Talk:Deepak Chopra

Dreadlocke, if you think there is unsourced or poorly sourced material, then you should remove it and provide your reason. Putting the above label here without providing any evidence of a problem appears to be your way of criticizing by innuendo. If so, please remove this label. If not so, then identify examples of poorly sourced material. Askolnick 21:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

You misunderstand the purpose of the tag, it is to indicate that the article is the biography of a living person, not to claim there is evidence of a problem or poorly sourced material, please read Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Templates for details on the purpose of the tag. If I am not correct in my understanding, then please supply the evidence that the tag is for the purposes you claim and I'll be happy to remove it. Dreadlocke 21:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

O.K. Dreadlocke, I withdraw my complaint about the tag. Askolnick 11:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

05:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)~THIS IS IMPORTANT05:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)05:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)~ i think in the "see also" section, it should include "dementia" and "Quackery".

just sayin 05:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)05:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)~~

Unfair Criticism Slant in this Article

There seems to be a huge slant towards criticizing Deepak Chopra here. The entire article should be put into dispute and thoroughly gone over. I'm contacting the Chopra Center to see if they want to review and contribute. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abelinkoln (talk • contribs) 3:29, 13 November 2006 UTC (UTC)

Man's a charlatan and a farce. If anything, the article is way too mild; probably even harmfully so. 62.48.171.17 14:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Too right. Just watching Dawkins on the telly, talking to Chopra. Chopra is claiming that "scientists have hijacked the term Quantum Mechanics", and that his interpretation of the science is as valid. He claims he's been victimised by "scientific fundamentalists". It seems Chopra is very ignorant of the scientific terms he misuses, and it's important the evidence for this is presented. --Dilaudid 19:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

this guy is a nut job!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.71.223.210 (talk) 05:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. I believe you're talking about The God Delusion, which was a tv series by Richard Dawkins. I believe it's still available on google video if you type it in. Anyway, more cited criticism is needed.72.78.179.244 (talk) 17:46, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Picture

I know this has been brought up in the past, but seriously, if we are going to illustrate this article, can we get an actual photo of the guy? I know the drawing is an "offical" likeness of Chopra, but isn't a free image anyway, and it might as well be Ray Romano. --buck 15:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Until a Free photo is available, I've replaced the drawing with a bookcover containing Chopra's photo (common and fair use on Wikipedia). I agree with you — a photo is more encyclopedic, even one a few years out of date. --216.232.199.171 07:33, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It should be a CURRENT photo. If someone can get one at a book signing or seminar (expensive, I know) we can see how old this guy really looks.

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Oops my mistake. My previous edit to the main article was not minor. CSTAR 17:45, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I'm wondering if we can dump the attribution to Stephen Barrett of the specifics of Chopra's training, and just state them as fact. If his critic is saying he trained at all these places, then those training details are probably just true, and if so the attribution to a critic in a sentence of neutral or positive factual details is an unneeded distraction. --Gary D 18:54, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I included the attribution to Stephen Barrett because I don't have an original source. CSTAR 19:15, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Understood. If I care enough to raise the point, I can get off my lazy butt sometime and go see if I can confirm those specifics. --Gary D 20:43, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Reversion of the pov-check tag

User:59.177.18.184 tagged the artice with pov-check, claiming "to me it seems that this entire article exists only to bash him)". I have removed the tag on the basis that the only "bashing" that may be occurring is rightfully in the criticism section, which has sufficient references, so it is not POV. Please identify the "bashing" you're seeing if you choose to reinsert the pov-check tag. Thanks. --Ds13 20:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The article is slanted, but that seems to be because no readers of Chopra have contributed. Some non-negative material should be added. I can't help much; I've never read the guy. — goethean ॐ 21:03, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

That said, there's no (legitimate) reason to remove the tag so quickly. — goethean ॐ 21:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

If someone wants to put the tag back, that's fine, but please be more useful in criticism next time. The basis for the previous tagging was that "this entire article exists only to bash him" — this is clearly false. The intro, the Background section, and the Books section are non-bashing in nature, and, arguably, serve to promote the subject. --Ds13 21:11, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

A list of his book titles is promoting him? Or were you referring to the 2 sentences under "Writings"? — goethean ॐ 22:02, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the long list of his published books is without negative connotation and clearly serves to promote the popularity, accessibility, and finances of Chopra. I just added one more title and a bunch of ISBNs — this makes it easier to find, borrow, or buy the books. --Ds13 22:37, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

That's an interesting view. — goethean ॐ 22:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Heheh, well, my views aside, as long as the section content itself (and every section) is neutral, then we're moving in approximately the right direction!  ;-) --Ds13 23:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

