Deepak Chopra 'debunks' The God Delusion - Part V

I've already shown my contempt for Chopra's ability to think, and he continues his irrational diatribe in Part V of his debunking of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. I'm sure he thinks he's being clever, but the strawmen keep coming. In this installment, he attempts to attack what he believes is part of Dawkins' position:

Consciousness is a byproduct of matter.

No, consciousness is an evolutionary development. Yes, matter is required, but so is organization. Evolution gives a perfectly good explanation of the development of consciousness.

In his attempt to refute this, he comes up with a thought experiment: "Think of a yellow flower. Can you see it? If so, then the experiment has been successfully completed. When you see a flower in your mind, there is no flower inside your brain. That seems simple enough. But where is that flower? There's no picture of it in your brain, because your brain contains no light. How about the color yellow? Is there a patch of yellow inside your brain? Obviously not."

Now, even Einstein's thought experiment required a great deal of empirical confirmation before acceptance, even for himself. This is something that Chopra is mistaken about: ideas require verification. So, let's look at his thought experiment. You think of a yellow flower. The thought of yellow causes us to access memory associated with the visual cortex, as does the thought of a flower. We can see such things using something called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Experiments using fMRI study how the brain does exactly these things. When you think of yellow, certain parts of the brain start working and increase blood flow in these regions, clearing deoxyhemoglobin. This causes an increase in image intensity in those reasons from a resting state. How does Chopra's position explain this? It doesn't. Nor does it explain personality changes due to damage of the frontal cortex, the effects of single gene disorders such as schizophrenia, or a host of other brain disorders. The evidence that to Chopra doesn't even exist just does not bear out his position. Chopra's ideas are intellectually bankrupt.

Another strawman approacheth: "Yet you assume--as do all who fall for the superstition of materialism--that flowers and the color yellow exist 'out there' in the world. In fact, they do not. The entire experience of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell is created in consciousness. Molecules don't assemble in your head to make the sound of a trumpet blaring in a brass band. The brain is silent. So where does the world of sights and sounds come from?" It seems to me that Chopra's view of materialism is rather glib. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it materialism that tells us from empirical observation exactly how seeing yellow works? Oh, wait. Deepak has the answer: it's some woo-woo mystical unsubstantiated hypothetical crap that doesn't tell us anything at all about HOW we see or hear or think. Good theory, Deepak. Utterly devoid of any substance. Talk about anti-materialistic.

According to Chopra, "Materialists cannot offer any reasonable explanation. The fact is that an enormous gap exists between any physical, measurable event and our perception. If I talk to you, all I am doing is vibrating air with my vocal cords. Every aspect of that event can be seen and measured. But turning those vibrating air molecules into meaningful words has never been seen or measured. It can't be." As before, he posits a God of the Gaps. Again, we can see the effects of the brain converting these vibrations into something meaningful, as much as one can understand Chopra's inanity. fMRI and PET can do exactly what he says "can't be". At least we can model consciousness, then experiment to verify and update our model. What Chopra offers is vacuous. And this is just a beginning in our understanding the mind. As PZ Meyers has observed, the next attack on theism will come from neuroscience.

What he says here is inexplicable: "When you get to the primal state of the universe, what is it? A universal field that encloses all matter and energy. This field is everywhere, but it also localizes itself. A molecule in the brain is one expression of the field, so is a thought. The field turns out to be the common ground of both the inner and outer world. When Einstein said that he wanted to know the mind of God, he was pointing us toward the field, which science continues to explore." This is just spiritual gobbledygook. And people wonder why I equate spirituality with flakiness? I'd like to know where in Physics this universal field is defined. Without any basis other than his own flaky prejudice he defines a thought as something that exists in the same way that a molecule does. He has just contradicted himself. In the same way that a molecule can be detected, it follows from his beliefs that an idea should similarly be observed. He is completely inconsistent. Inner and outer worlds? What are they? Einstein was not pointing toward some nonexistent field, he was trying to understand how the universe works! His was a wholly a materialistic position.

