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Deepak Chopra backs ID!!!

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YAY!!!! We have achieved circled round and met ourselves. The woo woo left has met the wacky right at this point.


This is the moment where it all changed for us. New Agers for ID!!!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/intelligent-design-withou_b_6105.html


If you care not to click through, don't worry, it's old ID-creationist claptrap.

Here's an example, but you can guess what all his points are from this old chestnut:


2. If mutations are random, why does the fossil record demonstrate so many positive mutations--those that lead to new species--and so few negative ones? Random chance should produce useless mutations thousands of times more often than positive ones.
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That alone puts him in the dumb-dumb league.

"Why are so many of the animals I find GOOD at coping with the environment that they lived in? It's almost as if SOME SUPERNATURAL FORCE was causing them to multiply!!!"
 
This is the point that strikes me as the funniest of all of the howlers:
12. Finally, why are life forms beautiful? Beauty is everywhere in Nature, yet it serves no obvious purpose. Once a bird of paradise has evolved its incredibly gorgeous plumage, we can say that it is useful to attract mates. But doesn't it also attract predators, for we simultaneously say that camouflaged creatures like the chameleon survive by not being conspicuous. In other words, exact opposites are rationalized by the same logic. This is no logic at all. Non-beautiful creatures have survived for millions of years, so have gorgeous ones. The notion that this is random seems weak on the face of it.
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One thing about this argument--if I can stoop to calling it that--is that intelligent design offers no explanation or solution to the perceived dilemma.

Indeed, even assuming that Chopra's jaw-dropping ignorance generates a genuine dilemma, intelligent design represents the worst explanation, doesn't it?

Suppose we assume that there is a designer. Well, then, precisely the same questions remain! If it wouldn't make sense for an intelligent designer to design beautiful birds that attract both mates and predators (what a bone-headed move that would be!), then aren't we left with a positive affirmation that there was no master planner?
 
Brown said:
Suppose we assume that there is a designer. Well, then, precisely the same questions remain! If it wouldn't make sense for an intelligent designer to design beautiful birds that attract both mates and predators (what a bone-headed move that would be!), then aren't we left with a positive affirmation that there was no master planner?
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That's explained by the mysterious ways of God. But evolution ain't gots no God, so it don't gets to use that as an excuse. That's why ID is so compelling, don't you see?

~~ Paul
 
He's my letter to the Huffington Post, which really shouldn't be running this crap. He's their "one of these things is not like the other" writer.






To Arianna Huffingon and the editors of the Huffington Post,




Deepak Chopra's August 23 post, "Intelligent Design without the Bible," is frankly an insult to my intelligence. If the Huffington Post strives to be part of the "Reality-Based Community," it is past time to ask Mr. Chopra to continue writing his fairy-tales elsewhere.

Chopra's article is based on the ancient fallacious "argument from ignorance." Basically what Chopra is saying is, "I don't understand the science behind evolution, therefore evolution has flaws." He goes even further to state that science will NEVER find solutions to the (non-existent) flaws he cites. The combination of willful ignorance and unbridled arrogance in this statement is breathtaking. Perhaps he can find a job in the Bush Administration.


He states that the fossil record has gaps that no missing link can fill. He says "for billions of years after the Big Bang, no other molecule replicated itself." How does he know this, and how does he know that we'll NEVER know the answer to abiogenesis? Perhaps he can inform Harvard University, before they spend millions of dollars trying to unlock the process of abiogenesis. He says it couldn't possibly be random. Leaving aside the fact that he misapplies the word "random" to a chemical reaction that is definitely NOT random, he does not understand the antropic principle he cites. The anthropic principle merely says that if life didn't spring up on this planet, we humans wouldn't be asking the questions we are now. Any life on any planet might be exeedingly lucky to be alive, but the unlucky ones never get to ask the question, for they never exist. The odds against life springing up could be a billion to one, and still you'd have life all over this vast universe.


