quantum flapdoodle: God 2.0, Deepak Chopra AND the others (d’Espagnat, Miller, Collins etc.)

At Big Questions Online, a John Templeton Foundation publication, Michael Shermer discuss the use of “quantum flapdoodle” as the basis of Deepak Chopra’s effort to update medieval theology.

I think Shermer lost the main part of the target: the John Templeton Foundation itself. Too close to perceive it?
They do exactly the same thing and their 2009 JTP winner, Bernard d’Espagnat is a perfect illustration of the use of “quantum flapdoodle” to support the idea of a veiled reality where gods may conveniently hide out of reach:

In his nomination of d’Espagnat for the Templeton Prize, Nidhal Guessoum, Chair of Physics at American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, wrote, “He has constructed a coherent body of work which shows why it is credible that the human mind is capable of perceiving deeper realities.”

These perceptions offer, d’Espagnat has said, “the possibility that the things we observe may be tentatively interpreted as signs providing us with some perhaps not entirely misleading glimpses of a higher reality and, therefore, that higher forms of spirituality are fully compatible with what seems to emerge from contemporary physics.”

I asked the question, addressed to Shermer, in the comments under his post, but knowing how the stuff of the Templeton Foundation deal with moderation of comments (and I refer to the way Gary Rosen dealt with one of my comments in the past) I reproduce it here and maybe I should I e-mail[ed] it to Shermer directly.

I have a question for Michael Shermer (but all opinions are welcome): why restrict the “quantum flapdoodle” comment to Deepack Chopra’s God and not extend it to the various ‘flavors’ of spiritualities based on it?

The 2009 John Templeton Prize winner, Bernard d’Espagnat, use much of the same “quantum flapdoodle” to support his view of a ‘veiled reality’ from where the God of Ken Miller or Francis Collins ‘operates’.

What would be the difference, if any, of the use of “quantum flapdoodle”?

wOOt! it did go through the moderation.

reset

Working during summer time in France is like being in a slow motion video with big chunks missing (on vacations). The interesting part is that you get easier access to some facilities, as long as the services are correctly organized.

Sometimes I get the same sensation as Neo must had in a slow down Matrix.

The funny thing is that it affects me directly and many of my extra-professional activities are affected as well. And blogging is part of them, with less posts and less serious stuff posted. I’m more in a planning than acting mood.

A few months ago I considered changing my blogging for several reasons.

I accepted to help build the labs web as far as people accept part of it to be public and that means that I’ll have to manage a (few) blog(s) and a forum and a mailing list and probably build a WebPresence portfolio. This will provide a new home for most of my reading notes and progressively I’ll not have to keep track of papers in this blog, at least not for the major part.

I also participate to Portable Genomics blog, which is quite amateurish for the moment, but maturity may not be far away (this or it will be abandoned at its present form).

My contributions to two private fora, since february 2010, have substantially reduce the time left for my personal stuff. And I repeatedly failed to convince y fellows to go public

A few weeks ago I started a cleaning session for my blogroll and RSS feeds aggregator. Just before Pepsigate. I had to slow it down, trying to catch with the people changing home and the bouquet was yesterday with the announcement of Scientopia. During this period I took out of my drawer an old project of a RSS feed aggregator which I proposed to a few people. Just two responded, the first one showing some interest and promising to think about it and the second one kindly declined my offer, engaged in another environment. With so much support I’m certain I must drop the idea and do things differently.

The announcement of Scientopia gave me a few hours of hope that there may be a science blogs network I would like to join. Those I had considered before presenting some feature that I didn’t liked. Blogging in a network can bring great benefits but also carries responsibilities I wouldn’t like to consider for my free time activities. I read Scientopia’s code and I like it… But I wouldn’t like to have to comply. PZ Myers nailed the main problem. Too much respect over there. And I’m not prone to respect people just because we are at the same side of an argument. I already had issues with science and skeptic bloggers with too much accommodationist stances or not enough rigorous approaches of some subjects. I may respect the guys but certainly not some of their ideas and I prefer to be on my own to speak without the burden of any collective’s code. So, as much I like Scientopia and I wish them well, as much I wouldn’t consider joining (not that anybody asked me to).

For various reasons this blog has being essentially written in French. Not very good reasons, as I evaluate them today, and thus this will change (changed already). Most of the interesting (for me) stuff of the sci-blogosphere is discussed in english. I’ll join the discussion with at least one notable exception: my local French têtes de turcs, as Tom Roud named them, the matter not being interesting for people outside the frontiers (and when necessary the discussion will be in english anyway).

Spiritual Intrusions in Science will be probably one of the main subjects (SIiS is a nice acronym for a new category). They piss me off, and this not just to protect the Ivory Tower but much about science related and based politics. One can fear decisions made on the basis of nonsensical beliefs, ignorance (sometime willful) and irrational stances. This is a large subject and I expect the Templeton Foundation to do their best to provide matter for discussion in their efforts to promote scienligion. Biologos is already full of stuff, and then there is the HuffPost.

Cool Science Stuff, where cool is whatever help me chill out will be the main subject. Obviously(?) this will be biology-centered, but biology is to be taken to the largest possible sense. Thus including zombies, whether you consider them still alive or leftovers of a living form. Coyne is right, being a biologist is one of the best things I ever done (even physicists are jealous).

Beauties! There are so much beautiful things around us that I spend a large part of my day being amazed by and I sometimes dream of them. Coffee time is quite appropriate for beauty and not limited to females of my species.

The Answer to Life, the Universe(s) and Everything Else, that is 42. Why? Philosophical musings (and this is in italics people, I’m not much of a philosopher except from some cultural imprinting, being greek). Consider this to be some kind of alternative humor section. Where I will keep searching for L2/R2

Maybe reset is not the most appropriate title for this post, but this is how I feel actually.

Scientopia.org

A new science blogging network announced by MarkCC, who moved “Good Math, Bad Math” over there: Scientopia.

A nice list:

• Adventures in Ethics and Science

• Attack Polymerase
• Book of Trogool
• Candid Engineer in Academia
• Chemical BiLOLogy
• Child’s Play
• Christina’s LIS Rant
• Drugmonkey
• Galactic Interactions
• Good Math/Bad Math
• Neurotic Physiology
• Professor in Training
• Prof-Like Substance
• Sanitized for Your Protection
• Skulls in the Stars
• The Brain Confounds Everything
• The Questionable Authority
• The Urban Ethnographer
• This Scientific Life
• Thus Spake Zuska
• Voltage Gate
• White Coat Underground
• WhizBANG

And a single feed to read them all.

How To Make a Proper BLT