"Fortunately, as the two rivers begin to merge, we won't be plagued by either the superstition of religion or the superstition of materialism. We will begin to link brain and mind through new concepts that will explain how the color yellow exists in our brain as the same phenomenon as a yellow flower in the meadow. Both are experiences in consciousness." Oh, goodness. Talk about superstitious. The way in which we see a yellow flower in a meadow has nothing to do with how we envision a yellow flower in our mind. The first has to do with the interaction between matter and light. The pigment in the flower petal absorbs certain wavelengths and reflects those which form what we know as yellow. These are detected on the retina, converted to nerve impulses and transmitted to the brain. These impulses are stored until accessed. Thinking about a yellow flower accesses the memories that are stored; the color yellow in one place and the flower form in another. Interestingly, the regions that light up in fMRI images are the same for accessing a yellow flower memory as they are for viewing one. To invoke voodoo as Chopra does is unjustified. Indeed, his position is utterly destroyed by materialism and show to be one born purely from prejudice.

"That covers the basic and I think most convincing refutation of the anti-God argument. It doesn't prove God by any means, much less does it degrade science. The damage that anti-God rhetoric does is to cloud reality. In reality there is ample room for both God and science. Many forward-looking thinkers realize this; sadly, Richard Dawkins isn't among them." His arguments so far have not convinced me of anything. If anything, they have caused me to disrespect his position even more. He cherry picks what he wants from Science and twists it till it hardly resembles the idea it originated as. For instance, his use of quantum entanglement to support his position that there are things unexplained by materialism, even though it has been thoroughly explained. He is either a bald-faced liar or a deluded charlatan (or a little from column A and a little from column B). Either way his ideas shouldn't be given the time of day. I am in Dawkins' camp when it comes to Science and God. You can not be intellectually honest as a scientist and still believe in a deity. God, even in Chopra's nebulously defined version, is a result of unquestioned and unfalsifiable dogma. This is anathema to Science. Those that straddle the fence wind up intellectually emasculated.

Tomorrow's final installment is where he attempts to denounce Evolution. What a laugh.

Deepak Chopra on The God Delusion - Part IV

To recap Deepak Chopra's objections to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion:

• In Part I Chopra claims that it is Dawkins' assertion that if Science can not explain the existence of something, that something does not exist. Hogwash. Apparently, Chopra does not understand Ockham's Razor: anything not required in an explanation is superfluous and must be cut from the final synthesis. God is not required to explain anything, and therefore has little chance of existing.
• Part II is just a superfluous reiteration of his statement in Part I.
• In Part III Chopra attempts to debunk materialism through the anthropic principle and the existence of Quantum Mechanics. The anthropic principle has taken a huge blow recently with the publication of the results of simulating the universe in the total absence of weak nuclear interactions. Quantum Mechanics is not only itself a part of materialism, it was BORN from materialism. In essence, Chopra debunks himself.

Time for Part IV, where Chopra asserts that Dawkins believes that:

The universe is neither intelligent nor conscious. Science doesn't need those ingredients to explain nature and its workings. Starting with atoms and molecules governed by strict physical laws, we will eventually explain everything.

Seeing as there is no evidence in support of an intelligent or conscious universe, I can not see how Chopra is able to refute this, and he doesn't disappoint. Instead, he makes an ad hoc attack: "This argument has to be made in a very loud voice with total conviction to sound plausible. Dawkins holds that humans are conscious because chemicals randomly collide in the brain to produce a phantom we ignorantly call the mind. This is a fashionable view and in fact is the logical outcome of arch materialism. Where else could mind come from if not molecules, assuming that molecules are the basis of the brain and therefore of reality itself?"

Where else indeed? "Common sense finds it hard to take this argument seriously, because it leads to nonsense. The brain contains an enormous amount of water and salt. Are we to assume that water is intelligent, or salt is conscious? If they aren't, then we must assume that throwing water and salt together--along with about six other basic building blocks of organic chemicals--suddenly makes them intelligent. The bald fact is that Dawkins defends an absurd position because he can't make the leap to a different set of assumptions." What is he saying? That a human body is composed of just carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, hydrogen and sulfur? It was once said that the human body is composed of about $6 of these chemicals. But this ignored that the synthesis of complex molecules is very expensive. The $6 figure was rather myopic. This is no different than Chopra's view. Consciousness comes from the enormously complex biochemistry and structure of the human brain, a result of evolutionary processes. The only assumption in Dawkins position is that consciousness is explainable via naturalism.

So what are Chopra's assumptions?

"--Consciousness is part of existence. It wasn't created by molecules.
--Intelligence is an aspect of consciousness.
--Intelligence grows as life grows. Both evolve from within. --The universe evolved along intelligent lines."

