Here is an error-filled post about evolution by Deepak Chopra, frequent poster to the lefty blog, Huffington Post. I don't have time to point out the many ways in which Chopra mangles his description of biology, but PZ Myers has. Clear evidence that scientific illiteracy does not respect political boundaries.
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David Sloan Wilson is asking Huffington Post readers if they want a science section at the Huffington Post. I always think science sections are good things...except when the blog lets Deepak Chopra say crazy things about evolution:
Deepak Chopra, over at the Huffington Post, has some absolutely…
It occurs to me that things have been perhaps overly serious here at the ol' blog for the last couple of weeks. Don't get me wrong. I think I done good lately, if I do say so myself. However, the constant drumbeat of quackery and depressing stories takes its toll after a while. I need a break.
And…
Over the holidays, I stayed at home for a combination of some relaxation and some grant writing. (I know, weird.) As I was perusing some of the links I saved during that time, it occurs to me that I totally forgot about one particularly amazing bit of hilarity, courtesy of our old "friend" Deepak…
Funny how everything old is new again, isn't it?
Yes, if there's one thing I've learned over nearly six years of blogging, it's that, sooner or later, everything is recycled, and I do mean everything. At least, that was the thought going through my mind when I came across PZ's discussion of a…
I have the same feeling. I am too tired to point the jet plane analogy is wrong, for I have encountered it too many times...
Depak Chopra is a crazy right winger, not a liberal.
It's not even that the jet plane analogy is wrong in some subtle way, such that you could present a counter argument. It's just completely contentless. It's the same as saying, "Evolution is really unlikely! How unlikely you ask? As unlikely as me getting a date with Madonna! Take that!"
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Carl,
This sort of misinformation from Deepak is the norm for the creationists. PZ refers to Deepak as stupid, I worry that this characterization is dangerous. Deepak's comments are carefully designed to sway some portion of public opinion - sadly. These are careful ploys the rely on the ignorance of people to decieve them and spoken by someone they believe ought to know.
This is why I am so disappointed in the NYT articles on evolution, they failed to carefully articulate the truth from a position credibility. It is a shame that you did not write those articles.
I agree. The fact is, proving something with analogy can't be a scientific way.
Uniquely, deeply, deepakly depressing.
The good news is that the comments on the bad doctor's pseudoscience often roundly debunked his phony "questions." And it was good to see links to TalkOrigins.
Is it any real wonder that a person who spews utter nonsense on other aspects of reality would get biology wrong as well, though?
I haven't read the piece by Chopra, but he has done the same kind of thing in trying to use quantum physics as an argument to support his New Ageish ideas. (For that matter, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi claims to have degrees in physics.)
His latest gets better. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/rescuing-intelligent-desi_b_6164.html
When I turn off a lightbulb, am I killing a conscious being?