)
Given the breathtaking inanity of much of what Dr. Chopra has written about Dawkins, I think he's been shown more respect than he deserves, actually.
THE GURU BREAKS WIND
Responding to his
critics, the guru breaks
wind and one must not
assume it's all final.
Same old cow shit,
horse shit, bullshit.
He's incapable to make
sense in his thoughts.
I suspect he suffers
from impulsive delusions --
reality escapes him. For him
all things are illusions.
He seems to lack
comprehension in English,
not his first tongue.
Attributes nonsense to
science ad hominem.
No wonder he's a word
salad master and a
potpourri of soups,
a medley of fruits,
pleasing his followers --
all nuts, all dimwits.
Like him, of course.
by white wings
V
A COWBOY
A cowboy herded the old
bulls and said to the world:
if you aren't with me
you're my enemy
they cowered
even the wolves
the elephants, the tigers
and the poodles being poodles
they followed him too
the cowboy had money
the cowboy had power
he'd hound those who
agreed not with him
alas! he had no brains
and now he's lonely
except his loyal poodle
that loves him. Will
always love him
for his own survival.
~white wings
http://whitewings.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/12/a-cowboy.htm
A question: Has Chopra's "review" exceeded the length of Dawkins's book yet?
"Why can you remember your birthday and the face of someone you love? Because DNA can remember how to produce generations of human beings. Why does DNA remember? There's the mystery. We can link memory as a human attribute to chemical memory. But when we ask where chemicals learned to remember, science is baffled"
This comment is just nonsense from Chopra. Total ignorance of what DNA actually is. DNA doesn't actually remember anything. It isn't concious. Saying that we remember because DNA remembers how to produce humans is a minunderstanding of DNA and Neurology. Alot of things in the brain we don't understand but I thought memory came around because of the specific connection between neurons. When you learn stuff your connections change. When you practise something the connections for what you practise become stronger of sort (a bit like paving a road through a forest so you can walk through it quicker). As I said the structure for DNA provides a genetic blue print for making another organism for instance a human. It doesn't store your own memories, if it did why don't children have at least some of their parents memories. DNA doesn't remember that your favourite novel is "Neuromancer" or "To Kill a Mockingbird". It does however contain a genetic blueprint for its particular organism. Does an architects blue print remember who is going to live in the house? No. If you keep the blueprint in a drawer in your house, does it change when the you build an extension or paint the front a different colour? No.
DNA is an amazing molecule that can replicate itself and has the information in the case of a human being to reproduce another via sexual reproduction or cloning.
Chopra doesn't have a good grasp of genetics or neurology. He really should read a basic high school textbook.
Or why not do it here? Is there something wrong with this forum? If a group of people wishes to talk in person about Chopra's work, do they have to go to Chopra's home to do so?