This question alone is a howler:

"If mutations are random, why does the fossil record demonstrate so many positive mutations--those that lead to new species--and so few negative ones?"

He might have asked the question like this: "Why is the fossil record so full of bones of animals well adapted to their environment? It's as if a secret MAGIC FORCE caused the successful animals to multiply!" Absolutely stunning ignorance on display here.


And then there's this one:
"For that matter, since a mutation can only survive by breeding--"survival" is basically a simplified term for passing along gene mutations from one generation to the next-how did bees develop drones in the hive, that is, bees who cannot and never do have sex?"

Rather than asking the question honestly seeking an answer (and really, it's a fascinating subject to learn about) he assumes that the question has never been asked by science. And that it never has had a satisfactory answer, and that the lack of an answer means that there NEVER will be an answer. But I'll bet by the next post HE'LL have an answer, won't he? And it won't have anything to do with the survival of the hive being key to the survival of the genetic makeup of a colony of bees.

His answer will undoubtably require a flight of fancy into the supernatural. And curiosity dies at the moment where question about a natural wonder is answered with a superstition. Think about it, Chopra has answered the question without ever having to do any of the pesky work of going outside and looking at a real bee. He never has to study hard subjects like biology, genetics, or entomology. He merely has to sit in an armchair and let his imagination fly on the wings of fantasy to his answer.

Hundreds of years ago, human beings answed all of our deeper questions in just this manner. It was believed that man had "innate ideas" and could just think up the answer to any question. It was reasoned that flies spontaneously generated from rotting meat, and no experiment was necessary to prove it. The world was flat, it was plainly obvious and without need of verification. In modern times, we have utterly rejected this approach in all discpines except religion. Empiricism is the order of the day, and experiment its most valuable tool. It is the scientific method which has put men on the moon, unlocked the mysteries of DNA, defeated polio and wiped smallpox from the face of the planet. Chopra would toss it all into a wastebin and return to the year 1500, if he could. He would have to go back that far in order to be an expert in anything, for he would predate Galileo and his pesky insistence on experimental proof.


I could go on with his 12 questions, which are so full of offenses to modern thinking that they reflect very, VERY poorly on the Huffington Post.

One hour with an undergraduate biology teacher would clear up every single one of his "unanswerable" questions. But my question remains: How is it that the Huffington Post hopes to be part of the Reality-Based Community with Chopra writing science articles?


Sincerely,

(silicon)
 
Brown said:


Couldn't have said it better myself.
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Man I love Julia Sweeny.


Thanks for taking me back to her show. I mentally heard her voice when reading that, Brown.
 
Silicon said:
The woo woo left has met the wacky right at this point.
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Not quite. Read the comments Deepak is getting on that site, they're roasting him.

IDers don't get roasted by conservatives like that. They only politely object if they do object.
 
Silicon said:
How is it that the Huffington Post hopes to be part of the Reality-Based Community with Chopra writing science articles?
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The Reality-Based Community? Do they really say this? I've seen several articles that they buy into the thimerosal-causes-autism massive big pharma conspiracy.
 
Re: Re: Deepak Chopra backs ID!!!

normdoering said:
Not quite. Read the comments Deepak is getting on that site, they're roasting him.

IDers don't get roasted by conservatives like that. They only politely object if they do object.
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How did all this crap become part of conservatism? I guess those who prefer a "Wealth of Nations" style of sound economic policy, and think that religion should keep out of government before it starts restricting trade, are no more. The last thing I want to see is the Church of America dismantling our industry because some fundy says it encourages bad behavior. The environmentalists do enough damage as it is.
 
This emphasizes my point about superstitious thinking leading to more superstitious thinking.

When you let go of your rationality in one area, you have no reason not to believe in other areas as well. If you can believe that people can levitate (thereby eliminating the law of gravity), why shouldn't you believe that people's lives are ruled by the planets?
 