For my part, I'd say the article does need some more content regarding the man's history and teachings (to balance out the increasing size of the "Criticism" section), but I don't think we need the pov-check tag. I think an "expand article" tag would be more appropriate because the problem is not that the article contains slanted phrases, but because it's lacking content typical of a biographical article. That said, I've never read Chopra's books or attended any of his teachings, so I don't have much to contribute. In my days of working in a bookstore, however, I remember Chopra's books were subject to quite a bit of criticism, mostly due to the questionable scientific validity of his teachings. --buck 13:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Currently ,the criticism section is slightly larger than the background introduction... which initially seems biased to me. The booklist is promoting his works, yes. Lots of articles to choose from in the external links. I am going to add an (which asks to expand the article. and an 'expert' tag, asking for someone who has read Chopra in detail, or works with him. due to the fact that he is a fully qualified Endocrinologist, and Ayervedic practitioner, and President of an Ayervedic Association in America (the only association in the US?)... His bio, and a little more detail of the development of his work would be useful for the reader who visits this page. I have listened to a few of his lectures on Quantum Biology on audio, and he is very friendly with Wayne Dyer, among other inspirational speakers. Quitea complex character is Mr. Chopra. User talk:DrakoniconDrakonicon 16:38, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Vagueness

Quoting from the article:

In its May 22/29, 1991 issue, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a controversial article by Sharma, Triguna and Chopra: Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Modern Insights Into Ancient Medicine.[2] Discovering that there was a serious problem, in the August 14 edition of JAMA, the editors published a correction[3] which included a financial disclosure, followed, in October 2, by a six-page exposé.[4] The series of events was later reviewed by Andrew Skolnick, the author of the October 2 exposé.[5]

Neither the paragraph, its surrounding paragraphs, or the footnotes shed any light at all on what the "serious problem" was, the nature and content of the "financial disclosure", nor the subject of the "exposé". What is the meat of the matter here? siafu 21:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the criticism. I summarized information from Skolink's NASW article.

The discussion about this raged on the alt.meditation.transcendal newsgroup for some time. Things got quite heated at times. Here's the initial cover letter sent to JAMA by the authors. [Page 2 http://www.aaskolnick.com/junkyarddog/mavletter2.jpg] has the only disclosure that Chopra, Sharma and Triguna made before the article was published. The authors signed blank financial disclosure forms and returned them.

The original Chopra and company article can be found [here http://www.rwilliams.us/archives/jama.htm].

[JAMA's response, curtesy of Andrew Skolnick http://web.archive.org/web/20000308180136/nasw.org/users/ASkolnick/mav.html]

Skolnick got into [heated discussions http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=&num=10&scoring=r&hl=en&as_epq=transcendental+meditation&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_ugroup=&as_usubject=&as_uauthors=skolnick&lr=&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=&as_mind=1&as_minm=1&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=13&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=2006&safe=off] on this issue with various TM believers on the a.m.t. newsgroup. He was so upset with our responses, that he created a sub-website dedicated to us, entitled ["Judy Stein, Defender of the Faith website," under the directory "junkyarddog" http://www.aaskolnick.com/junkyarddog/]. He even immortalized a few of our exchanges, calling me the AMT "resident dormouse" [1] [2].Sparaig 01:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Colbert Report

Was he scheduled to be on the Colbert Report tomorrow (18th) at one point? I don't see him listed anymore. Thanks.

ID/creationism

While not attempting to incite an edit war, I've altered the following paragraph of the "criticism" section by removing the boldface words:

In August 2005, Chopra posted a series of articles on the blog The Huffington Post (to which he is a frequent contributor) in which he offers his solution to the creation-evolution controversy. In doing so he expressed support for Intelligent Design without attachment to creationism or any religion, and offered a series of questions about evolution he believed could not be answered by science alone (thereby requiring an "intelligent designer").

My reasoning for removing this is not an attempt to disparage Mr. Chopra's stance on creation/evolution, but simply because the phrase "support for Intelligent Desgin without attachment to creationism or any religion" is a self-contradicting statement because, as designated in the wiki articles for both intelligent design and creationism, intelligent design is a form of creationism. One cannot remove the "creation" aspect from the ID philosophy without altering the philosophy altogether. With regard to the Huffington articles in question (here and here), Chopra does argue that the ID movement should distance itself from "religious politics" and texts, however, he does not actually say that ID is independent of or does not inolve creationism. In fact, he states the exact opposite in the last of his seven principles of intelligent design: "the creative principle is eternal." --buck 18:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

You're not exactly edit warring, coming to the talk page and explaining yourself was an excellent move, and I applaud that - although you should give editors a chance to source or explain an article entry before just deleting it - especially a second time – unless the entry presents potential libel in the case of a WP:BLP. If you’ll pardon me, it does appear as though you are trying to disparage Mr. Chopra’s stance on creation/evolution. He is clearly attempting to separate out a concept of ID from both religion and creationism. Whether he is right, wrong, or even appears to be contradicting himself, you are expressing your own views on what he is saying and the concepts behind the terms he is using, which violates WP:NOR. I’m certainly not going to argue with you about potential differences between Intelligent Design and Creationism, or how both relate to anthropic principle. What I will argue are the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia and how they relate to this matter.