This is meaningless drivel. Is an amoeba conscious? It exists. Molecules exist, but are hardly conscious. Intelligence requires consciousness; it is not an aspect of it. Intelligence grows as life grows? I don't even know what that means. The universe evolved along intelligent lines? No. The universe is exactly as we would expect it to be in the absence of design. The big difference between Dawkins' and Chopra's positions is that in Dawkins' case, materialism is his starting point. He has no conclusion to influence his path. Chopra's on the other hand (and this is true of creationists as well) starts with his conclusion: the universe is conscious. It's his base assumption and his final answer, at which he arrives not from empirical evidence, but personal prejudice.

"If we remain sane and clear-headed, the reason to assume that consciousness exists is simple. There's no other way to account for it." This is just a God of the Gaps argument, or perhaps the Argument from Personal Incredulity. Either way it's bogus, weak and lazy. It says, "Oh, this is just too hard to understand. Let's chalk it up to some nebulous deity and go for a beer." This is a contemptible position. He claims that consciousness "isn't just plausible as part of nature, it's totally necessary." He poses a bizarre question to the reader: "Do you think you are conscious and intelligent, or are you being fooled by random chemical reactions inside your skull?" It's a total canard. Consciousness is, as I've said, a result of the brain's enormously complex biochemistry and structure. What he's done is reduced that to "random chemical reactions". This glib statement is another strawman: make a caricature of your opponent's position to make it sound ridiculous. But it's Chopra that comes across as ridiculous. I can't wait to trash the fifth installment.

Deepak on The God Delusion - Part III

A couple of years ago my wife and I (we were only at the dating part of our relationship at the time) were at a little soup and sandwich place near where I worked. This is one of those specialty places, not at all like Tim Horton's (My condolences to those that have never experienced Tim's coffee. Starbucks sucks.). I went to the washroom and while I was there my wife was listening to a conversation at the next table over. After I got back my wife was looking at me expectantly for what I could tell was no reason whatsoever. Then I started listening to the conversation going on behind me, and that's when my wife's amusement became apparent. These two elderly ladies were discussing Quantum Mechanics and 'planes of existence' in the same spiritualistic breath. Having had a number of university courses in Quantum Mechanics and even a graduate course in Relativistic Quantum Mechanics, this was to me what I imagine my bull-cat Omar feels when I rub his fur backwards. Why is it that places like this always seem to attract weirdoes like flypaper?

Why did I relate this anecdote? You'll see that it has a direct bearing on Deepak Chopra's third 'attack' on Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion:

The universe is a complex machine whose workings are steadily being demystified by science. Any other way of viewing the world is superstitious and reactionary.

Chopra writes: "What is so strange about this argument is that Dawkins himself is totally reactionary. His defense of a material universe revealing its secrets ignores the total overthrow of materialism in modern physics. There is no world of solid objects; space-time itself depends upon shaping forces beyond both space and time." Did I miss the memo? When has materialism been overthrown at all, even in modern Physics? Another commenter noticed this as well. I have a suspicion of what he means: Quantum Mechanics.

Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner for his work in Quantum Electrodynamics, once said: "I think I can safely say that no one understands quantum mechanics." Why is that? Quantum rules apply only on very small dimensions. I am speaking about dimensions so small that we can't even imagine them, let alone experience quantum effects. We evolved in a world dominated by Classical Mechanics. When you throw a ball in a gravitational field you know from experience how to adjust the catching mitt in order to intercept its path. We don't need to know the mathematics behind the ball's motion; we just need to catch it. (Before it hits our head, right, Dale?) This has obvious implications for individual survival.

But in the quantum realm things are counter-intuitive. We do not have a grasp of quantum rules simply because our survival has never depended upon this understanding. We don't need to know about wave-particle duality of electrons unless you are applying for funding in Physics. Our brains evolved to understand what mattered for survival and an intuitive understanding of Classical Mechanics was much more important in this respect than Quantum Mechanics. We don't need to understand Quantum Mechanics to make incredibly precise and accurate predictions of experimental outcomes, which makes it one of the most successful Theories of all time. For an entertaining discussion of what would happen if, for instance the Planck's, gravitational or speed of light constants were altered to make quantum weirdness a part of our normal every day experience, see if you can find of copy of George Gamow's Mr. Tomkins in Wonderland. This book is unfortunately out of print, but for those interested see if you can find it on eBay.

Chopra claims materialism is a superstition and has glaring problems: "…arch materialism is just as superstitious as religion. Someone like Dawkins still believes there are solid objects randomly colliding to haphazardly form more and more complex objects, until over the course of billions of years the universe produced human DNA with its billions of genetic bits." Just out of curiosity, how can anything based on evidence (as materialism requires) be superstitious? That's just a non sequitor, but from Chopra it isn't surprising. Why does anyone buy his books?

