The Perils Of Skepticism

Feeling wounded by the stuff landing in his inbox, Deepak has penned a petulant beaut. Part revenge fantasy (we're gonna die young), part irrational contempt (no skeptic has advanced science or human welfare), part bullshit mischaracterization (objection to the gullibility he depends on is opposition to "a sense of wonder"), part self-congratulatory (medicine recognizes the mind/body connection thanks to woo pioneers)...

...and all ready-to-pop Deepak, who unfortunately can't just go off on MFers like a regular human -- he's the Guru of OMMMM.

The Perils Of Skepticism

Poor Deepshit!

"Over the years I've found that ill-tempered guardians of scientific truth can't abide speculative thinking."

A variation on that canard is encountered frequently in the Health Dungeon. Problem is, they aren't just engaged in "speculative thinking." They are throwing shit out there as postulated explanations - and when their ass is called on it to provide some kind of evidence, their poor wittle egos are bruised and they have to come back with that lame-ass response. Because they have no freaking evidence. They're mentally masturbating, and incredibly offended when we say we don't want to watch.

Oh, and on edit: Chopstick needs to be called on the rug for his ridiculous claim that skeptics haven't discovered anything. On the contrary, they've discovered EVERYTHING.

When the author of "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind : The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old" is 15 years more weathered and shrunken than when he wrote it, it takes a lot of tapdancing to hold off irrelevancy. Recasting it as "speculative" oughta work for a while.

What piques my sense of wonder is the quantum wizard manifesting himself a really bad day. Why did he do that?

"If you've ever used Google Alert, you know the jolts it can deliver. Whenever anyone in the blogosphere decides to blow a poison dart your way, Google is happy to deliver the news, along with the more positive mentions, of course."

I haven't, actually. Nevertheless, only words come over the internet, not poison darts.

"Most of my stinging darts come from skeptics."

They only sting because you are so-o-o-o-o wrong.

"Over the years I've found that ill-tempered guardians of scientific truth can't abide speculative thinking."

Ill tempered guardians? I thought we were talking about skeptics!

"And as the renowned Richard Dawkins has proved, they are also very annoyed by a nuisance named God."

Well, it proves that he's very annoyed by it. While many of us do agree, what Dawkins thinks is not probative of what skeptics generally think.

"Statistically, cynical mistrust is correlated with premature sudden death from cardio vascular disease. Since the skeptics who write venomous blogs trust in nothing, I imagine that God will outlive them. In the interests of better health, these people should read scripture, or at least a poem, twice a day. Doctor's orders."

1. Prove your premise. You cite no clinical evidence for this claim, so I will assume you are just making stuff up like usual. 2. Even if you are right, there is still no god. What we want or need has no bearing on what is. God will not out-live anyone because 1. there is no god and 2. people's belief in god is not god. And my life was a lot worse when I did believe Christian theology. I don't bother with "scripture" anymore since there are so many books that are far less scary and far better written. What does poetry have to do with god?

"I've debated skeptics, including Richard Dawkins (I spoke with Dawkins for over 90 minutes on camera in Oxford. He extracted 30 seconds from the dialogue and dubbed me the enemy of science.)"

I suspect that "debate" looks a lot better on your CV than it does on his. Anyway, debates are irrelevant. If you want the truth, investigate the facts.

"...and I am amazed that they mistake self-righteousness for happiness."

Justify that claim. Anyway, this is ad hominem. Even if we are all insufferable jerks, there is still no god.

"A sort of bitter satisfaction is what they reap."

That is a lie. We just don't want to be marginalized or to see people suffer for irrational reasons.

"No skeptic, to my knowledge, ever made a major scientific discovery...."

Einstein, Kepler and Darwin immediately come to mind. There are many others, of course. NB: you said skeptic, not atheist. The terms are not synonymous.

"...or advanced the welfare of others."

John Hunt, the father of modern surgery immediately comes to mind. And Darwin who laid the foundation for modern biology and medical science. Of course many of the founders of this nation were skeptics including Franklin, Washington and Jefferson.

"Typically they sit by the side of the road with a sign that reads "You're Wrong" so that every passerby,..."

No, that's you. Skeptic actively look for the truth while you make excuses for the dogmas of the past.

"...whether an Einstein, Gandhi, Newton, or Darwin, can gain the benefit of their illuminated skepticism."

All four of those men were skeptics to some degree in that they did not accept the dominant paradigm. Newton's skepticism led to the discovery of the mechanical universe and the nature of light and mathematics. Einstein and Darwin were outright nonbelievers.

"For make no mistake, the skeptics of the past were as eager to shoot down new theories as they are to worship the old ones once science has validated them."

Wrong. Skepticism=/= refusal to believe. It is simply a requirement that propositions be supported by evidence. Of course Darwin had to offer proof for his theory. Of course science withheld judgment until the proof became conclusive. That's how you find the truth. Meanwhile you cling to antiquated and frankly fraudulent ideas and pump people with false hope.

