Religious Literacy: Midterm

I have been taking this class through Harvard edX on religious literacy and enjoying it very much. It's also been taking up a lot of my writing time, so in lieu of a blog post, I thought I'd post the Midterm I recently posted to the classroom. The assignment was to apply the cultural studies method to a contemporary article, relevant to my cultural context. I chose this article for analysis. The questions posed are in bold. It's a little brief, because there was a word limit. My first draft was about twice the length, but oh well.


1) Does the article represent the religion or religions in question as internally diverse?

Yes and no. The authors specify that the focus is biblical literalists, including "Evangelical and fundamentalist churches, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and other conservative sects." They distinguish these sects from "liberal, progressive Christian churches with a humanistic viewpoint, a focus on the present, and social justice."

There is no acknowledgment of diversity among Evangelical sects and LDS, and that not all are rigidly "conservative." For example, the authors claim that these groups "focus on the spiritual world as superior to the natural world." However, there are Evangelical movements with a strong focus on ecology and "stewardship" of the natural world.

Aside from the caveat about “liberal” sects, they are not represented in the article. There are no examples of benign or positive influence in other Christian sects. Yet, they make many generalizations about the destructiveness of Christianity and religion, writ large, rather than confining these assessments to these "conservative" Christian practices.

To say that some religious expressions are “more toxic than others” implies that they’re all at least somewhat toxic. This broader implication is not supported in the text. While there is acknowledgment of the internal diversity of Christianity, the authors do not present a balanced portrait of that diversity.

Richard Dawkins and the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club

Richard Dawkins may have finally gone too far. (Not the first time I've said this, I know.) After his most recent Twitter feud, he's found himself disinvited by the Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism. It seems they've finally noticed that he's a raging misogynist. Some of us caught on to this problem a little quicker. Skepchick blogger Rebecca West gives a rundown of this latest fiasco here.

In short, he retweeted a video from a men's movement ideologue called Sargon of Akkad, which mocked and attacked a feminist activist. Even when it was made clear to him that the woman is being terrorized with rape and death threats, and that she was doxxed, his reaction was to double down. This red-haired feminist was just too mockable for him to let it go. She's so obviously the wrong kind of feminist. Dawkins, by the way, is the right kind. He really understands what women should want in life, and is more than happy to explain it to us until we get it into our pretty, little heads.

In particular, he's very clear about what Muslim women should want. He'd like to start a feminist revolution for them, and he'd like to start with their clothing. That this isn't what Muslim feminists are concerned about doesn't seem to phase him. And so goes the other Twitter war, in which Dawkins finds himself these days. In the since deleted tweet, he explains how a "good Muslim" woman comports herself.

Psychic Pets and Other Proven Things

I touched on this experiment in intellectual dishonesty in this post, but Rupert Sheldrake here presents the documentary proof that Richard Wiseman misrepresented his own data to proclaim all evidence of psychic pets so much hugger mugger. What always kills me about things like this is that headlines always win. That's true even when the headlines are at odds with the articles they introduce, let alone when the journalism is equally shoddy. Wiseman's widely covered "debunking" of Sheldrake's meticulously documented pet telepathy experiment was the shot heard round the world. No one from the press bothered, apparently, to note that he was shooting blanks.

In that same post, I quote Wiseman admitting that the only means by which serious scientists can continue to dismiss evidence of remote viewing is by putting a thumb on the scale.

I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do... Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions.

And, yes, he also commits the cardinal error of misusing the phrase "begs the question." I tire of saying this, but while it may raise the question of whether or not to disregard any standard by which science might remain a truthful and dispassionate practice, it does not beg it. To beg the question is to commit the logical fallacy of petitio principii, circular argument. That Wiseman also has little facility with logic and critical thinking should probably come as no great shock.

In Which Michael Shermer Finds the Time

As I noted here, Rupert Sheldrake challenged professional skeptic Michael Shermer to a debate in 2003. He accepted. And now, a mere twelve years later, that debate will take place.

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, who was caught giving critiques of  Sheldrake's work without reading it, agreed to debate Sheldrake... if only he could find the time.

In March 2003, Dr Sheldrake challenged Shermer to a debate, which he accepted, and several times and venues were suggested, but all were rejected by Shermer. As of 2009, the debate has still not taken place.

Well, better late than never. The dialogue, hosted by TheBestSchools.org, commenced on May Day with opening statements from both thinkers.

Blaming Religion

I noticed a link on my Facebook feed this morning to a Salon article on the "6 reasons religion may do more harm than good." The first reason listed: religion promotes tribalism.

Religion divides insiders from outsiders. Rather than assuming good intentions, adherents often are taught to treat outsiders with suspicion. “Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers,” says the Christian Bible. “They wish that you disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of them,” says the Koran (Sura 4:91).

At best, teachings like these discourage or even forbid the kinds of friendship and intermarriage that help clans and tribes become part of a larger whole. At worst, outsiders are seen as enemies of God and goodness, potential agents of Satan, lacking in morality and not to be trusted. Believers might huddle together, anticipating martyrdom. When simmering tensions erupt, societies fracture along sectarian fault lines.

