Skeptico

Chopra - Gets Snippy but Still Misses

Deepak Chopra has a surprisingly antagonistic article up (at the usual place) entitled Woo Woo Is a Step Ahead of (Bad) Science.  In it he calls out Michael Shermer for… well take a look.  Chopra is referring to a recent Larry King Live show where the two clashed:

Afterwards, however, 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. No matter that this broad brush would tar not just the Pope, Mahatma Gandhi, St. Teresa of Avila, Buddha, and countless scientists who happen to recognize a reality that transcends space and time. All are deemed irrational by the skeptical crowd. You would think that skeptics as a class have made significant contributions to science or the quality of life in their own right. Uh oh. No, they haven't. Their principal job is to reinforce the great ideas of yesterday while suppressing the great ideas of tomorrow.

At least he admits he expounds woo – by definition, extraordinary beliefs for which there is insufficient extraordinary evidence.  He also claims Shermer stands behind bad science, except he gives no evidence that Shermer supports bad science.  (In reality, he just doesn’t support Chopra’s pseudoscience.)  Chopra follows with a lame appeal to authority (the Pope, Mahatma Gandhi, St. Teresa of Avila, Buddha, etc), and the claim that skeptics, by rejecting false ideas, are somehow suppressing great ideas.  Seriously.  Chopra’s grasp of logic clearly hasn’t improved any.

For we have reached the state where Shermer's tired, out-of-date, utterly mediocre science is far in arrears of the best, most open scientific thinkers -- actually, we reached that point 60 years ago when eminent physicists like Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger applied quantum theory to deep spiritual questions. The arrogance of skeptics is both high-handed and rusty. It is high-handed because they lump brilliant speculative thinkers into one black box known as woo woo. It is rusty because Shermer doesn't even bother to keep up with the latest findings in neuroscience, medicine, genetics, physics, and evolutionary biology. All of these fields have opened fascinating new ground for speculation and imagination.

[My Bold.]

Yes – speculation.  Chopra gets close, but then misses completely.  Speculation is great for forming hypotheses to test.  Chopra, though, treats these speculations as though they were already successfully tested and were now proven facts.  They’re not.

Skeptics feel that they have won the high ground in matters concerning consciousness, mind, the origins of life, evolutionary theory, and brain science. This is far from the case. What they cling to is 19th Century materialism, packaged with a screeching hysteria about God and religion that is so passé it has become quaint. To suggest that Darwinian theory is incomplete and full of unproven hypotheses causes Shermer, who takes Darwin as purely as a fundamentalist takes scripture, to see God everywhere in the enemy camp.

I don’t think that any evolutionary scientist would argue that the the theory of evolution is complete – if it were, there would be no need for anyone do do evolutionary science any more because we'd already know everything.  (So that’s a straw man, for those who are counting.)  But “full of unproven hypotheses”?  Really?  “Full” of them?  If there are so many, why doesn’t Chopra list a couple?  Talk about “screeching hysteria.” 

Anyway, this shrill screed made me want to see what he was talking about – so I looked up the transcript of the Larry King show in question (which also included Dinesh D’Souza – so you know it’s going to be good.  And by “good,” you know I mean “bad”).  Here are some examples:

CHOPRA: First of all, there's a lot of interesting science now that is suggesting -- and by no means is this clear. There's a lot of controversy of -- about this. There's a lot of interesting science that our consciousness, which is the place where we perceive, think, emote, imagine, have insight, intuition, choice-making -- that this part of us is not a product of our brain.

Chopra admits the science just “suggests” this, and that the evidence “by no means is this clear.”  You wouldn’t believe this though from what follows, or from his HuffPo article.  Note how all the “not clear” and only “suggesting” references disappear in what follows:

Yes. The -- the -- the mind, that consciousness, the one I'm talking to right now is not a product of the brain, but is localizing itself through the brain, just like people who are seeing us right now on their screens, you know, we're not in their television boxes. We are coming through these airwaves and they are perceiving us. But if they open the box, they wouldn't find Deepak or Jeff or anyone there.