"What's wrong with this argument is that if you trace DNA down to its individual atoms, each is more than 99.9999% empty space. If you take an individual electron, it has no fixed position in either time or space. Rather, ghostly vibrations wink in and out of the universe thousands of times per second, and what lies beyond the boundary of the five senses holds enormous mysteries." What I find enormously hilarious about this is that he is using materialistic positions to fight a strawman of materialism. Dawkins is fully aware and embraces Quantum Mechanics. It just has little bearing on his field of study. Chemistry is not about billiard balls bouncing off each other till they form some random molecule. Atoms come together directed by forces of interaction. If it was just random, Chemistry would not be a scientific discipline. It is anything but random. Some of his other points are just inanities. For instance, what does the fact that DNA is almost totally 'empty space' have anything to do with this? Again, DNA does not come together randomly; it is replicated in an ordered manner by proteins specific to the task, which are themselves coded in the DNA. There are many such non-random phenomena. Another good example is protein folding.

"Enough mysteries, in fact, to be consistent with God. I don't mean a personal God or a mythic one or any God with a human face. Set aside all images of God. What we observe once we get over the superstition of materialism (one that Dawkins defends to the last degree) is that random chance is one of the worst ways to explain how the universe evolved. Here are a few reasons why:
--The various constants in nature, such as gravity and the speed of light, are too precisely fitted with each other for this to happen by chance.
--If any one of six constants had been off by less than a millionth of 1 percent, the material universe couldn't exist." Let's look at the argument that if the universal constants aren't what they are there would be no universe, which is just another form of the Anthropic Principle. Is this true? Nope. I don't know where he read this (maybe the Discovery Institute website), but even large changes in fundamental constants would result in something amazing: the big bang, formation stars and galaxies, etc. Sound familiar? Vic Stenger has dealt with the cosmological argument in several of his books. For instance, one proponent of the Anthropic Principle has stated that if the mass of the neutrino were increased by a very small amount (it turns out to be a factor of 10), the gravitational force would cause the universe to collapse immediately after the Big Bang. But what really happened here? He's not only changed the mass of the neutrino, but changed the mass of the universe as well! There would simply have been fewer neutrinos with this increased mass and you'd still have the universe. Changing fundamental constants in a vacuum like that is simply a numbers game. Indeed, the Anthropic Principle has no empirical basis and is little more than the Argument from Personal Incredulity. Even if the universe was such that our type of life could not exist, that does not mean some other form could not develop. Stephen Hawking (a little name dropping here I admit) believes that there is very little special about our universe at all.
"--Events at opposite ends of the universe are paired with each other, so that a change in the spin of one electron immediately produces a twin effect in another electron. This ability to communicate instantly across millions of light years cannot be explained by materialism. It defies all notions of cause and effect. It defies chance. "This point brings us back to the subject of Quantum Mechanics. What Chopra is (badly) describing is something called quantum entanglement. He obviously doesn't understand that while entangled states appear to violate relativity, no meaningful information is transferred between the particles and thus causality is not violated. Seems it is explained in a materialistic manner to me.

"--Every electron in the universe exists as a wave function that is everywhere at once. When this wave function collapses, we observe a specific isolated electron. Before the wave collapses, however, matter is non-local." This last point (yet again) shows Chopra's miscomprehension. He naively states that matter is everywhere in the universe until measurement causes the wavefunction to collapse. But what the equations actually describe (and this depends on the interpretation of QM, but because I am familiar only with the Copenhagen interpretation I will use that) is that the wavefunction extends out infinitely, not the mass. The square of the wavefunction gives the probability distribution of finding the particle at any given point. These mathematical functions extend over all space, but that does not mean that the matter is non-local. The math just tells us the probability of finding the particle at any point in space. When you attempt to observe it the wavefunction collapses and you detect the particle.

What I find most amusing about this is that Quantum Mechanics wholly materialistic. It is has been verified by experiment many times over with a precision unheard of prior to its discovery. The inability of the human mind to understand it invites people like Chopra (or the two ladies in the café) to try to believe that it is in some way the woo-woo mystical crap and try to make it their own. While I do not suggest that Quantum Mechanics does not describe something deep and fundamental about our universe (indeed it does), there is nothing to suggest that it points to design or intelligence. Chopra seems mistakenly to think that Classical Mechanics is all there is to Science and somehow Quantum Mechanics is outside of this, in the woo-woo realm. Baloney. Yes, Quantum Mechanics changed Physics, but it was born out of materialism not spirituality.

