Jerry Coyne Uses Deepak Chopra As A Floor-Cleaning Rag
This is my -- heh -- cute way to say that University of Chicago prof Coyne wipes the floor with Chopra in The New Republic.

The backstory:

Earlier this month, The New Republic republished a highly critical blogpost about author Rupert Sheldrake. Jerry Coyne, a University of Chicago professor and the author of Why Evolution is True referred to Sheldrake as a "pseudoscientist" and lampooned the allegation that Sheldrake was being persecuted by "militant skeptics." Coyne's piece also derided Deepak Chopra, the physician and alternative medicine figure who has been one of Sheldrake's defenders. Chopra responded with this letter to the editor--and Coyne, in turn responds to the letter below...

Chopra basically lists and lists and lists his credentials. And lists his credentials. And then, waaaah!...intimates that debate of his pseudoscientific quackery is "bullying":

I have a suspicion that readers of The New Republic aren't aware that skepticism has become a bullying, strident movement redolent of the worst aspects of the Internet. Jerry Coyne tosses around the term "pseudoscientist" as if it were a given when applied to Rupert Sheldrake and by implication to me.

All you have to do is read a little Chopra to see that it applies -- and then some. Coyne posts some Chopra in his response. See Chopra's words just below:

Consciousness may exist in photons, which seem to be the carrier of all information in the universe.

You know, the idea here is that if we quieten the turbulence in our collective mind and heal the rift in our collective soul, could that have an effect on nature's mind, if nature has a mind? The gaia hypothesis says nature does have a mind, that the globe is conscious. So a critical mass of people praying or a critical mass of people collectively engaging in meditation could conceivably, even from modern physics point of view, through non-local interactions, actually simmer down the turbulence in nature.

The moon exists in consciousness--no consciousness, no moon--just a sluggishly expanding wave function in a superposition of possibilities. All happens within consciousness and nowhere else.

Intelligence doesn't "appear" at a late stage of evolution. It seems to be inherent in nature.

Consciousness is the driver of evolution. Every time you eat a chicken or a banana it transforms into a human.

I mean, really? I get more rational reality out of my 8-year-old neighbor when she tells me a story.

Coyne cleans up with the following bit:

This is pseudoscience, pure and simple, and no set of credentials, however impressive, can launder it into real science. Photons do not have consciousness, nature does not have a mind, the moon is there whether humans see it or not, and intelligence is not inherent in nature, but a product of naturalistic evolution. As for chickens, bananas, and consciousness as a driver of evolution, I have no idea what Chopra is trying to say--and I'm an evolutionary biologist.

Sadly, this kind of obscurantism sells, and has made Chopra a rich man. But no amount of money can buy him respectability in the scientific community. He knows this, and so rails constantly against "bullying strident skepticism." That, more than anything, shows his aversion to true science, for all scientific progress requires a climate of strong skepticism.

-Jerry Coyne