First, you cannot use Wikipedia articles as references, Wikipedia is not a reliable source, specifically Wikipedia articles may not cite Wikipedia articles as a source. And to be honest, considering the editors who “own” and jealously guard the contents of the Wikipedia article on ID, I don’t trust it at all – regardless of policy.

Second, according to WP:V, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth., this means that whether or not what Mr. Chopra is saying is true (that ID is separate from creationism/religion), his statement as such can be included in Wikipedia. The presumed contradiction you point out is original research as far as Mr. Chopra’s statements and article contents.

But, instead of adding the same sentence that was there before, and to clarify and expand on what Mr. Chopra states, I have modified the removed statement as follows:

In August 2005, Chopra posted a series of articles on the blog The Huffington Post (to which he is a frequent contributor) in which he offers his solution to the creation-evolution controversy. In doing so he expressed support for Intelligent Design without the bible or the politics of religion, instead saying that Nature displays intelligence, as stated by Einstein and in a theory called the anthropic principle which has been seriously considered by Stephen Hawking. Chopra states that “it’s time to rescue "intelligent design" from the politics of religion. There are too many riddles not yet answered by either biology or the Bible, and by asking them honestly, without foregone conclusions, science could take a huge leap forward.”

Chopra also offers a series of questions about evolution he believes cannot be answered by science alone (thereby requiring an "intelligent designer"). Science writer Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society and long-time critic of Chopra, posted a response. [3]

Dreadlocke ☥ 02:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Your latest revision looks OK to me, with the exception of "...which has been seriously considered by Stephen Hawking", since it is phrased in a way that suggests Hawking is a supporter of the anthropic principle (he's not). Now if you'll pardon me, I'd like to take a moment to verify that my intentions were not as malicious, slanderous, or ill-informed as you may think--I removed the phrase in question for one reason only: it made no sense. If that's somehow disparaging Chopra--well, another editor's poor word choice is hardly my fault. Nor do I claim to even begin to understand Chorpa's philosophies. Simply reading the sources from which the article is citing information is not a violation of NOR! I'm done. --buck 06:34, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I may have misunderstood what you were trying to say and do. I've retracted my "disparaging" comment above. Dreadlocke ☥ 18:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Intelligent design and religion

The entire section titled Intelligent design and religion is cited, sourced with references, and atrributed from a WP:RS. 19:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

No, it really isn't. The section concerned reads:

In August 2005, Chopra posted a series of articles on the blog The Huffington Post (to which he is a frequent contributor) in which he offers his solution to the creation-evolution controversy. In doing so he expressed support for Intelligent Design without the Bible or the politics of religion, instead saying that Nature displays intelligence, as stated by Einstein and in a theory called the anthropic principle which has been seriously considered by Stephen Hawking.").[2] Chopra states that

The first problem is that the provided citation to [4] is not an acceptable source for this paragraph. At best it would be an acceptable source if the paragraph read: "In doing so he expressed support for Intelligent Design without the Bible or the politics of religion, instead saying that Nature displays intelligence, as Chopra claims Einstein stated and claims Stephen Hawking's anthropic principle supports."

To imply, as the existing paragraph does, that Hawkings and Einstein support anything close to the views of Chopra is very misleading. To support the first claim we need a reliable source other than Chopra which says that Einstein stated that "Nature displays intelligence". The version of the anthropic principle that Hawkings supports is about as far from Chopra's world view as is possible to image; to claim that Hawkings supports any version of intelligent design is deeply misleading. Gwernol 19:43, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to the talk page. My opinion is that it already does clearly say, in several different ways, that Chopra is making all those statements, without having to add such convoluted, complex and hard to read verbiage as indicated above. If you feel the Einsten and Hawking comments by Chopra need further sourcing - fine, put in a {{fact}} tag and give a chance for other editors to either find an stronger source, or then just reword the section to make it clearer. Dreadlocke ☥ 19:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