"It never occurs to skeptics that a sense of wonder is paramount, even for scientists."

That's a lie. It is the discovey of reality that makes us able to appreciate the real universe.

"Especially for scientists."

Who are essentially professional skeptics.

"Einstein insisted, in fact, that no great discovery can be made without a sense of awe before the mysteries of the universe."

Case in point.

"Skeptics know in advance -- or think they know -- what right thought is."

No, that's theologians. The fact that you can't make us swallow your bullshit doesn't mean we are close-mind.

"Right thought is materialistic, statistical, data-driven, and always, always, conformist. Wrong thought is imaginative, provisional, often fantastic, and no respecter of fixed beliefs."

No, that's also a lie. It is evidence-driven, but it is not conformist and never has been. Again, that's you.

"So whenever I find myself labeled the emperor of woo-woo, I pull out the poison dart and offer thanks that wrong thinking has gotten us so far."

How far is that, exactly?

"Thirty years ago no right-thinking physician accepted the mind-body connection as a valid, powerful mode of treatment."

You wanna unpack that one, Clyde?

"Today, no right-thinking physician (or very few) would trace physical illness to sickness of the soul, or accept that the body is a creation of consciousness, or tell a patient to change the expression of his genes."

Duh! Those things are demonstrably false.

"But soon these forms of wrong thinking will lose their stigma, despite the best efforts of those professional stigmatizers, the skeptics."

Regretably people who fall for your snake-oil cures do not face any real stigma. We can only hope that scientific efforts toward real treatments will continue to progress.

This whole rant is a cynical, dishonest and malicious effort to prey on his uneducated readers to sell more books, increase his own fame regardless of the often disasterous consequences. This man should be in prison as a master con artist. He begins by warning that skepticism kills people, then misrepresents what exact skepticism is and then concludes by preying on the fear of illness and death.

Many of the most prominent atheists are also skeptics, but they are two different movements with different objectives. Often promotion of atheism trumps promotion of skepticism to atheists and vice versa, as can be witnessed in the furor of AAI selecting Bill Maher as the recipient of the Darwin Award.

Nor does skepticism necessarily imply atheism. There may be, as in the sciences, a high correlation with skepticism and atheism but it's not hard to find religious believers who are also skeptics just as it's not hard to find scientists who also believe in god. Similarly, it's not hard to find atheists who are as credulous as Chopra.



This is nothing but Chopra's straw man construction of what the typical skeptic is like. Personally, I read broadly (both fiction and non), listen to a wide range of music and enjoy a large number of movie genres. I know of many skeptics who do as well and in general I delight in all of it. And while I know of a few radical skeptics who do have a cynical distrust of humanity, I also interact with a wide range of people and anyone who takes even a cursory look at movement skepticism can see for themselves that skeptics are a diverse bunch with multivariate views on every topic imaginable (although we could do with more women and people of color in our mix).

Newton was a skeptic but not an atheist.

I don't think Chopra is able to separate the two in his mind though. Just look at the mishmash of science, pseudoscience and religion in everything he does.

On the other hand, I often thing Chopra is the true cynic; spouting crap he knows is utter bullshit for the millions it makes him, so you may well be right that this is deliberate on his part.

The way I always like my bologna. Thank you. Very well done!

But being creative does not mean you believe in wooshit. I've been priviledged to see some of this in action..Like the vaccinologist who decided a better way to figt malaria would be to "immunize" the mosquito agaisnt the parasite and let the mosquito pass its immunity on to others. Not praying away the parasite. Or beleiving the parasite can't hurt one, unless one lets on. Or by drinking some witches brew.
Or a creative new way to fight cancer tumors. Attach an antibody to that tumor that sends the immune system a signal that attracts the attention of antibodies that would otherwise ignore it. Not telling god to get rid of the demonc cancer. Not finding your "spiritual balance". Not eating tons of spicy food!

I doubt the man has ever really met/talked to a serious scientist. I always love being lectured about my profession by lay idiots!

“It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false.

Look for yourself.

This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people.

And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance.

When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave...

Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgement in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible...

We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.”

Written by cold, materialistic, arrogant skeptical yahoo Jacob Bronowski - uncreative atheist, poet AND holder of a PhD in algebraic geometry.

He also worked on the BBC series The Ascent of Man. Which inspired a later series by Carl Sagan - Cosmos.

Speaking of that, here's a random sampling of non-creative people from the Table of Contents, The Quotable Atheist: Ammunition for Nonbelievers, Political Junkies, Gadflies, and Those Generally Hell-Bound by Jack Huberman:

Jules Feiffer, Federico Fellini, H. L. Mencken, Ian McKellen, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Jonathan Swift, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Virginia Woolf...

And just to make Dookra and the woos feel better - the Marquis de Sade. Boo!

Here's another Bronowski quote which should be carved over the doors of every school and church in the world - and Deepak Chopra's forehead:

"There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility."