Bill Maher + Deepak Chopra = Stupidity

The one thing that has always bugged me is the fact that liberals in general can be some of the most gullible people you have ever met, and I have always wondered why that is. This is true whether you're talking about 9/11 conspiracies, Big Pharma conspiracies, alternative medicine quackery, meaningless spiritualism, or general ignorance of science. The movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? is a perfect example of New Age liberalism based on unsupported metaphysics and a severe lack of understanding of quantum mechanics. In the movie you have this character named Ramtha, who is the reincarnated spirit of a 35,000-year-old warrior from Atlantis. His spirit is reincarnated in the body of a charlatan. I bring this character up because it exemplifies just how gullible people are. Here you have some woman who thought to herself, "I know a way to make some easy money. Just claim I'm the reincarnated soul of an enlightened warrior from Atlantis and then just make shit up while using the word 'Enlightenment' as much as possible." It worked. But that's not too surprising. In this country alone you have millions of psychics, chiropractors, and numerous other charlatans making tons of money by providing you absolutely nothing of value. One of those charlatans is our good friend Deepak Chopra.

Deepak Chopra is quite the character. A board-certified endocrinologist and member of the American Medical Association... and user of Transcendental Meditation? Sounds weird, I know. But he's dead serious. On his website you can find all kinds of articles about "mind-body healing" steeped in Hindu superstition. A good example is a Hindu healing system called Ayurveda, who's basic tenets involve a belief that three forces of nature are responsible for the "characteristics of our mind and body" that Chopra advocates for. These three forces are Vata(wind), Pitta(fire), and Kapha (earth). The mixture of these three forces determines our various attributes, which sounds eerily familiar to astrology. No one said these quacks were original. Speaking of astrology, one such service Chopra's health center provides is called Jyotish Astrology. It's a type of astrology that originated in India. Here's the website advertisement:

Jyotish, in Sanskrit translated as “science of light,” is a profound and mathematically sophisticated form of astrology that originated in the ancient Vedic tradition of India. It describes how planetary patterns at the time of our birth give valuable clues in helping us understand our life’s journey. Through careful analysis of these cosmic influences, Jyotish Astrology can help us realistically evaluate our strengths and weaknesses in order to optimize our full potential.

By forecasting the changing trends and periods of our lives, Jyotish Astrology can enable us to make more evolutionary choices. It can offer practical remedial measures to help alleviate areas of difficulty, giving us the confidence to manifest our true destiny and create success, happiness and harmony on all levels.

Each consultation costs $275. Notice the wording of this advertisement. Using such phrases as "optimize our full potential" or "make more evolutionary choices" and so on. I dare you to try and figure out what an "evolutionary choice" even is. Don't worry, you won't be able to because that is the ultimate goal of this advertisement, which is to sell you bullshit by making it sound as if they are giving you something invaluable. This is essentially free money they are making by giving you astrological readings based on archaic superstitions and nothing more. The very idea that the position of stars and planets in a Universe with trillions of stars and planets has anything to do with you is insane. There is, of course, absolutely no evidence for it either. One study, published back in 1985 in the journal Nature, had this to say:

We are now in a position to argue a surprisingly strong case against natal astrology as practiced by reputable astrologers. Great pains were taken to insure that the experiment was unbiased and to make sure that astrology was given every reasonable chance to succeed. It failed. Despite the fact that we worked with some of the best astrologers in the country, recommended by the advising astrologers for their expertise in astrology and in their ability to use the [California Personality Inventory], despite the fact that every reasonable suggestion made by advising astrologers was worked into the experiment, despite the fact that the astrologers approved the design and predicted 50% as the "minimum" effect they would expect to see, astrology failed to perform at a level better than chance. Tested using double-blind methods, the astrologers' predictions proved wrong. Their predicted connection between the positions of the planets and other astronomical objects at the time of birth and the personalities of test subjects did not exist. The experiment clearly refutes the astrological hypothesis.

If the position of stars and planets has any affect on your boring personal life, then this Universe needs a hobby...

Deepak Chopra appeared on Bill Maher's show Real Time back in 2007 (episode 94), where he had this to say when asked if he has proven the existence of an afterlife:

If you agree there's no such thing as a separate 'self', then there is only the continuum of life in which birth and death are 'spacetime events'. So, you know, Bill Maher is not a person--Bill Maher is a consciousness that is transiently, impermanently pretending to be a person.

What? This is the type of nonsensical statement that people of Chopra's ilk love to make. They love it because these types of statements are so disjointed and meaningless, that the average person can't makes heads or tails out of it, thus assuming that it must be highly sophisticated and subsequently accepting the original premise that the existence of an afterlife has been proven. I should note, however, that even Bill Maher pretty clearly did not buy into it. That was refreshing to see and quite sad on Chopra's part that he wasn't able to convince Bill Maher, who is already half-way there.

Ah yes, Bill Maher, the liberal equivalent of Glenn Beck, but without the crazy. A television personality that can often times make powerful arguments for the liberal side of this country's political theater, but also an advocate for bullshit.

Much of Bill Maher's bullshit is centered on his conspiracy theory regarding 'Big Pharma'. He essentially argues that pharmaceutical companies are making people sick in order to sell them more drugs. He bases this horrific argument on the apparently self-evidence truth that pharmaceutical companies must continue to manufacture illness in order to remain in business. This basic premise is utterly false. According to the World Health Organization's ICD-10 classification system for diseases, there are over 10,000 known diseases in the world. Why would pharmaceutical companies need to manufacture disease, when there are literally thousands out there that people are currently suffering from and would love to have a drug that can cure them? This fact alone is enough to completely discredit most of Bill Maher's anti-Big Pharma rants, but there's more. If pharmaceutical companies and conventional medicine are making people sick, why has the life expectancy skyrocketed since the advent of modern public health initiatives, which are based on scientific public health programs such as vaccines, as well as science-based medical fields such as epidemiology? You cannot have today's life expectancy without modern medicine, therefore it makes absolutely no sense to claim that modern medicine is making people sick. The facts simply contradict that claim.

In a recent episode of his Real Time show, Bill Maher had this to say in regards to the current health care debate:

Why are we profiting from illness? I mean, let's get real. The insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the food companies, doctors, hospitals--they profit selling cures for illness. So they need illness.

The guest he was speaking to simply said, "Yes." not knowing what to say. I sympathize with him, because this argument Bill Maher is making simply is not logically consistent. If all of these companies are curing illness, then how are they simultaneously manufacturing illness? That would be like a radio station simultaneously broadcasting music and news. Broadcasting both at the same time would make it impossible for the radio station to function, and yet Bill Maher's argument makes it so that this radio station would actually profit from it. Not to mention, again, that we have seen the results of modern medicine. Humans have never lived for so long, so how do you square that fact with Bill Maher's argument? You can't, so don't waste your time. Ultimately, what Maher is advocating for is 'holistic' alternative medicine that has never been scientifically shown to work, instead of conventional medicine that is responsible for increasing the average life expectancy far beyond any other point in human history. Not only is that nonsensical, but it's dangerous as well.

My overall point for this blog post is not to say that Deepak Chopra and Bill Maher should be silenced, far from it. My point is that you as consumers and perhaps fans of these two men should be skeptical of their claims, for your own well being. Chopra has no moral qualms turning people away from conventional medicine, often times arguing against traditional cancer treatments that have been scientifically shown to work. While Bill Maher has no moral or intellectual qualms arguing that pharmaceutical companies and doctors are making you sick, while simultaneously curing your illnesses in some grand conspiracy to make a profit. None of their claims are scientifically based, nor supported by any verifiable evidence. They are essentially making shit up, much like JZ Knight and her Ramtha bullshit. I urge you to be skeptical of health claims made by these quacks and to research anything they tell you, because although their intentions are good, their arguments are not.