So if I look inside you, I won't find your soul because it's not there. In fact, your body is experienced in your consciousness. Your mind is experienced in your consciousness. And the evidence is pointing out that this consciousness is non-local, which means it exists outside of space-time and therefore, mathematically, it's impossible to destroy this consciousness.

Typical Chopra bait and switch.  The doubt from the bait section is gone, and the switch is in to “…is not a product of the brain.”  No doubts, no suggestions, no unclearedness – the mind just isn’t a product of the brain any more.  Period.  It is now also “impossible” to destroy consciousness.  Note – impossible.  No doubt any more, no mere “suggesting.”  And it must be so because Chopra tells us it is.  Even though (also according to Chopra) the science is by no means this clear and is only suggesting of these things. 

Also note another favorite argument of the woo – argument by analogy.  I’ve heard this analogy to the TV set before – our brain is like the TV set but our mind is somewhere else (by analogy, the TV signal).  But the analogy fails.  In fact, it’s more than that, if anything the analogy demonstrates the mind is not like the TV signal.  We know that if you damage part of the brain, the functions associated with the damaged sections of the brain will be reduced or disappear altogether. This is not like a TV at all.  If you damage part of your TV set you won’t find that you now only get the commercials but not the programs, or that you get game shows but not documentaries.  That would be a true analog of what happens when the brain is damaged.  No.  If you damage your TV set, either it still works (you didn’t damage anything significant) or it stops working altogether. 
(For the most part, anyway.)  And if you disrupt the signal, by disconnecting the cable box, or by shielding the aerial, again the TV again stops working completely.  You don’t find that you now get the programs but the remote doesn’t work any more.

Chopra follows this with an old chestnut you will recognize if you have ever tried to debate idealists or dualists:

But if I ask you to imagine the color red or look at the color red, there's no red in your brain. There's just electrical firings.

True but irrelevant.  Yes, your brain interprets certain visible light wavelengths as “red” and yes I don’t know if what you see as “red” is what I see as “red.”  But show me a red card and (in a separate room) show Chopra a red card and we’ll both say it’s “red” (assuming neither of us is color blind), and we’ll do that because there is a real external phenomenon in the physical world that our brains see and interpret as “red”; it doesn’t mean there is a non-material mind signaling the brain.

Well, I have to say of Michael that he is very superstitious. He's addicted to the superstition of materialism. The first thing he said about the brain, you know, that you destroy a certain part of the brain and that function will not come back -- he hasn't kept up with the literature. There's a whole phenomenon called neural plasticity. There's gene regulation.

Chopra massively overreaches.  Yes, neural plasticity means the brain can re-wire itself, given time, to perform some of the functions it lost when it was damaged. But it takes time, and while it’s doing so the brain doesn’t have the functions it lost.  This is not evidence for a non-material mind; it is evidence that the physical brain can eventually repair itself to some limited extent.  I’m not sure what gene regulation has to do with this, but that also has a material explanation and doesn’t require a non-material mind to function.  As Steven Novella wrote:

…all the evidence we have suggests that the mind is a product of the brain. There is no mind without the brain (despite the unsubstantiated claims of paranormalists). If the brain is not biologically active, there is no consciousness. If the brain is damaged, the mind is altered. As brain function changes through drugs, lack of sleep, fever, or some metabolic derangement – so changes the mind. No reliable observation or experiment has been able to separate the mind as a phenomenon from the brain.

Throughout this whole thing, Chopra keeps asking Shermer what he clearly thinks is a killer question:

CHOPRA: ...are we talking to you, Michael, or to your networks right now?

CHOPRA: OK. When you said you'd like to believe in an after- death, was that your synaptic network speaking or was it you?

CHOPRA: OK. So what -- you know, when you say I'm skeptical about this, who's the "I" that's skeptical?

CHOPRA: I know it doesn't work for you. Who's the you that's talking to me right now?

CHOPRA: You are saying that's the way our synaptic networks should -- who's you?