"If the universe is self-aware, it would explain the formation of a self-replicating molecule like DNA far more elegantly than the clumsy, crude mechanism of random chance. As the astronomer Fred Hoyle declared (Hoyle was one of the first to seize on the notion of an expanding universe in the 1950s), the probability that random chance created life is roughly the same as the probability that a hurricane could blow through a junkyard and create a Boeing 707." Here we go again. When did any proponent of abiogenesis or Evolution ever claim that 'random chance' was the start of life? Life began very, very simply. We don't know the details, but it certainly did not resemble anything like a cell. The cell is a modern structure, the result many, many small changes over time. DNA is also a modern replicator. Of course they could not have spontaneously formed. But then, DNA and cells were not the first structures that we would label as Life.

The Strawman Army commeth....

Deepak on The God Delusion - Part Deux

In part one, I showed that Deepak Chopra does not understand the difference between Science declaring something extremely unlikely via Ockham's Razor, where anything unnecessary to an explanation of observations is discarded. Rather, he sees Science as saying that anything that doesn't have a naturalistic explanation is non-existent. This is a ridiculous viewpoint, not the least in so far as it is false. Chopra is simply a sub-par thinker. Let's look at what he believes is Richard Dawkins second point against God:

God is unnecessary. Science can explain nature without any help from supernatural forces like God. There is no need for a Creator.

Deepak tries to hide by declaring that God is not a person:

"This assumption is false on several grounds. The most basic one is that God isn't a person. In a certain strain of fundamentalist Christianity God looks and acts human, and creating the world in six days is taken literally (Dawkins refers to such believers as "clowns," worthy of nothing but ridicule). But God isn't a person in any strain of Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, the branch of Hinduism known as Vedanta, and many denominations of Christianity--he's not a person in the Gospel of John in the New Testament."

Deepak I think missed the whole point of The God Delusion. Like Sam Harris' Letter To A Christian Nation and The End of Faith, The God Delusion was written to address the clear and present danger of fundamentalism in the Abrahamic religions. These religions do indeed view God as a person. According to the Bible, we were created in His image. Such a god can not exist. Refuting Deepak's version of spirituality would require a whole new book.

Well, we've seen how Chopra defines God as not being, but what is God to him? "God, if he exists, is universal, existing at all times and places, pervading creation both inside the envelope of space-time and outside it. To use a word like "He" has no validity, in fact; we are forced into it by how language works. A better term would be "The All," which in Sanskrit is Brahman and Allah in Islam. Not every language is stuck with "He" or "She."" This sounds rather pantheist to me, until he posits that "The All" demonstrates intelligence. That's where I draw the line between something I can respect and something I deride.

To Chopra, it all comes down to a choice. "The real debate is between two world views:
1. The universe is random. It operates entirely through physical laws. There is no evidence of innate intelligence.
2. The universe contains design. Physical laws generate new forms that display intention. Intelligence is all-pervasive." Deepak seems to think that these two points of view can be united. Unfortunately, as Dawkins pointed out clearly in his book, these people are being intellectually dishonest. For a scientist to believe the second position, evidence for design and intent must be present. It is irrational to believe in something without at least some empirical evidence. The 'inner knowledge' thing just doesn't fly, since these are baseless perceptions masqueraded as undeniable evidence. This is simply a sham, a delusion in the truest sense. I direct anyone that thinks differently to read David Hume's work Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

"There is room for a new paradigm that preserves all the achievements of science--as upheld by the first worldview--while giving the universe meaning and significance." This is ludicrous anthropomorphizing. As humans, it is part of our behavior to see patterns, even when there are none. Our intellect has trouble believing that there is no meaning, no destiny for our species. As Vic Stenger points out in God: The Failed Hypothesis, the universe has a lot of waste if it has some kind of meaning that includes us. Our species has been around only a tiny fraction of the history of the universe; our species will likely never get beyond a few light years in exploring it, whereas it is billions of light years in size. Giving the universe meaning and significance where it has none is simply an Argument from Personal Incredulity. Not accepting that there is no purpose, no reason for existence is Deepak's failing, not the universe's. Instead he plays the fool and arbitrarily posits such meaning without evidence.

In part III of this series, Chopra makes an attempt to create a bridge between these two positions. You of course know that I already think this is impossible, since the second point above is false, merest illusion…..

The Inanity that is Deepak Chopra Continues....

