Deepak Chopra, the doyen of quantum quacks, is not a happy man. He has been quite vocal lately about the constant criticism he attracts from science based skeptics. He seems to be specifically irritated by Michael Shermer. But let him speak:
"It used to annoy me to be called the king of woo woo. ... I had an unpredictable reaction. I realized that I would much rather expound woo woo than the kind of bad science Shermer stands behind. He has made skepticism his personal brand, more or less, sitting by the side of the road to denigrate "those people who believe in spirituality, ghosts, and so on," as he says on a YouTube video." (This after a square-off with Michale Shermer on Larry King Live).
Chopra explained his views at the Indian Astrology Conference:
"Western science is still frozen in an obsolete, Newtonian worldview that is based literally on superstition -- and we can call it the superstition of materialism -- which says you and I are physical entities of the physical universe, ..."Here he was essentially referring to his understanding of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. The Copenhagen interpretation (especially as he (mis)understands it), however, is not generally accepted. See here for a good discussion by Wadhawan and Kamal.
Regarding medical practice, Chopra and co-authors made the
following statement in an article entitled The Mythology Of Science-Based Medicine in the Huffington Post:
"We are not suggesting that Americans adopt any and all alternative practices simply because they are alternative. These, too, must demonstrate their effectiveness through objective testing."That is exactly what proponents of science-based medicine have been saying all along! Someone, I can't recall who, said that there are only two types of medicine - scientifically supported and scientifically unsupported. In view of that, I wonder how Chopra would judge something such as "Prof" William Nelson's Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface, or SCIO/QXCI, a bullshit device that I've blogged about before here and here.
I'm interested to know, where will Chopra draw the line? Why then, should all so-called alternative medicine not be subjected to objective scientific validation?
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