Three days ago I posted a humorous video in which Michael Shermer and Brian Dalton (“Mr. Deity”) went after The Woo. The video contained a very brief flash of someone’s picture, which puzzled me and other readers. Here’s a screenshot of the mystery man:
Of course no puzzle goes unsolved on this site, and savvy readers quickly identified the man as Leonard Mlodinow, a physicist from Caltech. Just to complete the story, I’ll add (with permission) an email Shermer sent me explaining a bit more:
The mysterious face in our video is Leonard Mlodinow.
It’s a little bit of inside baseball: At the Caltech debate in which Sam Harris and I took on Deepak and Jean Houston, Deepak was pontificating about quantum mechanics and consciousness. Before the Q&A, the ABC Nightline crew were scouring the audience for anyone who actually knew something about quantum mechanics professionally to ask an intelligent question. They found Leonard Mlodinow, who is a physicist at Caltech, and he challenged Deepak, saying something to the effect “I know what all those words you are using mean, but when you string them together like that I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Len then offered to give Deepak some lessons in quantum physics, which Deepak accepted. They ended up writing a book together called War of the Worldviews.
If anyone’s read this book, please give us a brief summary and evaluation below.
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“They ended up writing a book together” only in the loosest sense. It’s basically a debate in book form.
Something about l[ie]ying with swine… A debate supposes that you agree on language and logic.
It was a very unholy alliance between the two with both debating reality in the book and the media. One section describing , the naturalistic perspective and the other the woo. I have the book and it is interesting , only in the sense that Leonard gives a nice overall perspective of cosmology, randomness and and no supernatural interference. I had a chance to discuss a few concepts over emails and he is very nice and a very tolerant person . As a result, I would assume different perspectives would not stop him from forming friendships. I only read his section and one page from Chopra. It was the same garbage. Chopra, did not learn one thing from Leonard. It is worth the read just to enjoy Leonard`s expertise on Cosmology. If you want to read his best book; try The Drunkard`s Walk. A classic book about the randomness of the universe and our lives. His work with Hawking is exceptional also.
It doesn’t surprise me that the Deepster didn’t learn anything from Mlodinow. I don’t think he’s interested in real science…
I don’t understand, that someone want to have his name on a cover together with that name ‘Deepak’. Second, why was that picture in the video?
Worse, Mlodinow (along with Chopra himslef) is now apparently associated with the New Age-y href=” Institute for Noetic “Sciences,” (IONS) where parapsychologist Dean Radin is the Chief “Scientist.” I guess time will tell the extent to which Mlodinow has sold out.
It is extremely disappointing that a man whose criteria has always used the hypothetical-deductive deductive approach in his life and work. ends up in an institution like INS. Looks like Chopra has had more of an effect on Mlodinow. I went to the site and was very disturbed to see his participation in a site that supports mindfulness and homeopathy. Sad day for science. Here is the kicker . Mr. Chopra is in an official advisory position to the group. http://noetic.org/directory/person/deepak-chopra/
Sheldrake is also part of the faculty. All the big shots of pseudo-mumbojambo under one roof.
http://noetic.org/directory/person/rupert-sheldrake/
No way I am going to spend $$ (or €€)on a book authored by the Deepak. Does that make me narrow-minded?
Nope. Unless that makes me narrow-minded, and I’d rather that was not the case. I don’t care if I can get it for $12 online… I’d rather not buy half a book, contributing to woo and nonsense in the process. But then, I suppose I’m not the target audience. I think Mlodinow wanted to change a few woo-addled minds, and this could be one way to do it; so my hat’s off to him.
I watched this interview (almost a debate) with Chopra and Mlodinow – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-eacl_auVc – Mlodinow has some interesting answers and ideas. I do not know if you are going to learn anything new, but it was very interesting to hear a scientist talk about these non-scientific issues. I want to read the book just for his words, Chopra would frustrate me too much because he never explains anything. On the other side Chopra gives us his random bollocks, he keeps using the word consciousness without being able to describe what it means. He tries, he also admits that he keeps changing his definition because Mlodinow can’t understand him. Chopra was questioned about his belief in a god he answered with “I believe in God as the counciousness within me, the observer.” I felt quite disgusted at that definition, I had to pause the video and take a break.
There were a few surprising moments from Chopra, he was introduced as someone who had counselled everyone from Michael Jackson to Bill Clinton, I can’t explain why that was so funny, and he intentionally made me laugh when he was talking about his Father dying moments, it was meant to be funny. He adds nothing to the debate, as usual he sounds like he got everything from thewisdomofchopra quote generator.
Once you start redefining words as Chopra does, you are just trying to baffle your audience with BS if not actually getting into brainwashing and Orwellian territory. (Chopra isn’t trying to establish a theocratic state, but he’s got a theocratic online store.)
S.T. Joshi once said that Deepak Chopra (and Dinesh D’Souza) made him embarrassed to be Indian. I must say that Chopra makes me embarrassed to admit I practice meditation (but then so do Sam Harris and Greta Christina, so I sigh with relief.)