I read Deepak Chopra's latest blog entry and felt a blog coming on. I know you mean well, Deepak, but you really should stick to things you know and understand. I just don't know what those things are, and neither do you. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.

"I remain fascinated by orthodox defenders of Darwinism, who believe that the success of a scientific theory proves its infallibility. As a passing note, I have never denied natural selection, but the holes in current evolutionary theory are glaring." Orthodox defenders of Darwinism? Is that like the Knights Templar? And Darwinism does not exist. It is Evolution. Does the success of a scientific theory prove its infallibility? In Science there is no such thing as infallible. When a theory describing a phenomenon fails, it is either changed to include the new data or discarded in favor of a new synthesis. No scientist ever dogmatically holds onto a theory just because he/she likes it. We leave that to religion. The success of Evolutionary Theory has been emense and thus does validate it. Since there have been no serious challenges to it, it remains. But as Einstein said, there will not be any ultimate theory of everything. Evolutionary Theory will not be supplanted by a new theory any more than Relativistic Theory replaced Newtonian Mechanics.

"Responders have criticized my example of honey bees that die when they sting. I am well aware that there are drones, workers, and a queen in each hive. But the fact that the workers are sterile doesn't refute the example but only strengthens it. How can a queen bee, who is responsible for laying all the eggs, possibly know whether some hatch with stingers that are fatal or not? How can her genes know? That they somehow do know is part of the credo of sociobiology. Let's say, however, that some hives survive with workers that die after they sting while others don't survive with workers that can sting multiple times (as bumblebees can)? There is no way to attribute the survival to this adaptation, and in addition, it's only common sense that workers that can sting multiple times are far better defenders than those that die immediately. This is an evolutionary conundrum and remains one despite Darwinian efforts to explain it." Not at all. The large number of workers means that bees that die because they lose their stingers (or for any other reason) do not deplete the hive population significantly. Indeed, the loss of the stinger provides increased protection value, continuing to work long after the initial sting itself. As for how the queen bee's genes know any of this, the answer is they don't. By this bizarre statement, I can only assume Deepak is trying to figure out why workers have stingers that detach, and queens don't. This is in fact related to the diet given the pupae, which changes the hormonal mix to differentiate each type. Natural selection has selected for bee colonies where the workers lose their sting for the aforementioned reason. The workers have no genetic interest in surviving, except to protect the queen. This is in fact why the queen bee has a stinger which does not. She uses the stinger to fend off rivals. A surviving queen bee which would die after using the stinger wouldn't be around to pass on the genes. This is just one example that Deepak demonstrates of the complete and utter lack of understanding of Evolutionary Theory.

"Darwinism has hit a serious obstacle in its attempt to explain adaptations in a more sophisticated way. Survival is a conscious act, and ignoring that fact in favor of materialism is a dead end." Survival is a conscious act? Since when? I would say that even in humans it is not conscious. We evolved with behavior which produces a desire to stay alive. Not to do so is not much of an evolutionary strategy, in my humble opinion. How is instinct conscious? "It's quite self-contradictory for current evolutionary biologists to speak of adaptations that benefit the genes of a species without elucidating how a gene can know anything about the outside world. How do the genes of a queen bee, for example, absorb the information about what's happening to worker bees without some resort of intelligence?" This gave me mental whiplash. The very act of asking such a question betrays Deepak's complete and total ignorance of Evolutionary Theory. The utter inanity of thinking that genes need to have knowledge of their environment makes my head explode. Does Deepak even grasp the basic concept of Natural Selection? It is the gene that is affected by selection pressures over generations of replication, not the gene changing in order to survive in a particular environment. There is no 'absorption of information'. Genes that cause an organism to have some advantage over its rivals tends to be passed on to the next generation. What Deepak is suggesting seems almost Lamarckian, a long defunct attempt at explaining Evolution.

"Moreover, crude notions of competition and survival of the fittest are grossly inadequate. The entire field of ecology is based on cooperation, symbiosis, and holistic forces that shape life on this planet." Should I even bother to comment on what is wrong here? I don't think he understands the concept of "survival of the fittest". To be fair, most people don't. His view seems to suggest that ecology is all warm and fuzzy, devoid of competition. I got news for you, Deepak. Bambi wasn't a documentary. And what the hell are holistic forces? Natural Selection is by far the most important shaper of gene propagation.

