Deepak Chopra: Woo Woo Is a Step Ahead of (Bad) Science

I had no idea that Shermer was a former Christian Fundie - it all makes sense now.
Deepak Chopra: Woo Woo Is a Step Ahead of (Bad) Science

Woo-Woo vs. Poo Poo

From Dr. Chopra's tweets:

Dear Friends Michael Scermer professional skeptic , king of Poo Poo, has accepted to debate. Looking forward to educating him. Stay tuned

I like the idea of calling the debate Woo Woo Vs Poo Poo ! What do you think? ( Divine vs Diabolical ha ha)

You know that I am very much looking forward to it. :-)

King of Poo Poo came about due to Shermer calling Chopra a Master of Woo Woo. What else would you expect from Shermer?

Woo Begins in the Womb

Woo Begins in the Womb « Bruce M. Hood

While I don't disagree with the scientific findings in this post (that the longer your ring finger the more testosterone you have) I do disagree with Bruce Hood's opinion that more women believe in "woo." That is not my experience with woo-woos.

I don't follow ghost phenomena much, so I won't include that, but certainly in Cryptozooloy and Ufology you will find far more men than women involved.

Now I don't have any scientific methods that lead me to believe there are more male believers than female, but I do know that last time I checked 80% of my facebook friends were men, nearly all of them believers in "woo" and most of the people (easily 95%) that email me about their experiences are men. Needless to say because it is obvious, but most researchers in Cryptozoology and Ufology are men.

If I am out at a party where I don't know many people and it is found out that I write and blog about UFOs it is the men that are most interested, not the women. In fact, the women seem to consider it a "manly" topic, like scifi or rebuilding car engines. The few men that roll their eyes and walk off normally find me when nobody is around and admit that they have seen a UFO or they know someone (that they believe) that saw one.

Even my local UFO group, which is pretty evenly split, normally has at least 60% men.

This is what I think -- high testosterone probably doesn't make anyone less likely to believe in "woo," but it may make them less likely to admit it.

Woo Who? Probably You.

To my knowledge nobody has yet used the word Woo or WooWoo (publicly) to describe me. Although, they have used terms to describe me that obviously basically mean the same thing in their mind. I am OK with that. I wouldn't find being called a Woo particularly offensive. Why? Because almost everyone is a Woo.

If you believe that it is possible and maybe more than possible that some UFOs are NOT 1) secret military crafts, or 2) hallucinations -- you are a Woo to certain people. Yes, I know that people within the Ufology community have their own (unique to the person) definition of Woo, but so do those in the debunking community, most think people in the UFO community are all Woos.

Also, throughout time many people have been considered Woos. Newton was considered a Woo by many people within the scientific community and had his research into alchemy been known -- he would have been consider not only a Woo, but likely driven out of the scientific community and most polite (church going) society completely.

I am certainly not comparing myself (or anyone in Ufology) to Newton, but pointing out that just because someone has a few seemingly "crack pot" ideas or theories does not mean that they deserve to be labeled and/or laughed at. Normally people with the most imaginative minds that are open to many different concepts are the ones that come up with the world changing ideas or inventions. It is rarely the conventional thinker. Now they may believe in or investigate some truly kooky theories, but within those kooky theories could be one small truth that they will discover and that one small thing may help them to crack something larger.

I would also add that this theory that the Woo-Woos are somehow keeping Ufology out of the mainstream is completely unproven and seems to be total bunk to me. Ufology IS in the mainstream, it is on TV almost every night of the week and these days newspapers and other media gladly report on it because it increases circulation and ratings. 99% of people I meet are believers that UFOs could be visitors from elsewhere. There doesn't seem to be widespread argument that UFOs don't exist. You could clear the entire Ufology field of woowoos, as well as hoaxers and scammers, but Ufology would still not be reported on as real science. Until someone gets a piece of something that can actually scientifically be studied the media will never consider Ufology to be a serious science. Of course, there are many more hoops than that, it would have to be proved that the material came from an unknown craft and there would have to be something really remarkable about it. Basically you would probably need the entire craft in order to truly convince those that don't want to believe.

Anyhow, those of you that still feel that need to separate yourselves from the woowoos that believe in alien abduction, contactees, Bob Lazar and whatever else is considered woowoo these days -- knock yourselves out. You are still a woo-woo to some, no matter how above the others you may wish to seem.