Follow the thread of “New Age” thinking(?) far enough and you’ll always end up with that “I am God” thing- this brings several thoughts to my mind: (1) If I WERE God, I guarantee you that my life would be different than what it is now, and (2) In my experience, whenever someone starts acting like they’re God, people eventually end up dying, often in large numbers. To consider yourself God’s “Holy Messenger”, or his “representative on Earth” (the Pope) is but a short step from this dangerous stance.
„Ich bin überzeugt, daß ich heute im Einklang mit der Absicht des allmächtigen Schöpfers handle. Mit dem Kampf gegen die Juden führe ich eine Schlacht für den Herrn.“
I’ve not read everything Mlodinow has written but I’d strongly recommend “Feynman’s Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and Life.” Upon receiving his Ph.D. he was awarded a no-strings fellowship at CalTech where he could do what he wanted…anything or nothing.
He had an office next door to Gell-Mann and just down the hall was Feynman’s office (The resident physicist of WEIT, Sean Carroll, now uses Feynman’s desk.).
Mlodinow was driftless, unsure of what he wanted to do and spent a lot of time talking with Feynman who was dying of cancer. At the end of the fellowship, he left CalTech to write television scripts.
The subtitle is a result of a conversation with Feynman and is recounted by Peter Flinn, in a review on Yahoo.
“Mlodinow came upon Feynman looking intently at a rainbow. In the conversation that followed, we learn that it was Rene Descartes who first analyzed the rainbow. Feynman asks Mlodinow what he thinks Descartes’ inspiration was. Mlodinow says:
“‘I suppose … the realization that the problem could be analyzed by considering a single drop, and the geometry of the situation’
“Richard Feynman: ‘You’re overlooking a key feature of the phenomenon’
“Leonard Mlodinow: ‘OK, I give up. What would you say inspired his theory?’
“‘Richard Feynman: ‘I would say his inspiration was that he thought rainbows were beautiful’.
“That’s Richard Feynman at his best”.
Mlodinow seems to me always at his best. His writing is beautiful and insightful.
Feynman’s Rainbow is fantastic, as is The Grand Design, which he (Mlodinow) wrote with Hawkings.
Whoops – Hawking, not Hawkings…
I didn’t think that book was a good idea. It just makes it look like Chopra’s garbage is worth answering. I lost interest and respect in Mlodinow after he came out as an outright deist on his point of inquiry interview based on the anthropic principle.
Besides Sara Mayhew handled Chopra just as well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7bBJGOC0Wg
Almost everyone takes Mlodinow to task for coauthoring a book with Chopra. In his defense, it probably got a lot of people to read about mainstream science who never would have done so without Chopra’s name on the cover. Jerry might consider doing the same thing with Ken Ham.
Good point, Greg Esres.
Better to write a book without the ham.
Yes. The first three comments I read were all along these lines:
“I predicted I would favor Deepak Chopra’s side of this age-old debate, since I have enjoyed several of his books … but Leonard’s clear, no-nonsense thinking and writing won me over. He makes the scientific approach sound so damn logical and irrefutable. At times during this read, I felt I was listening to Spock and Kirk arguing over the merits of logic vs. emotion, but in the end, Deepak’s positions seemed untenable, no matter how hard he tried to squeeze out a convincing argument for that which cannot be supported by anything other than belief. I recommend the book for anyone who has wrestled with the science vs. spirituality debate in their own mind.”
I read War of Worldviews book. The book is really a debate form. In example, chapter 7 is “What is Life?”. Leonard starts and just after him came Deepak. Chapter 11 is “Did Darwin go Wrong?” and Deepak is the first one.
My impression is that Mlodinow part of the book is very good. I really did recommend the book for religious friends. Some of them had been in contact with spiritualism, or more correct, Kardecism, which I think is more popular here in Brazil than it is in US.
Mlodinow shows clearly how a scientist think, and problems scientists have with some religious claims. As an example, Mlodinow puts the following in page 16:
“Proponents of metaphysics and Deepak’s spirituality are far less open to revising or expanding their worldviews to encompass new discoveries. Rather than welcoming new truths, they often cling to ancient ideas, explanations, and texts. If on occasion they turn to science in an attempt to justify their traditional ideas, whenever it appears that science does not support them they are quick to turn their backs on it. And when they do employ scientific concepts, they use so loosely that the meanings are altered, with the result that the conclusions they come to are not valid.”
Kardec is a character I was not aware of. The wiki entry on him references spiritism, and Arthur Conan Doyle and “talking boards”, and I was vaguely familiar with the fact those were something of a fad in the US for a couple of decades circa 1900. I’ve never heard or read of a contemporary Kardecism movement presently existing up here. Pissed off Christians are so noisy they drown out just about everything else, though.
Just to clarify: I am not a spiritual person, I ‘m a atheist, and I think Deepak’s is full with non-sense. The reason I bought the book is because I want to read Mlodinow’s part.