Chopra continues his attack on his skeptical critics with a piece in the New Republic, focussing his attention on Jerry Coyne. Coyne, in turn, responds to Copra. I gave away my assessment of the exchange in the title of this post, but take a look and decide for yourselves.

Chopra continues his attempt to portray the situation as him being the victim of militant skeptics who are using underhanded tactics to attack anyone who would expand science beyond our narrow materialist view. In so doing he actually betrays his pseudoscientific natture.

Coyne immediately zeros in on Chopra’s major fallacy – he is arguing that he is not a pseudoscientist by listing all his credentials and associations. That is exactly what a pseudoscientist would do, surround himself in the trappings of science. There is no doubt that Chopra is a successful self-promoter, and in fact he is partly responsible for the infiltration of pseudoscience into academia. None of that rescues him from being a pseudoscientist.

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As promised, Deepak Chopra has written a follow up article about what he calls The Rise and Fall of Militant Skepticism. As we saw in part 1, Chopra remains consistent with his reputation for being intellectually superficial and careless, more interested in propping up his particular brand of mysticism than genuinely engaging with his critics.

In part 2 Chopra also continues his practice of erecting massive strawmen, consistent with the narrative standard in his corner of the wooniverse. He begins by once again conflating atheism with skepticism. Clearly he did not read or comprehend any of the skeptical responses to his first post. Now he trots out the tired claim that skeptics are negative and want to kill curiosity – it’s all just so tedious.

He also uses a strategy that I see increasingly within the subculture of many pseudosciences, specifically trying to adopt the language of skeptics but turning that language back against skeptics, as if they thought of in the first place.

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Deepak Chopra apparently has no love for organized skepticism. This is not surprising and his particular brand of spiritual pseudoscience has been a favorite target of skeptical analysis. He is also not the only one who has decided to fight back against the skeptics – if you cannot defend yourself against legitimate criticism, then shoot the messenger.

In a recent article Chopra renews his attack against what he calls “militant skepticism.” This is a blatant attempt, of course, to portray skeptics as extremist and on the fringe, a strategy that has been used against “militant atheists.” Chopra also uses his article to conflate skepticism with atheism, almost as if he is completely unaware of the internal discourse that has been taking place for decades within the skeptical movement.

Chopra writes:

The rise of militant skepticism clouded the picture, however, beginning with its popular attack on religion. The aim of Richard Dawkins, as stated in his best seller, The God Delusion, was to subject “the God hypothesis” to scientific scrutiny, the way one would subject anti-matter or black holes to scrutiny. In fact he did no such thing with God, for the scientific method requires experiments that can be replicated and facts that can be verified. Dawkins offered no experiments to prove or disprove the existence of God. What he actually did was to subject religion to a barrage of scorn and ridicule, attacking it on the rational improbability – as he sees it – that a deity could possibly exist.

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TED is a prestigious biannual conference whose brand is, “Ideas Worth Spreading.” (TED originally stood for “Technology, Entertainment, Design,” but its scope has since expanded.) It has spawned TEDx – regional independent TED style conferences that are allowed to use the TED brand as long as they strive for the same level of quality.

Deepak Chopra apparently thinks that TED’s logo should be, “Let’s throw any crap against the wall and let the audience sort it out.” Of course that is what all self-styled gurus and purveyors of pseudoscience want, no real scientific standards so that they can present their crackpot ideas as legitimate.

This conflict of vision recently came to a head when TEDx directors (Lara Stein, TEDx Director and Emily McManus, TED.com Editor) wrote an open letter to TEDx organizers giving them guidance on how to avoid accidentally promoting bad science. The letter is an excellent primer on pseudoscience and I recommend reading it in its entirety. The letter was a response to several dubious TEDx talks and the backlash that resulted. Early in the letter they make clear its purpose and their philosophy.

“It is not your audience’s job to figure out if a speaker is offering legitimate science or not. It is your job.”

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Deepak Chopra believes that he is magic. He thinks he can affect reality with his thoughts alone, and that is as good a definition of “magic” as any.