I could ask Chopra the same question, and Chopra wouldn’t know the answer either.  Although that wouldn’t stop him making one up.  Of course, the sensible answer is that as far as we know, the “I” that we all feel we are is an emergent property of the neurons firing in our extremely complex brains.  Or as Steven Novella wrote:

I would describe the subjective sense of self, of existence, as the real-time processing of the brain that is constantly taking in external stimuli while engaging in an internal conversation – generating thoughts and feelings and comparing those processes to memory and sensory input. We know that in order to be awake the brain needs to be constantly activated (a process of the brainstem activating system), which suggests that this constant brain activity is necessary for consciousness, probably because it is consciousness.

Admittedly, Chopra’s brain might not be complex enough to accomplish that task, but that’s no reason to suppose the rest of us need a non-material mind to get the same feeling.

The host (who despite the name of the show, was not Larry King) asked one sensible question (although he also tried to answer it himself in a less sensible way):

PROBST: Why not believe?

Why -- why are you focusing so much -- because if you're wrong...

The answer is, that we should reject ideas that are wrong, because it is only by rejecting ideas that are wrong that correct ideas will flourish.  I was reminded here of the words of Antony Hoare (senior researcher at Microsoft Corporation), who explained what he though was the one thing everyone should learn about science:

…scientists start by trying very hard to disprove what they hope is true. When they fail, they have a good reason for believing what they hope is true, and can even convince others of its truth.

Do you imagine that Chopra has ever tried (very hard or even not so hard) to prove that the mind is not a separate entity from the brain?  Would he even consider doing that?  He gave us the TV set analogy – the brain is like the TV set but the mind is like the signal.  Do you think he has ever thought of testing this to see if he could prove it false – by shutting off the signal (analogous to disconnecting the cable box) or disrupting it (by analogy, putting the TV aerial inside a Faraday cage), to see if the brain stops providing consciousness when the signal from the mind is disrupted?  Has he even thought of doing this?  You know the answer – of course he hasn’t.  He never would.  He isn’t interested in trying to prove his pet theory wrong; he’s only interested in posturing on the Larry King Show and on the pages of the Huffington Post.

Chopra called for a formal debate with Shermer, a debate he claims Shermer has avoided.  Funny, I seem to remember they already had a debate, and that Chopra’s arguments were the usual weak logical fallacies that he always trots out.  (Click that link and you’ll see that Chopra’s arguments haven’t improved any.)  Should Shermer agree to debate him?  Well, that’s up to Shermer, but science isn’t decided by debates, even among scientists (which Chopra isn't), and we know from debating creationists that the woo side has the advantage in that they don’t have to restrict themselves to facts, good scientific evidence or valid logic.  Still, if he does, Chopra’s side of the debate is sure to give me material for some more blog posts.

Climategate or Deniergate?

In June 2005, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. published an article in Salon and Rolling Stone where he claimed that a an ethyl mercury compound called Thimerosal, used as a preservative in vaccines, was the cause of an autism epidemic.  As his proof, he pulled several quotes from the minutes of a conference of government scientists at the Simpsonwood center, as well as from an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report.  Kennedy’s article caused quite a stir at the time, with proponents of the Thimerosal-autism link essentially claiming a conspiracy of scientists to cover up the “truth” about childhood vaccines.  I decided to read both the full minutes of the conference, and the IOM report, and I discovered that the quotes Kennedy was relying on were taken completely out of context, and that the quotes in context (and in fact the full reports) showed the exact opposite of what Kennedy was claiming.  The quotes, and the full reports, were in reality just indications of the uncertain business of science, some careless wording and (mostly) dishonesty in the way the quotes were manipulated and misrepresented by Kennedy.  My two posts back then, Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s completely dishonest thimerosal article and Lies, damn lies, and quote mining showed the true meaning of (respectively) the Simpsonwood minutes and the IOM report.  Science isn’t decided by taking quotes from scientists (in or out of context), it is decided through experiment and publication, so even if the quotes had not been out of context it still wouldn’t have “proved” that Thimerosal causes autism (although it would have raised some serious questions). In actuality, all the article showed was that someone with a preconceived conclusion can dishonestly manipulate small pieces of out of context data to prove whatever they want, and that gullible people (many also with preconceived views) are likely to believe them.  Unfortunately, many still do.