"The deeper questions are these:
--How does competition fit in with its opposite, cooperation?" Competition and cooperation go hand in hand. Indeed, cooperation can enhance competition. If you equate cooperation with altruism, then you are misguided. Truly altruistic behavior is a myth. Birds flock for safety in numbers, where more eyes are looking out for danger, but this is hardly altruistic. Competition is occurring simultaneously with cooperation.

"--How can mutations really be random given that complex adaptations such as flight require multiple adaptations simultaneously?" Oh, my. Can you say 'Irreducible Complexity'? Sorry, Deepak, that was debunked long ago. The evolution of the wing has long been understood. Indeed, it is a prime example of convergent evolution. If it was so difficult, then this would not be the case. It is incorrect that multiple adaptations had to occur simultaneously. This would only be true if the wing were to simply pop into existence, which could not happen according to Evolutionary Theory.

"--How can we explain adaptations that don't benefit mating preferences? The honey bee is a perfect example. Worker bees take no part in mating, and it's ludicrous to think that drones prefer queens whose genes produce worker bees that die after they sting?" Another whiplash-producing statement. Unbelievable stupidity. There is no word in the English language, perhaps not in any language, to describe this. Queens do not produce offspring like we do. The form of the bee is strongly affected by diet, controlled by worker bees. The detachable sting conveyed an advantage to survival. THAT is what matters.

"--How can we explain adaptations that only come into effect after mating, such as the differing life spans of creatures after they breed? By what criteria, for example, does Nature choose for one insect to live ninety days instead of one day?" One might as well ask why lifespan of our species is increasing. As you might expect, it is due to Natural Selection. We are delaying childbirth to later on in life, thus increased longevity is selected for. (It's a common misconception that it is due to increased overall health. Medical advances have only had a small effect on our longevity.)

"--How can we explain the rise of consciousness out of unconscious molecules?" If you are suggesting that Science cannot explain consciousness because it has been unable to up to this point, then you are following the false dichotomy argument, Deepak. A bad argument. We only now have tools which allow us to explore the mind and thus is a field in its infancy. To explain consciousness in terms of spirituality is vacuous. If you cannot speak in scientific terms about a concept, you cannot speak intelligibly about it. There is no shame in the words "we don't know." Spiritualists make fools of themselves speaking of things like consciousness when they have not scientific data to fall back upon in support. You are no different, Deepak.

"Darwinians bluster that the answers to these mysteries already exist. This is far from true. I have debated Nobel laureates and other scientific notables on these issues." Bully for you. But you don't understand the basic concepts of what you were debating on, and I doubt you held up well against their arguments except in your own mind.

I'm not a big fan of debates on Evolution vs ID/Creation. Dawkins was told by Gould that he felt that it gave unnecessary and misplaced credibility to creationists just for showing up. That's one reason, but I have stronger ones. What is the outcome of debating this subject? Generally speaking the polarity is such that each side just hears what they want out of the debate. No minds are changed. And what does it mean to win a debate? Does that mean that the 'winning' side's version is truth? No. It just means the winner is a better debater. I've taken a side that I didn't actually agree with and kicked ass in a debate. It's not about the truth. So I don't find debates particularly useful.

Anyway, this is a man who's ideas have a significant following. But if his philosophy is built on such a weak and shaky foundation, I must conclude that everything in it is suspect and no one should pay Deepak Chopra any mind. He only strengthens my feeling that the equation below holds true:

spiritualist = flake.

Deepak Chopra: One of those 'crystal wearing freaks in need of a smack'

I don't know that Chopra is into crystals, but I couldn't resist using that great line from MC Hawking's "What We Need More of is Science." I'd heard of Deepak Chopra, but never gave him much thought till I came across a blog at one of my favorite Science blogs, Pharyngula. I followed the link to see more and was appalled by the lack of understanding, misinformation and just downright inanity I read. Let's get started with the punting, shall we?

"There's a sense of crisis in the air over the notion that reason itself is in jeopardy. The attack on reason is coming primarily from religious extremists, but the whole ethos of fundamentalism is seen as irrational. So the alarm goes out to defend science and push back unreason. This urgent call is supposed to salvage future progress for humanity and defeat the wave of barbarity that travels under the name of terrorism. But how can anyone seriously defend science as a panacea when it gave us the atomic bomb?" Interesting. Just who is it that espouses Science as such a thing? Science is a way of viewing the world to find out how it works. A toolbox, if you will. Nothing more. If you are looking for moral and ethical guidance, Science offers none. Look elsewhere. (May I suggest "secular humanism"?)