On Sunday there was a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Baja CA. This is a serious quake, and on the Mexico side of the border where construction quality is not as good, there was substantial devastation and some loss of life.

Following the quake Deepak tweeted:

“Had a powerful meditation just now — caused an earthquake in Southern California,”

and then:

“Was meditating on Shiva mantra & earth began to shake. Sorry about that.”

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Deepak Chopra, writing for (of course) the Huffington Post, laments about his critics that, “Most of my stinging darts come from skeptics.” So he has decided to attack skeptics and skepticism – a preemptive strike against his critics. Predictably he mangles scientific skepticism, and is content to attack a straw man and then declare victory.

He begins:

Over the years I’ve found that ill-tempered guardians of scientific truth can’t abide speculative thinking. And as the renowned Richard Dawkins has proved, they are also very annoyed by a nuisance named God.

Right of he starts by accusing skeptics of being “ill-tempered” as if we are all cynical curmudgeons. This is an unimaginative ad hominem (Chopra really wracks up the logical fallacies in this post). Many of the skeptics I know are actually quite mild-mannered, even overly nice. Chopra confuses, perhaps, sharp scientific criticism with emotion. This is a common mistake among those who are not adequately familiar with the scientific process – it is a relentless meatgrinder of criticism and does not abide illogic or sloppiness – and that’s a good thing.  Beware of those who confuse scientific analysis and criticism with being mean.

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Deepak Chopra has made a career out of misunderstanding quantum mechanics (QM) – and through his popularity, confusing the public. Like many others, he has found a superficial way in which to interpret quantum mechanics to make is seem as if it is congruent with Eastern metaphysics.

And now he has done it again, in that anti-science rag the Huffington Post. Chopra goes beyond the typical New Age distortion of QM, which is basically the claim that QM is really weird, therefore magic is real. Chopra assumes some very specific, and common, misinterpretations of QM. He writes:

Quantum physics tells us that objects exist in a suspended physical state until observed, when they collapse to just one outcome — we don’t know what happens until we investigate, and our investigation influences that reality. Whether or not certain events may have happened some time ago, may not actually be determined until some time in your future — it may actually be contingent upon actions that have not yet taken place.

Chopra is referring to the wave-particle duality of matter, quantum entanglement, and the uncertainty principle – but he gets them profoundly wrong. First he makes the common mistake of interpreting the collapse of the wave function as being dependent on an observer, which is false. QM states that light, electrons, and all fundamental particles exist not as  discrete point particles, but spread out like a wave. We can only describe the probability that they will be in a specific place at any moment, and that probability is the wave function. Particles, when free from interactions with other matter, actually behave like waves (see the double slit experiments).

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Writing for the Huffington Post (an online news outlet that regularly hosts pseudoscience and anti-vaccinationist ravings), Deepak Chopra seeks to inform us: Why the Paranormal is Normal. What he actually demonstrates is his ability to twist and abuse language in an attempt to distract and confuse his reader. At this verbal deception Chopra is truly the master.

Language is important- words matter. Anyone who has studied a technical field should appreciate the need to use precise and unambiguous terminology. Good writers will also carefully choose words to illuminate, rather than obfuscate, what they wish to convey. It is also true that humans generally think in words. Language is closely tied to conscious thought. We therefore need clear language in order to think clearly. Words are also handle-bars with which we can grab hold of concepts – therefore by expanding our vocabulary we can expand our intellectual horizons.

Those who wish to push a claim or point of view that is illogical, at odds with reality, or simply does not make sense will often use language to force-fit their ideas to reality. They will use ambiguous terms, or will shift the definition of terms as needed, for example. This is exactly what Chopra does in order to make his dubious point.

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Recently someone on Quora asked the question – does Chi exist? The answers were mostly positive, which is not surprising given the likely selective nature of who decided to answer. There is, however, a clear answer to this question – no. At least, that is the scientific answer, as much as science can determine a negative. We can be as confident in this answer as saying that Unicorns and Leprehauns don’t exist.

