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Apologia Report 13:11
March 21, 2008
Subject: Deepak Chopra's Third Jesus, yet another invention
In this issue:
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE - "first scientific evaluation" not sympathetic
ASTROLOGY - UK researcher conducts "largest test ever undertaken"
CHOPRA, DEEPAK - author's summary of his new book, The Third Jesus, raises so many questions that even (some) non-Christians may balk
ORIGINS - diatribe against "self-deceiving evangelicals" nearly eclipses summary of "effort to contest creationism" in all fields
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ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
Snake Oil Science: The Truth about Complementary and Alternative Medicine, by R. Barker Bausell [1], former "research director of an NIH [National Institutes of Health]-funded CAM [complementary and alternative medicine] specialized research center, where he was in charge of conducting and analyzing randomized clinical trials of acupuncture's effectiveness for pain relief."
Bausell claims that his book "is the first scientific evaluation of CAM," notes reviewer Peter Lamal. "Snake Oil Science is devoted primarily to the placebo effect. A placebo is a pharmacologically or physiologically inactive substance or procedure that can have a therapeutic effect if administered to a person who believes that he or she is receiving an effective treatment."
Lamal explains that Bausell's goal "is to determine if there is a CAM therapeutic effect over and above what can be attributed to a placebo effect - and if there is a CAM therapeutic effect, is there a plausible biochemical mechanism that could explain it? ...
"Snake Oil Science concludes with examples of 'pathological science' and the deleterious role of the media." Skeptical Inquirer, Mar/Apr '08, pp59-60.
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ASTROLOGY
"Ten Million Marriages: An Astrological Detective Story" by David Voas <voas@man.ac.uk>, Simon Professor of Population Studies at the Institute for Social Change, University of Manchester, England -- "In the largest test of astrology ever undertaken, I analyzed the birthdays of all the husbands and wives in England and Wales - a total of more than ten million couples. ... The genuinely intriguing part of the story [behind this study] concerns the wide-spread desire to find support for pseudoscience and the much harder work involved in uncovering the real explanations."
Voas uses data collected by the UK's Office for National Statistics. Its "census records the birthdays of all husbands and wives living together in England and Wales...." He explains that he set out to test the "love signs" hypotheses, which posits that "people born during the month-long periods defined by a particular [zodiac] sign are supposed to ... be more compatible than individuals chosen at random. ...
"Astrologers maintain that our lives and characters are influenced by the configuration of the solar system at the time we were born. ...
"I therefore set out to look for evidence that any combination signs is found more or less often than would be expected to occur by chance. ... When people discuss popular astrology, they presumably suppose that astral compatibility will affect a substantial proportion of matches. ...
"The research showed that astrological sign has no impact on the probability of marrying - and staying married to - someone of any other sign. ...
"It does not appear that any of the ten million married couples in England and Wales were brought together by 'love signs.' ... What may be unexpected, though, is the implication that even astrological belief has no apparent influence on partner choice. ... The fact that we see no such effects suggests that the number of true believers [in astrology] must be very small (unless the advice they read is random). In the final analysis, whether we fall in love seems to have nothing to do with the stars or even what we might suppose they tell us." Skeptical Inquirer, Mar/Apr '08, pp52-55.
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CHOPRA, DEEPAK
We've seen numerous reviews of New Age luminary Deepak Chopra's latest book, The Third Jesus [2], but nothing has given us such an authoritatively concise picture as the summary by Chopra himself, "Why We Need a New Jesus" (Washington Post, Feb 21 '08): "Searching for the real Jesus has been a growth industry and an obsession for several decades now. ...
"Yet in almost every respect the hunt for the real Jesus is misguided. To begin with, there are two conflicting versions of Jesus, neither of which can be unearthed in an archeological dig. The first Jesus is the historical rabbi who wandered the northern shores of Galilee two thousand years ago. ...
"Yet so great was his impact that a second Jesus arose almost immediately, the Jesus of theology Ð the Son of God, the Holy Spirit. Anointed as Christ, he became the unwitting origin of a religion that has proliferated into more than 20,000 sects. The second Jesus was created by organized religion and cannot be approached without bushwhacking through the thickets of theology.