No fan of tribalism, me, but religion is hardly unique in this tendency.

Case in point: In a link right under the one for that article, I noticed another Salon article, really a book excerpt, on "toxic atheism." In it, atheist Chris Stedman describes the same kind of tribal exclusivity, judgment, and othering among his compatriots.

That Time Reza Aslan Smacked Down Bill Maher

I've never much cared for Bill Maher's commentary on religion. I think his views on the issue are shallow and reasoned backwards from the most extreme examples. So I very much enjoyed Reza Aslan's recent take-down of Maher's thoroughly ignorant, Islamaphobic rant. In the process he schooled the equally simplistic Don Lemon and Alisyn Camerota.

Comedian Bill Maher recently made some comments about Islamic countries that characterized them as more prone to violence, misogyny and bigotry, and now religious scholar Reza Aslan has called Maher out on his own “bigotry.” Aslan, who became famous when he skewered Fox News, appeared on CNN to pick apart Maher’s “not very sophisticated” and “facile arguments” that characterize Muslim nations as all the same. As is evident from the CNN bit, these arguments are not unique to Maher, making Aslan’s nuanced argument an essential one to keep in mind as we increase military action in the Middle East.

Here’s Aslan’s point: “To say Muslim countries, as though Pakistan and Turkey are the same… it’s frankly, and I use this word seriously, stupid!”

“The problem is that you’re talking about a religion of one and a half billion people,” he explained, “and certainly it becomes very easy to just simply paint them all with a single brush by saying, ‘Well in Saudi Arabia [women] can’t drive,’ and saying that’s representative of Islam. That’s representative of Saudi Arabia.”

Dawkins Keeps Digging

Does someone maybe want to take the shovel away from Richard Dawkins? 

His recent Twitter battle, discussed here, is having a ripple effect I don't think he expected or intended. It's rather interesting to see Richard Dawkins so completely on the defensive. He did, after all, set out to do what he does best -- use logic and reason to make sure everyone who disagrees with his world view knows how stupid they are. But it backfired and brought him a lot of negative feedback, even from some atheists. I think he may be learning the hard way that it's not as easy to get away with belittling women as it used to be.

His latest post on the issue shows him to be in full damage control mode and you know what they say: If you're explaining, you're losing.

I have briefly explained (it’s in An Appetite for Wonder) that, as a small boy, I was the victim of a pedophile teacher in the school squash court. He pulled me on his knee, put his hand inside my shorts and fiddled for about half a minute. It was very unpleasant, but it didn’t ruin my life and I had the temerity to say so in my memoir and elsewhere. I had the effrontery to downplay my experience and imply that it could have been worse. The teacher could, for example, have . . . well, I didn’t specify details, but anyone can fill in some of the appalling things that have happened to other children of both sexes.

Pandemonium in the Pigeon-lofts. Freethought Feeding Frenzy. “Dawkins actually said – I kid you not – that his experience in the squash court wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened. Wow, just wow. Where has he been these past few years? Doesn’t everyone nowadays know there are NO gradations? All cases are exactly equally bad. How dare Dawkins BELITTLE the horrors of pedophiliac assault?”

The Richard Dawkins Problem

Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse. If you think that's an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) July 29, 2014

Richard Dawkins has stepped on his crank. Again.

Another day, another tweet from Richard Dawkins proving that if non-conscious material is given enough time, it is capable of evolving into an obstreperous crackpot who should have retired from public speech when he had the chance to bow out before embarrassing himself.

“Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse,” huffs Dawkins. Seeming to have anticipated, although not understood, the feminist reaction this kind of sentiment generally evokes, he finishes the tweet: “If you think that’s an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think.”

I've really written very little about Dawkins, the man, and restricted my criticism to his dogmatic atheism and his disingenuousness in that arena. He has a long history of intemperate, ignorant, and insensitive remarks, particularly in the areas of gender politics and sexual violence. I've never thought it deserved a free-standing post because it's not really relevant to discussions of his atheist views. This is, I think, for reasons articulated in that same article.

TED and the Diploma Mill Yoda

How did this squeak by TED's rigorous screening process?

By this I mean a TEDx talk written up in this feel-good piece in Mother Jones, a publication I thought had fact-checkers.

Ironwood State Prison resident Steven Duby served as MC for a bill that kicked off with Budnick interviewing Sir Richard Branson about the importance of, yes, second chances. (Branson once spent a day in "prison," he said, for failing to pay taxes. His mother was able to bail him out by mortgaging her house, Branson added, but not everyone has it so easy.) Among the acts was Illinois therapist and motivational speaker Sean Stephenson (above), who held the prisoners rapt with his tale of overcoming adversity. "When I was born, the doctors told my parents I would be dead within the first 24 hours of my life," he began. "Thirty-five years later, all those doctors are dead, and I am the only doctor that remains!"