Some of the Quora answers included, “There’s a word for it so it must exist otherwise it would have no word/s about it. Every culture-language-dialect has a word for chi and lots of words to describe the various aspects of chi.”

Of course this is not true. We have words for many concepts that simply don’t exist. See, for example, all of mythology. This may seem like an obvious point to make, and it is, but I think it is common to assume that “where there is smoke there is fire.” If a belief is common enough, it must be at least based on something real. There is also a romanticism about the notion that our treasured mythologies might be based upon some historical reality (even if the details have been altered). We want to believe that there was a real Robin Hood roaming around Sherwood forest, and that Sherlock Holmes was solving cases from 221B Baker Street.

Why would so many cultures believe in a life force like Chi if there was nothing to it? There are many reason. The first is cultural contamination – people moved around the world and their ideas moved with them, even in ancient times. Also, some ideas are obvious or represent something fundamental. It is clear that living things are different from non-living things, but pre-scientific cultures did not have the foundation of knowledge to understand this difference. So they simply attached a word to it – whatever that thing is that make life alive is the “life force” – chi (or qi) in Eastern cultures. The details, however, will vary from culture to culture. Chi was believed to be in the blood, while the Greek’s “pneuma” was in the breath, and the more modern “innate” of chiropractors flows through nerves.

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Retraction Watch has an interesting article about a very curious paper published in Science of the Total Environment. In fact, the paper and communication from the lead author are so bad I have to wonder if its a Sokal-like prank. If not, it is more evidence that the world has become so weird there are many things which are beyond satire. But let’s take this at face value. The title of the paper is: “Can Traditional Chinese Medicine provide insights into controlling the COVID-19 pandemic: Serpentinization-induced lithospheric long-wavelength magnetic anomalies in Proterozoic bedrocks in a weakened geomagnetic field mediate the aberrant transformation of biogenic molecules in COVID-19 via magnetic catalysis.”

Many scientific publications are extremely technical and require very long technical descriptions, but my “gratuitous jargon” alarm went off at this title. The paper itself is worse – I get the distinct impression it is using jargon not to be precise, but to impress and befuddle. But wading through the jargon, the claim here that has caught attention is this – “Nephrite-Jade amulets, a calcium-ferromagnesian silicate, may prevent COVID-19.” What? Wearing a jade amulet may prevent COVID-19? You are going to have to do better than dazzling with jargon to make that claim stick, or even to get it taken seriously. The fact that the authors reference Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) does not help either.

The co-founder of Retraction Watch, Ivan Oransky, wanted to get to the bottom of it also, so he wrote the following e-mail to the corresponding author, Moses Turkle Bility, PhD. Oransky wrote:

“Dr. Bility
I blog at Retraction Watch. Can you confirm that you co-authored this paper?”

That was it – a very simple query to confirm authorship. This is pretty standard in academia, just dotting all the i’s. This was Dr. Bility’s response:

Dear Dr. Ivan Oransky, yes, I published that article, and I kindly suggest you read the article and examine the evidence provided. I also suggest you read the history of science and how zealots have consistently attempted to block and ridicule novel ideas that challenge the predominant paradigm from individuals that are deem not intelligent enough. I not surprised that this article has elicited angry responses. Clearly the idea that a black scientist can provide a paradigm shifting idea offends a lot of individuals. I’ll be very candid with you; my skin color has no bearing on my intelligence. If you have legitimate concerns about the article and wish to discuss, I’ll address; however, I will not tolerate racism or intellectual intolerance targeted at me.

Whoa, where is that coming from? I suspect that Dr. Bility has already received some pushback prior to getting the very innocent query from Retraction Watch, but such a response is extremely telling. Bility immediately goes for the “small minded bigots can’t appreciate my paradigm-shifting brilliance” card. Sorry, Dr. Bility, but with that reaction you just branded yourself a crank and a pseudoscientist. Perhaps that’s not fair, but neither is this massively out-of-proportion response.

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