Deepak Chopra is currently centering his hostility towards science on Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. In these posts he demonstrates just how low he will go to try to get some affirmation of his beliefs from readers. His latest game is to set up choices between his bizarre views and a straw man he creates, hoping that least the readers not realize there are other alternatives and might settle for agreement with him. he’s up to the fourth part of his attacks on Ronald Dawkins. In part three he returns to specious attacks on evolution, writing:
As the astronomer Fred Hoyle declared 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.
Of course, as anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of evolution and biology knows, evolution provides a mechanism for the development of complex life forms that is far from random. Chopra is once again taking ideas from the religious right in falsely characterizing evolution as random chance. Despite claiming that his posts are a refutation of Dawkins’ book, he fails to note that Dawkins both addressed and thoroughly refuted this argument in chapter four of The God Delusion. However, those who do not understand evolution might fall for this logic, and he begs them for support:
Before proceeding with the next step in refuting the anti-God position, let’s pause to see what responders think. Do you think a random universe of concrete objects colliding by chance is the right model for creation?
Chopra tries to get away here with claiming that creation by God or random chance are the only alternatives. He is similarly dishonest in part four where he touches on his belief of that the universe is conscious by distorting science. He takes a number of physical constants which are necessary for life, a topic Dawkins also addressed at length, to claim that “random chance is one of the worst ways to explain how the universe evolved” again ignoring the fact that random chance is not the scientific alternative to creationism:
It means that there may be governing forces at work which allow the existence of universal consciousness. The self-aware universe is a plausible theory. Many writers have described it, although Dawkins disdains such theories.
He appears to be preparing to discuss his belief in a self-aware universe in the next installment after offering it here as a seemingly plausible alternative to his straw man of random chance. Once again he tries to get readers to support his views by offering false choices:
First I’d like to hear responders’ views. Do you think you are conscious and intelligent, or are you being fooled by random chemical reactions inside your skull?
Chopra apparently thinks that readers, knowing they are conscious, will see no choice but to agree with him as opposed to his straw man. There is far more activity in the brain than random chemical reactions, and if such activity creates conciousness nobody is being fooled. There’s no attempt for an explanation yet for Chopra’s leap from consciousness in the individual, which science does not dispute, to consciousness in the universe as a whole.
