Deepak Chopra: just the name inspires a deep sense of irritation among many of those who are generally opposed to newage nonsense. I can only imagine how annoyed *actual* physicists get when they hear him go on about quantum this and quantum that.
It is a time honored tradition of crackpots and charlatans to claim that they are being oppressed and suppressed when scientists point out their puffery. But the higher quality of quack keeps up with the times, and adopts the current trends and terminology. So, instead of simply being oppressed… now, today’s with-it pseudoscientist is being bullied by those evil scientists who demand “facts.”
But that doesn’t mean that the scientists are going to shut up.
Deepak Chopra Responds to Pseudoscience Allegations. Jerry Coyne Fires Back.
Where it boils down to:
It’s a time-honored custom that when a scientist is caught out saying something stupid or wrong, he responds not by defending his ideas or admitting error, but by flaunting his credentials. “Look at all my degrees, publications, and honors,” he says. “Does that not give me credibility?”
But science doesn’t work that way. Scientists don’t defer to authority and credentials: we defer to the quality of one’s arguments and the evidence that backs them up.
Damned straight, Skippy. Science doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve done. What it cares about is “do the facts back up your claims.”
In order to add some joy to the issue, Fark fortunately has a thread on this, with this winning comment:
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brantgoose [TotalFark] 2013-11-19 04:28:55 PM
I am mentally bullying telepaths right now.
Ha! ha!
Stop bullshiating yourself!
Stop bullshiating yourself!
Why are you bullshiating yourself!
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Ha!
And this quote from Carl Sagan, which is becoming more prescient by the microsecond:
I really, really recommend that book.
I suppose I could finally make a good living if, instead of flacking the likes of Sagan, I managed to successfully pimp Chopra’s plentiful supply of crap. But oddly, I still have a few remaining vestiges of self respect.