I was reminded of the Kennedy/Thimerosal fiasco when I looked at the recent Climategate hacked emails. You know the ones. The leaked emails that proves, just proves I tell you, that global warming is a hoax, a conspiracy of lefty scientists, environmentalists and Al Gore.  I’m not going to repeat the whole story.  If you’re not familiar with the details read Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?  It’s written by proud libertarian James Delingpole, who (according to him) “writes brilliant books and brilliant articles” and “is right about everything,” so you know you can trust him.  Go read his article if you haven’t already read the quotes the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGM) dissidents are so thrilled about.  He’s got them all.

The first thing I thought when I originally read those quotes was, “is that it?”  I mean, seriously.  The hacked emails are said to consist of 1073 emails, or about 1 million words in total.  Delingpole quotes more of these emails than most, and yet by my count only 506 words.  That’s 0.05% of the total. I can’t help wondering what’s in the other 99.95% of the words they don’t quote.  They’re ignoring 99.95%!  Presumably they aren’t as damning (if at all) as the 500 words Delingpole and many others have quoted (since presumably he pulled the “best” ones).  And these 500 words aren’t really all that damning anyway.  For example, much has been made of the phrase “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick […] to hide the decline…”  Of course we all know that the word “trick” can often mean a shortcut, or a clever method of doing something, and doesn’t have to mean anything improper.  And even if that were not true, a cherry picked 0.05% of some hacked emails doesn’t magically change everything so that the planet isn’t warming anymore and glaciers aren’t melting now like they were before the emails were leaked.

And that would be true even if the phrase "hide the decline" actually meant hide a decline in temperatures, when in fact it referred to a decline in tree-ring density – yes, the anomaly was that temperatures had increased (global warming) while tree ring density had decreased. So not only was this quote out of context (a trick is not necessarily something wrong), and irrelevant (since the world is still warming, regardless), it’s also factually incorrect (in that it doesn’t refer to a decrease in temperatures) too.  To be wrong so many different ways takes some talent. (Actually, come to think of it, no it doesn’t.)

Back in June 2005, I decided to read the long Simpsonwood minutes and IOM report to determine for myself what they really meant.  It took, as I recall, a couple of weekends of my time. I’m not going to that much trouble this time, and instead I’m going to wait for the results of the independent investigation.  In the mean time, The Associated Press just got five reporters to examine the emails, as is reported in AP IMPACT: Science not faked, but not pretty.  In summary, they say the leaked emails don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of human activity.

In looking at how the so-called AGW “skeptics” have reacted to these emails, I’m reminded of a post of mine from February, Global Warming Denial.  In it I referenced Denialism Blog’s What is Denialism.  Of the five general denier tactics, I see two being used here, namely conspiracy and cherry picking:

Conspiracy:

But how could it be possible, for instance, for every nearly every scientist in a field be working together to promote a falsehood? People who believe this is possible simply have no practical understanding of how science works as a discipline.

Nothing more need be added there, I think.

Selectivity (Cherry Picking)

Quote mining is also an example of "selective" argument, by using a statement out of context, just like using papers or data out of context, they are able to sow confusion.

Given the way these emails have been reported by the so-called skeptics, that paragraph is quite prescient. 

It’s clear that the AGW “skeptics” are in full AGW denier mode over this.  No science, no evidence that global warming isn’t happening; instead they cherry pick quotes out of context to claim a conspiracy of climate scientists to hide the “truth” about global warming.  Again, I refer you to my opening paragraph about how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. quote mined scientists to claim a conspiracy to hide the “truth”.  And in that case the scientists knew their words were being transcribed and would be published.  Imagine if Kennedy had been able to get his hands on some emails they thought would remain private.  In reality, all this shows that kooks of the right (AGW deniers) are no different in the way they behave from kooks of the left (Kennedy, et al). The ever reasonable Steven Novella calls for calm and a cautious approach from the AGW “skeptics”:

For global warming dissidents I recommend that you put your rhetoric in check. The witch-hunt frenzy so far in evidence cannot possibly serve you well. If it turns out there was real fraud at the CRU, you will still be criticized for being prematurely shrill and you will lose credibility. Also, the more extravagant your condemnations, the more likely it is that the reality will not be as bad as you are stating – and therefore even if some indiscretions come to light, you will have actually softened the blow because they will not be as bad as the worst hysterical claims. And of course, if it comes to light that no real fraud occurred, the credibility of AGW dissidents will have been dealt a severe blow.