"Many believers are satisfied with one or the other Jesus, and yet millions are not. They have witnessed their faith being hijacked by rigid fundamentalism. A teaching of love and peace has been perverted to justify war and bigotry. These deeply disturbing trends speak of a single radical need: the need for a new Jesus. ... Although not raised as a Christian, I went to a Catholic-run missionary school in India and fell under the romantic spell of a universal Savior. I wanted to know, as anyone would, how to fulfill JesusÕs promise that the Kingdom of Heaven is within.
"That desire lingered over the years, until it occurred to me that Jesus can be taken as a savior without being the savior. He can be accepted as a teacher speaking directly to me in the present moment. ...
"What this implies is that there was a third Jesus, a teacher of higher consciousness. He wanted to raise his followers to the same level of God consciousness that he was in. Only then is Christian doctrine livable." (Any questions?) <http://tinyurl.com/ysw7bx>
For a lengthy excerpt from the book, see <http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/editorsinbox>.
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ORIGINS
Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism, Andrew Petto and Laurie Godfrey, eds. [3] -- Most people would agree that fundamentalists representing opposing viewpoints tend to fail in their efforts to communicate with, or sympathetically understand, those from the other camp. Having taken up this soapbox disguised as a book review, Kenneth W. Krause <krausekc@msn.com>, "books editor" for Secular Nation magazine, unwittingly serves as an example.
Halfway though his essay, Krause briefly makes a vague reference to the book's content. However, substantial discussion of Scientists Confront waits until the last two paragraphs. The ten previous paragraphs are filled with such hyperbole that it is ironic to find Krause accusing his "self-deceiving evangelical" opponents of "acrimony" and "incalculable dissonance."
For Krause, the battle is all about "anti-intellectualism [which] passes easily for anti-elitism and opposition to education [that] masquerades as politically charged populism. ... [E]ven as creationists persist in spreading the infection, scientists continue to misdiagnose the disease." He fears the fate which awaits a society that "abandons education at the schoolhouse door."
Krause sees "cognitive dissonance" in how "self-professed 'creation scientists' have managed to anoint themselves as the disciples of Newton and 'evolutionists' as his apostates. ...
"[T]rue science is inherently self-correcting while creationism, mired in perceived absolute truths, is wholly incapable of rehabilitation. The two are obviously incompatible in the context of science education. ... [C]reationism undermines both truth and academic freedom, and insofar as science, along with other rational disciplines, exposes the absurdity of biblical literalism. ...
"[T]he dispute between creationism and evolution is purely cultural. ... Although no scientific dispute over the fact of evolution exists, creationists routinely try to insinuate one from ... genuine and often highly charged intra-disciplinary feuds." Krause identifies some of these scientific debates and related "issues that can be suitably summarized in typical high school biology textbooks." However, "some evolutionary models are too complex for secondary school environments [and] others are scientifically unsettled...." He briefly cites some examples of these as well and is adamant that these conflicts do not support "a repudiation of evolutionary theory."
When Krause finally gets around to describing the content of the book he is reviewing, we learn that it constitutes an "effort to contest creationism in all of its major manifestations" (the fields of anthropology, biology, genetics, geology, physics, and science history). Of most significance to our readers, Krause reports that the book's chapters include arguments to "explain why we should think in terms of 'transitional features' instead of 'transitional forms' [and] why humanity is 'fine-tuned' for the universe and not the other way around." Skeptical Inquirer, Mar/Apr '08, pp60-61.
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Sources, Monographs:
1 - Snake Oil Science: The Truth about Complementary and Alternative Medicine, by R. Barker Bausell (Oxford Univ Prs, 2007, hardcover, 352 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195313682/apologiareport>
2 - The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony, 2008, hardcover, 256 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307338312/apologiareport>
3 - Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism, Andrew J. Petto and Laurie R. Godfrey, eds. (W. W. Norton, March 2007, paperback, 480 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393330737/apologiareport>
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