3. How does evolution know where to stop? The pressure to evolve is constant; therefore it is hard to understand why evolution isn't a constant. Yet sharks and turtles and insects have been around for hundreds of millions of years without apparent evolution except to diversify among their kind. These species stopped in place while others, notably hominids, kept evolving with tremendous speed, even though our primate ancestors didn't have to. The many species of monkeys which persist in original form tell us that human evolution, like the shark's, could have ended. Why didn't it?
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"Please, Mr Chopra, write an article on an issue you clearly know nothing about."

Maybe the publiction of the article was just an attempt to give him enough rope to hang himself. He seems to have done quite a good job.
 
This is such a stupid debate.

If my designer was in any way intelligent, why didn't "it" include joints flexible enough to reach that itch between my shoulder blades.


DAMN!! I just drew on the back of my shirt with my pen!
 
Drooper said:
If my designer was in any way intelligent, why didn't "it" include joints flexible enough to reach that itch between my shoulder blades.
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I can do that.
 
Drooper said:
By jove I think we've got him at last...


...what evidence do you have to support this claim.
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I'll demonstrate at TAM4. For a fee that goes to JREF. ;)
 
Silicon said:
Think about it, Chopra has answered the question without ever having to do any of the pesky work of going outside and looking at a real bee. He never has to study hard subjects like biology, genetics, or entomology. He merely has to sit in an armchair and let his imagination fly on the wings of fantasy to his answer.
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Isn't that how he comes up with all his medical quackery? Why should this be any different?
 
Psi Baba said:
Isn't that how he comes up with all his medical quackery? Why should this be any different?
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Yep. And Deepak has a new blog up and he tells us that "Consciousness may exist in photons, which seem to be the carrier of all information in the universe."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/rescuing-intelligent-desi_b_6164.html

I'll leave you with Bill Maher:
http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/new_rules/

New Rule: You don't have to teach both sides of a debate, if one side is a load of crap.

Now, President Bush recently suggested that public schools should teach intelligent design, alongside the theory of evolution. Because, after all, evolution is quote, "just a theory." Then the President renewed his vow to drive the terrorists straight over the edge of the earth.

Now, here is what I don't get. President Bush is a brilliant scientist. He's the man who proved you can mix two parts booze with one part cocaine, and still fly a jet fighter. And yet... yet he just can't seem to accept that we descended from apes.

It just seems pathetic to be so insecure about your biological superiority, to a group of feces-flinging, rouge-buttocked monkeys, that you have to make up fairy tales. Like we came from Adam and Eve, and then cover stories for Adam and Eve like, intelligent design. Yeah, leaving the Earth in the hands of two naked teenagers. That's a real intelligent design.

I'm sorry, folks, but it may very well may be that life is just a series of random events. And that there is no... master plan. But enough about Iraq. Let me instead restate my thesis. There aren't necessarily two sides to every issue. If there were, the Republicans would have an opposition party.

And an opposition party would point out that even though there's a debate, in schools, and government, about this, there is no debate among scientists. Evolution... is supported by the entire scientific community. Intelligent design is supported by guys online to see "The Dukes of Hazzard."

And the reason there is no real debate, is that intelligent design isn't real science. It's the equivalent of saying that the thermos keeps hot things hot and cold things cold, because it's a god. It's so willfully ignorant you might as well worship the U.S. Mail. It came again! Praise, Jesus!

No, stupidity isn't a form of knowing things. Thunder is high pressure air meeting low pressure air. It's not God bowling. Babies come from storks is not a competing school of thought... in medical school. We shouldn't teach both. The media shouldn't equate both. If Thomas Jefferson...

If Thomas Jefferson knew we were blurring the line this much between church and state, he would turn over in his slave. Now as for me, I believe in evolution and intelligent design. I think God designed us in his image, but I also think God is a monkey! God bless you and goodnight!
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And yet... yet he just can't seem to accept that we descended from apes.
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Ouch.

No, we didn't. We have common ancestors.

but it may very well may be that life is just a series of random events.
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Ouch.

Evolution is not random.
 
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