See the top of this talk page: "Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately". {{fact}} tags are not acceptable on biographies of living people. The paragraph currently says that "Nature displays intelligence" is a view stated by Einstein. It isn't. It also states that the Hawkings' version of the Anthropic Principle supports Intelligent Design. In fact Hawking's version of the anthropic principle was specifically formulated as an argument against ID - see [5]. The current wording is highly misleading as it appears to bring two eminent physicists on to Chopra's side when at least one of them is arguing against his views. I have no qualms in removing this misleading language again; if you want it in there, please cite sources other than Chopra to support the claims made. Gwernol 20:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I know what's at the top of the talk page, I put it there: [6] Most importantly, that tag (policy) is really talking about potential libelous material about the subject of the article, but there is no libel in repeating what Chopra himself said in his article; and contrary to your apparent assertion that the BLP policy on sourcing can be applied to justify your reversions, Chopra's comments about Einstein and Hawking are not poorly sourced, at most it just needs a tweak on the wording to make certain the source of the quote is clear. Further, If you revert again today, you will be in violation of WP:3RR and I will report you - it will be interesting to see if BLP applies. Dreadlocke ☥ 23:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've re-worded the portion under dispute so there is absolutely no doubt as to it being a direct quote by Chopra about Einstein and Hawking, from a cited, reliable source; and therefore absolutely no reason to revert it again. If you still feel it violates WP:BLP, and if a fact tag doesn't fit the situation, then by all means report it to the BLP Noticeboard. Dreadlocke ☥ 01:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Pronounciation please

What is the correct pronounciation of his name? Carlas11 02:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)carlas11

"Quantum Quackery" - Long in the tooth and wrong...?

This critique within the article called "Quantum Quackery" that's linked to here in the article is pretty old stuff (from 1997) and it makes an assertion that has been pretty much proven wrong since it was written so long ago:

"... This surely violates Einstein's assertion that no signals can move faster than the speed of light. ..."

Forward to 2007 and we now strongly suspect the speed of light barrier has, indeed, been broken. Einstein was wrong and this breaks one of the major foundations within the linked, 10 year-old "Quantum Quackery" critique. Therefore, I think the link should be removed. It's fairly useless, long in the tooth and flawed nowadays, don't you think? I'll wait for a response before I remove it. Maybe I'm the one who is wrong here? Cowicide 22:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the article you linked state that light has been observed to travel faster than 'c', rather than anything has been observed to travel faster than light? Light can't travel faster than light. MFNickster 15:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

"Einstein was wrong" alone buys you 10 points on the crackpot index. dab (𒁳) 15:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Er, um. isn't the picture of Chjopra actually an advertisement for his audio book?

Very slick, Deepak. You've only gotten more subtle with age. ;-/ -Sparaig 14:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The photo has been discussed here (see above). I guess any pic is better than no pic. Just curious, why are you leaving messages for Deepak here? Pgc512 16:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Intro Bias?

I include the question mark because I am not exactly an expert on how an encyclopedia should be laid out, but the intro seems to have an odd inclusion. It mentions rather matter of factly that he won the ignoble prize in 1998. Later this is explained and it is clear from the awards and the explaination that this 'prize' was meant to mock him. The awards in question sound a lot like the golden rasberry awards for movies. While it is true that he was given this 'award,' does it really need to be in the intro? The intro makes it sound like he actually won something, when really it's a faux prize meant to criticize him. The sentence is misleading and has an ironic tone that is slanted and subtly judgemental, when I strongly believe that an encylopedia should be as neutral as possible. Putting that sentence in the intro just makes him look like a joke before the article even begins. There isn't even an explaination in the intro that the ignoble prize was apart of criticism lodged against him. I've never read his work, and I honestly have no opinion on his beliefs, but it just seems like the inclusion of the so-called award, as well as the way it is mentioned, in the intro sets off the article as being heavily slanted from the beginning. I just think that the later inclusion in the criticism section is more than enough and that it really has no place in the intro. It doesn't matter what people around here think about him, the article should just present the facts with the criticism and responses to said criticsm given equal and neutral weight. Let people make up their own minds. Wikipedia should not be in the business of arguing any side of an argument, no matter how clear cut some people find that argument to be.

You're right. I didn't notice that it had been slipped into the introduction; otherwise I would have reverted the edit. Anyway, I've removed the mention from the intro. It remains in the Criticism section, appropriately. Thanks for catching that. --buck 22:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

according to the best of my understanding, Chopra is, in fact, considered little more than a joke. The article should of course reflect this: Wikipedia articles do not take a "sympathetic point of view" towards their subjects, they attempt to fairly represent mainstream opinion. In this sense you are wrong: if some opinion is held by an overwhelming majority, the overwhelming majority of the corresponding Wikipedia article will report on that opinion, and not on fringy refutations. dab (𒁳) 15:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Dbachmann, I don't have much time, but let me just say that I do not agree with what you wrote above. Pgc512 (talk) 17:37, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Other Criticism Not Mentioned?

There has been other criticism of Chopra that is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article. Why not? (See http://www.answers.com/topic/deepak-chopra?cat=health)