Tag Archives | TED

Dear TED, Is It ‘Bad Science’ or a ‘Game of Thrones’?

By on April 18, 2013 in News 0

Deepak Chopra MSPACThe botched handling of the TEDx Whitechapel talks by Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock continues to cause waves, now via an open letter to TED by Deepak Chopra, MD. FACP, Stuart Hameroff, MD, Menas C. Kafatos, Ph.D., Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D., and Neil Theise, MD, published at Huffington Post:

One of modern science’s great strengths is that any questionable finding dies a quick death if it’s invalid. The safeguards are mainly two: Your new finding must be repeatable when other researchers run the same experiments, and peer review by qualified scientists subjects every new finding to microscopic scrutiny. So it surprised the millions of admirers of TED, whose conferences attract wide attention to new, cutting-edge ideas, when that organization decided to practice semi-censorship.

The flap is over two videos of TEDx talks delivered in the UK in January that were summarily removed from TEDx’s YouTube channel (TEDx is the brand name for conferences outside the main TED events that are allowed to use the TED trademark, such as TEDxBoston or TEDxBaghdad — so far, about 5,000 such events have used the name).

… Read the rest

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An Open Letter to TED

By on April 14, 2013 in News 0

arrangementsKen Jordan, Publisher & Editorial Director, Evolver/Reality Sandwich, has written an open letter to TED’s Chris Anderson in an attempt to get the TED organization to stop squirming around for a minute and talk about the real issues at stake in their decision to cordon off large swaths of scientific inquiry:

“TED’s prominence has made it, perhaps inadvertently, into an forum that validates worthy intellectual progress. If a good idea gets momentum, it will most likely end up, one way or another, presented by TED or one of the TEDx offshoots.

That’s why the censure of the TEDx talks by Graham Hancock and Rupert Sheldrake is so dismaying. As you must know, to many of us the reasons behind their removal from the TED YouTube site are just not clear. On behalf of the Evolver community, I’d like to extend an invitation to you to help us understand the reasoning that led to TED’s actions, because we suspect that behind your decision is an uninformed prejudice against groundbreaking research in a critical area of study, the possibility that consciousness extends beyond the brain.”

The issue here is not one of censorship, it’s one of social engineering.… Read the rest

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TED Backs Down: People Power Wins Against Censorship

By on March 20, 2013 in News 1

Following popular outcry in response to TED’s censorship of recent TEDx talks by leading thinkers Graham Hancock and Rupert Sheldrake – and against the accompanying slanders on their reputations – TED is forced to retract its position and put the talks back online in a “reserved” area of their site. By then, however, pirate copies already existed and from these, in an example of guerrilla action on the internet, hundreds of people independently uploaded the talk to their own Youtube channels.  Just one of these many Youtube channels indepently hosting the talk in defiance of TED is here.

This week saw a remarkable victory in the court of human justice with the public climb-down by internet media giant TED in light of their error in censoring last week, the challenging talks by leading thinkers Graham Hancock and Rupert Sheldrake. The much loved TED brand has been called on its trustworthiness for the first time and forced to retract its position.… Read the rest

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TED Talks: Graham Hancock and Rupert Sheldrake, a fresh take

By on March 18, 2013 in News 14

For those of you who took TED to task for taking down the Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock TEDx talks, you’ve partially succeeded: TED has at least addressed the censorship issue (below), saying

The goal here is to have an open conversation about:

- the line between science and pseudoscience

- how far TED and TEDx should go in giving exposure to unorthodox ideas

But they haven’t restored the videos themselves. Yet.

The hardest line to draw is science versus pseudoscience. TED is committed to science. But we think of it as a process, not as a locked-in body of truth. The scientific method is a means of advancing understanding. Of asking for evidence. Of testing ideas to see which stack up and which should be abandoned. Over time that process has led to a rich understanding of the world, but one that is constantly being refined and upgraded.

… Read the rest

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Graham Hancock Refutes TED’s Allegations, Defends Reputation

By on March 16, 2013 in News 44

Letter dated 15 March 2013 from Graham Hancock to TED. The letter and series of supporting documents below it are self explanatory. It will be necessary to take a look at them all and to follow some of the links given in order to arrive at an informed opinion of what has happened here but for all concerned with freedom of speech, and the negative attitude of a powerful lobby of self-styled scientists towards visionary plants, the exercise should prove worthwhile.

Dear TED

I wish to protest officially the damage to my reputation and my good name as a prominent author and public speaker currently being perpetrated by TED on its own website — see here – http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/

I require TED either to substantiate the damaging allegations made there against me by TED or to retract them and publish a full and unconditional public apology.

The substance of my complaint is contained in my letter to Chris Anderson that I posted on the above blog page this morning replying to an earlier letter to me posted by Chris Anderson in the same place on 14 March.… Read the rest

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Graham Hancock Calls Out TED’s Blatant Censorship

By on March 14, 2013 in News 114

Via Graham Hancock’s facebook feed.

In attempt to brush up their severely tarnished image after censoring my presentation“The War on Consciousness” from the TEDx website today (on the grounds that I was “unscientific”) and also censoring the presentation “The Science Delusion” by my colleague Rupert Sheldrake for the same reason, TED have now rushed to create a remote corner of their website, which I imagine they hope no-one will see, where our talks have been put back online and may be debated: http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/.This gesture, they claim, is in response to my suggestion that they had censored us and should be taken as evidence of their “spirit of radical openness”.

All I can say is this is extremely devious behavior on TED’s part. On the one hand they take down two videos from Youtube that had generated enormous public interest and traction (mine had received over 130,000 views and Rupert’s over 35,000 views).

… Read the rest

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TED Blog: 11 Talks That Freaked Us Out in 2012

By on December 27, 2012 in News 3

Paranoia fodder from TED, just in time for the new year!

Vicki Arroyo’s hometown is New Orleans, and after Hurricane Katrina struck, she knew firsthand the looming threat of climate change. In this eye-opening talk from TEDGlobal 2012, “Let’s prepare for our new climate,” Arroyo reveals the startling truths about droughts, rising water levels and natural disasters — that they may only get worse.

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TEDx Speaker Predicted Hurricane Sandy’s Devastation One Year Ago

By on November 5, 2012 in News 4

Via TED.COM:

As efforts continue to recover from Hurricane Sandy throughout New York and New Jersey, we stumbled on this surprising 2011 talk from TEDxBermuda: “The 9 biggest weather disasters of the next 30 years.”

In the talk, given in October of last year, hurricane hunter and meteorologist Jeff Masters — who writes a blog for Weather Underground — predicts nine unthinkable weather disasters that could hit the United States over the next 30 years. We’re talking about storms that are dangerous to society, events that could cause $100 billion in damages and knock major cities and industries offline …

And number six just happened.

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