Deepak Chopra Continues Absurd Attacks On Evolutionary Science

Never let it be said that I am any less tolerant of anti-science views from the left than from the right. I tend to concentrate more on the anti-science attitudes from the right primarily because they have far more impact on legislation than those from the left  I have pointed out many examples of Choprawoo in response to Deepak Chopra’s articles at Huffington Post. This time his battle against evolutionary science is seen in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Chopra often mimics the arguments of the Discovery Institute against evolution while cloaking them with new age verbiage. He uses an example which really says nothing about evolution to argue that evolution has been guided by the intelligence of the universe as opposed to natural selection.

It suggests that evolution itself has never been random but is guided by the principle of intelligence — not “intelligent design,” which is a red herring supplied by religious conservatives. The intelligent universe is a cutting-edge idea, not a throwback to scripture. As a theory, it gives us a much more elegant explanation for many things that are clumsily explained by falling back on randomness to explain every new development in Nature.

While not exactly the “intelligent design” of the religious right, Chopra’s views are equally anti-scientific. As  P.Z. Myers notes, “Chopra doesn’t know what evolution is.”

Those interested in the details can read P.Z.’s full post but the bottom line is that “Chopra invents this bizarre idea that an intelligent universe is pushing clever ideas into monkey brains, and is guiding ‘evolution’. It’s a crazy claim spun out of a fairly straightforward observation of entirely natural behavior by some monkeys.” Furthermore Myers says this about the story written by Chopra:

The colobus story is not an example of evolution at all — it involves no changes in, or transmission of, heritable traits in a population. It is explainable entirely in terms of simple behavioral plasticity, and requires no intervention by an external intelligence, challenges absolutely nothing in evolutionary theory, and doesn’t demonstrate any hidden forces. If he were to try and present such a fable at a scientific meeting, he’d be laughed out of the room.

The only mystery here is why newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle continue to publish his drivel. Is someone under the misapprehension that he is a respected or even credible thinker? He’s a loon.

2 Comments

  1. 1
    Serge A Ruzeck says:

    RT @ronchusid: Deepak Chopra Continues Absurd Attacks On Evolutionary Science http://is.gd/bsM2t #p2 #palin sounds like she can't believe it

  2. 2
    Ohg Rea Tone says:

    Children are betrothed to Jesus at early ages – it is Christian tradition.  The problem comes when the children grow and learn and recognize the discrepancies between their religious teachings and the real world of science.  The stormy marriage of Jesus sends many people to therapy. …………
     
    http://thefiresidepost.com/2009/04/18/the-stormy-marriage-of-jesus/

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