"Rationality is creating new methods of mechanized death every year. The future being planned by so-called rationalists includes robot armies and neutron bombs that can kill every enemy combatant--or civilian population--while leaving their buildings standing." I reiterate: Science is amoral. Rationality has never caused anyone to strap on a bomb with the intent to kill and maim. It is ideology, whether religious or political, which does this. And someone should take Deepak's collection of fifties sci-fi movies away from him.

" Reason isn't the savior of the future. That role belongs to wisdom." Huh? Someone wanna tell me how you can separate wisdom and reason? Or how wisdom can be applied without reason? Sounds to me if his personal philosophy is a little underdone and should go back into the oven.

" For at least two thousand years, our evolution has shifted to the following:
--We assimilate new information and evolve mentally.
--We don't evolve physically (except to grow healthier and live longer) but instead use technology to extend our physical limitations and gain more power over Nature.
--We gain a higher vision of ourselves and evolve spiritually." Arrgh! Another Science education-deficient idiot savant! Spiritual growth is not evolution! And yes, we are continuing to evolve physically! The difference now is that we are creating some of the natural selection pressures ourselves. He clearly has NO IDEA of what he's talking about here.

"Arch materialists like Richard Dawkins, despite an expertise in evolutionary biology, miss the whole point of human evolution, which is that it long ago broke out of the prison of physicality. True, modern athletes are stronger, bigger, faster, and more accomplished than those of the past, but this doesn't affect anyone's survival the way becoming a bigger, stronger, faster gazelle would." Again, Chopra shows his embarrassing lack of understanding of what evolution is. This was written by someone who thinks he knows what Evolution is, but has failed to grasp the concept entirely. And no, Richard Dawkins does not miss the point about human evolution. You do, Chopra. In fact, you miss the whole point of what evolution is: there is no point. There is no end purpose, no guiding mentality. Modern athletes are bigger, stronger and faster mainly because they train. True, their genes give them an edge over the likes of (presumably) you and me, but it doesn't happen through an individual's lifetime, as he seems to think. Stupid and ridiculous. Someone give Deepak a copy of 'Evolution for Dummies' for Xmas please.

"Taking all factors together, humans evolve through the metabolism of experience. That is, we absorb everything going on in our environment, and in some rather mysterious ways, the next generation knows more and can do more than we can. I am not being mystical here. When Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity, Bertrand Russell famously said that he was one of three people in the world who understood it. Now a bright high school student can grasp Einstein's principles, if not his mathematics." "Metabolism of experience"? Just what the hell is that? Why do spiritualists like to use fancy terminology in their attempts to express ideas, yet fail miserably because the terms are so nebulous as to completely obscure all meaning? Could you spiritualist folk please talk plainly without the mumbo-jumbo? We in Science use jargon, it's true, but each term has a very well-defined meaning, not something that sounds like it was pulled from the posterior. If we didn't, journal articles would be books and even more boring to read than they are now.

As I continue to read this I am getting more and more irate. He's not being mystical? He is suggesting that the Gaia hypothesis is responsible for a high schooler's understanding of Relativity in all but name! I think a simpler explanation might be that after a small number of people study and understand the implications of new and revolutionary ideas like Relativity, the concepts can distilled into simpler, more intuitive forms that others can grasp. This is dissemination of information, NOT evolution.

"The same holds true for today's five-year-olds who can navigate through a computer better and faster than many adults of an older generation. We assimilate difficulties, solve them, and move on to a new future as more evolved humans. The evolution of the wisest holds that this cannot be a random process." Yes, it is not random, but it isn't due to some mystical bullshit either. Children are exposed to technologies at a young age, so of course they will be able to handle technologies at a younger age. These are their formative years. But the same type of problems that you have with computers, Deepak, will happen to them with some other new gadgetry. What time is it at Deepak's house? "12 o'clock! 12 o'clock! 12 o'clock!...."

"When asked if he found the cathedrals of Europe inspiring, Mark Twain answered to the effect that the architects forgot to build inspiring people to go in them. We risk leaving the same legacy to the future. What will save us is self-awareness, the key to evolution of the wisest." Wait a minute... Evolution of the wisest? What the....? Is Chokra thinking that evolution can be hijacked in any manner that he sees fit? Get a grip, Deepak. Evolution doesn't work that way. Evolution doesn't care about you, your beliefs or (and especially) your views on what path it should take. Cold and indifferent, but that's just the way the universe is. And, by the way, most members of H. sapiens are already self-aware. So what the hell does that mean? He promises to talk about that in a future post. I await with bated breath...