Yeah, well good luck with that idea.  In my experience with AGW deniers, putting their rhetoric in check does not come naturally.  Or at all.  Furthermore, regardless of what the independent review reveals, I fully expect the AGW deniers (just like the mercury causes autism militia) to ignore any results that contradict their preconceived certainty that AGW is a fraud, and to smear anyone who does not agree with them.  In fact, it’s already happening: the smears are already in on the authors of the AP review I referenced above.  (Took less than a day.)  Pretty funny – the so called “skeptics,” who have in the past criticized me for not being skeptical enough about AGW, have showed absolutely zero skepticism before launching into full blown “AGW is dead” mode.  And for that, I call them “deniers” and make no apology for doing so.  It’s not ad hominem (as they will undoubtedly claim); it is a simple statement that describes the way they are behaving.

I’ll reserve my final opinion on the leaked emails until the independent review is in.  If it concludes that there was serious wrongdoing then I will certainly modify my opinion and comments to fit the new facts. But in the meantime, it isn’t clear if this is really Climategate or Deniergate (ie deniers overreaching).  I suspect the latter.  Unfortunately, although the scientists involved are going to be held to the highest standards (as they should be), the AGW deniers will get away with the usual logical fallacies, smears, lies and half truths.  Whatever the results of any independent review, you can bet that there will be no one calling for an investigation into any dishonesty or fraudulent activities of the AGW deniers over this story.  Whatever the result, they will get away with “Deniergate” (see if any news media outlet even uses that term, although they were quick to add a “gate” to “climate”).  And, of course, that's what they are relying on.

More Reading

The New Scientist: Why there's no sign of a climate conspiracy in hacked emails

Harry_read_me.txt: the climategate gun that does not smoke

RealClimate on The CRU hack

And finally, for some light relief, read Carbon Fixated’s Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Renaissance and Enlightenment ‘thinking’.  Gravity – what a hoax that was.

Where’s Skeptico?

Several people have emailed me to ask if I’m still here, if I’ve given up blogging, or what.  Of course, I’m touched that you all noticed.  The truth is, I’ve just been having trouble recently finding the motivation to write anything new.  I seem to have covered all the major topics I wanted to cover when I started this blog, plus many more (What The Bleep!? / The Secret) that I never even envisioned back in February 2005.  And now, when I see some more nonsense by, say, Bill Maher or Deepak Chopra, it looks like the same old crap I’ve debunked before, and that others (I’m looking at you Orac) have already done an excellent job of taking down already.  So I decided to take a break for a while. I’ve not gone away (as you can tell from the comments) and in fact I do have another brief post planned on astrology, as well as year 2 of The Golden Woos to consider. But it is true that I won’t be posting as often as before, at least for a while.

In the mean time I’ve decided to catch up on some reading, notably Why Evolution Is True and The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution – both excellent by the way. And I also have a book by Chris Hallquist - UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God: Debunking the Resurrection of Jesus - to read (and review Chris.  I know).

I’ve also been reading a lot of blogs.  For example, TechSkeptic just posted the latest Skeptics’ Circle. Here are a couple of others I found interesting recently – some of which you have probably read but a couple perhaps you haven’t.

First, check out Whirled Musings on the sweat lodge deaths at James Arthur Ray’s Sedona retreat: Sweat lodge deaths: is the heat on Secret star?  I’ve had differences with Whirled Musings’ Connie before, but I have to say that few are more persistent than she in debunking New Wage cults such as The Secret and its fellow travelers. This post is very long, with many additions as new information came in, but it is really worth a read.  A couple of snippets:

While investigators are still sorting out all of the factors that led to the deaths of two participants [now three; see Oct. 18 addendum below ~CLS], and the injuries of numerous others, at James Ray's recent Sedona disaster, it seems abundantly clear by now (at least to me) that the very nature of the retreat – and the manipulative techniques James Ray used – were factors in those deaths and injuries. Numerous accounts I have read said that even though participants were told they could leave whenever they wanted, those who recognized their limitations and tried to exit the sweat lodge were, in some cases, chided by James (he called one guy a "wimp") and they were encouraged to stay and experience the event "full-on."

