Entrevista de Richard Dawkins a Deepak Chopra
“Why Does Deepak Chopra Hate Me?” http://bit.ly/1KKH1gD
Anti-evolution
International
I’ve never done anything to Deepak Chopra. At least, not in this lifetime. Perhaps I’ve mocked his surrealistically bizarre anti-science pronouncements among my friends a few times, or a few thousand times. How could I not when he tweeted that his personal meditation caused an earthquake or claimed that the moon doesn’t exist unless someone sees it? Chopra is so on the fringe, it’s actually fun to read him usually—picture me with tears in my eyes, emitting cackles like Mozart’s braying laugh in Amadeus. But when he goes after evolution, it starts to feel personal—and less amusing.
Chopra believes there is some “consciousness” that flows through the universe—an energy field created by all living things, surrounding us and penetrating us, binding the galaxy together…no, wait, that’s the Force I’m thinking of. Chopra’s notion of consciousness has more in common with that of the charlatan book The Secret, which says if you just think really hard you can change reality. (A lot of children engage in this magical thinking, but as they mature they outgrow it—apparently with some exceptions.)
So perhaps this universal consciousness helped Chopra sense my negative energy. At a recent conference in New Delhi he reportedly said:
Charles Darwin was wrong. Consciousness is key to evolution and we will soon prove that.
Why does he have to hurt my brain like this—what have I ever done to him? Darwin “wrong”? Consciousness directing evolution? Evolution being affected by the thinking of beings that haven’t yet evolved, in some sort of tachyon-induced time warp? His words quantum-entangle my mind in a synergistic charlie foxtrot of howling madness. I am tempted to say, indeed, that his Higgs boson meditations on objective reality transmute existential silence into intrinsic photons—oh, wait, that’s just some nonsense from the Chopra random quote generator.
Chopra further explains on Twitter:
An emerging view, alternate to Darwin’s random mutations & natural selection is that consciousness may be the driver of complexity/evolution.
Again with the “consciousness.” Again with no specifics on how this drives evolution. Is a jelly in the ocean obeying universal consciousness as it pulses its stinging cells toward prey? Does a plant have consciousness? Does Kim Kardashian?
Again with the “consciousness.” Again with no specifics on how this drives evolution. Is a jelly in the ocean obeying universal consciousness as it pulses its stinging cells toward prey? Does a plant have consciousness? Does Kim Kardashian?
When I think about the natural world, consciousness is not the first thing that springs to mind. I think instead of organisms frantically killing and eating other organisms, munching with full cheeks (if they have cheeks) even as something munches on them. Big fish nom little fish, sea lions nom big fish, orcas nom sea lions.
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