Also, quoting the San Francisco Examiner:

People are flailing in seizures; others are vomiting violently, or foaming at the mouth. Bodies are lined up unconscious, some are blue from lack of oxygen, but for some it is too late, they are already dead. Survivors that are barely able to stand struggle to help the others, they have had almost no food or water for nearly three days, even longer without sleep. It looks like a war zone, but for the incongruent figure of James Arthur Ray (a contributing author to The Secret) who exits the sweat lodge and stands tall with a big smile, the only one able to stand on his own volition. He is not concerned with the medical emergency going on full swing around him. He is not worried about the health and well-being of his followers who have paid $10,000.00 (tack on an additional 5,000.00 or so if you include flights, room and board, and camping supplies) to attend his retreat. In fact, he and his team urge people to stop taking care of others and focus on their own journey, assuring them they are fine and only “purging”. Someone finally realizes James Ray is not in control of the situation and calls 911.

A new blog about genetic engineering that I have been reading is Biofortified.  There is certainly a lot of nonsense talked about genetic engineering, but the writers of Biofortified are refreshingly evidence based.  Check out Terminator 2: My Mission is to Protect You – on the subject of “terminator” technology and why it is not the evil bogeyman that the anti-GE people like to claim it is. In fact, although terminator technology is not actually in any commercially available GE crops, it is a part of some non GE crops including some organics:

There is a very widely used and accepted conventional analog of Terminator GURTs that most of us have eaten – they’re called Seedless Watermelons. These are generated by manipulating the number of chromosomes in watermelon cells to give them three copies of each chromosome instead of two. (For more on how this works, you can watch a video I made about it here.) The resulting “Triploid” Watermelons sponteneously abort their seeds, leaving a juicy, seedless fruit. The seeds have to be regenerated year after year from other plants, and farmers and consumers obviously cannot replant seeds that don’t even exist!

Ironically, while genetic engineering is not allowed in organic agriculture, Seedless watermelons are. Nevermind the fact that the chromosome numbers are artificially manipulated using chemicals – it appears that this early form of direct genetic manipulation has been grandfathered in.

My point in bringing up the seedless watermelon is this: It results in exactly the same thing as genetically engineered GURTs – and that is it effectively prevents the plant from generating fertile seeds. The argument is often made, most vociferously by Shiva, that GURTs are immoral because they interrupt the traditional practice of seed saving. Shiva and others must therefore agree that seedless watermelons are also immoral for the same reason. Why is there no call for a moratorium on seedless watermelons? Well, that would be the pits.

Keeping with the GE theme, Scienceblogs recently added Tomorrow’s Table, written by Pamela Ronald, Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis.

And just so as you know I haven’t gone soft, I’ll link to Orac’s takedown of two wooful posts in (where else) The Huffington Post.  First, Bill Maher’s attempt to distance himself from the criticisms that he’s anti vaccine (where on Earth could we have ever gotten that idea?): Vaccination: A Conversation Worth Having. I’m not going into that post paragraph by paragraph (Orac has already done it – see Bill Maher flames out in a pyre of stupidity over vaccines—again), but I just wanted to highlight one line:

In addition, my audience is bright, they wouldn't refuse a flu shot because they heard me talk about it…

Oh no – the Oprah defense: I may be talking crap or I may not – it doesn’t matter because my readers will decide.  Come on Bill. Man up – either engage your critics with evidence and facts or shut the hell up, but quit hiding behind the skirts of your readers with this lame argument.

Finally, trust Deepak Chopra to chime in with more drivel just when we need it.  Orac responds with Deepak Chopra and his Choprawoo translated: "Skeptics, take my ill-informed speculations seriously!"  Sheesh, I may have to break my rule and award Chopra a Golden Woo after all.