Obviously, I agree that it's lovely that TEDx put together an event for prison inmates. I even agree that Sean Stephenson is a good speaker with an inspiring life story. But he is not a doctor. He admitted as much when he agreed to remove such verbiage from his website. My original post and our exchange in the comment section can be found here. Yet here he is, in the spring of 2014 still calling himself a doctor.

Chopra and Sheldrake

Try saying that three times fast.

This is a really compelling discussion, the kind you'll want to listen to more than once just to catch all the nuances. The first focuses primarily on Sheldrake's explanation of morphic fields. The second gets more into the unproven assumptions of scientific materialism as set forth in his book Science Set Free, aka. The Science Delusion.

Deepak Chopra and Rupert Sheldrake have both been major targets of the New Atheist protectors of all things scientistic. The details of their disenfranchisement by TED and its super secret science board can be found here. So of course I find particularly delightful Chopra's recounting of a debate with Richard Dawkins at about minute 9:00 in the second video. Add that to the growing list of Dawkins's strident assertions that fall well short of the mark.

Also in the player is an interview with Sheldrake's wife Jill Purce on the power of chanting. Enchanting! More information can be found here.

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Bill Maher on Noah and his Genocidal God

I like Bill Maher. His New Atheist views less so. I think his views on religion are often under-informed and facile. That said, I find little to disagree with in his latest anti-religious rant. It is a little frightening that so many in the US take Biblical myths literally. Maher claims that 60% of Americans believe Noah's Ark is a true story. I assume this isn't in the sense that it is reflective of similar catastrophe myths found around the globe or that it probably derives very directly from the Sumerian legend of Utnapishtim.

The statistic Maher cites most likely comes from a 2004 ABC poll. That same study found that literal belief is strongest among evangelical Christians, much as one would expect. But this is always the problem with New Atheist arguments. They focus on their direct nemeses, those as dogmatic in their views as they themselves are. And, in fairness, there really is no arguing that literal belief in this story poisons our thinking for the central reason Maher states. This Old Testament god they worship is a genocidal maniac. Belief in such a god sets the stage for all manner of cruelty and consciously or unconsciously justifies atrocities.

Joseph Campbell has said much the same and I have cited the following more than once. Maher just says it funnier.

[The Bible is] the most over-advertised book in the world. It's very pretentious to claim it to be the word of God, or accept it as such and perpetuate this tribal mythology, justifying all kinds of violence to people who are not members of the tribe.

The thing I see about the Bible that's unfortunate is that it's a tribally circumscribed mythology. It deals with a certain people at a certain time. The Christians magnified it to include them. It then turns this society against all others, whereas the condition of the world today is that this particular society that's presented in the Bible isn't even the most important. This thing is like a dead weight. It's pulling us back because it belongs to an earlier period. We can't break loose and move into a modern theology.

One of the great promises of mythology is, with what social group do you identify? How about the planet? To say that the members of this particular social group are the elite of God's world is a good way to keep that group together, but look at the consequences! I think that what might be called the sanctified chauvinism of the Bible is one of the curses of the planet today.

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Stealing Malala

Available on Amazon.com

An excellent write-up in Salon takes on Sam Harris's disturbing crush on Malala Yousafzai.

In an era of narcissistic self-obsession, there’s something to be said for the value of self-awareness. This week, atheist philosopher Sam Harris leapt forward to claim Malala Yousafzai as another trophy in his one-man jihad against Muslims and the weak-kneed “Muslim-apologists” he perceives on the left.

That Harris has been denounced as a crude, pseudo-intellectual bigot for his various tirades about the monolithic evil of Muslims didn’t do much to deter him; but what was most interesting about his latest missive was its complete disregard for Malala’s actual words and opinions. Either he didn’t listen to her words at all before plastering her face on his website or he was too contemptuous of her to think it necessary.

According to Harris:

Given the requisite beliefs…. an entire culture will support such evil. Malala is the best thing to come out of the Muslim world in a thousand years. She is an extraordinarily brave and eloquent girl who is doing what millions of Muslim men and women are too terrified to do—stand up to the misogyny of traditional Islam

It’s worth pausing here to listen to whether Malala thinks that she is standing up to her own evil culture and the misogyny of “traditional Islam”:

“The Taliban think we are not Muslims, but we are. We believe in God more than they do, and we trust him to protect us…..I’m still following my own culture, Pashtun culture….Islam says that it is not only each child’s right to get education, rather it is their duty and responsibility.”

Whatever one thinks of this, given that these are Malala’s beliefs, anyone with a modicum of decency or respect for her would not go ahead and use her suffering as a tool to attack the very things she is fighting to defend. Yet Harris takes up this opportunity with great vigor. For him it doesn’t matter whether Malala believed she was defending traditional Islam, because anyone who tries to differentiate Islam from the acts of extremists are part of the “tsunami of stupidity and violence breaking simultaneously on a hundred shores … the determination that ‘moderate’ Islam not be blamed for the acts of extremists.’”

Another way of saying that is that Harris's blog post doesn't make a lick of sense. As I said when I first read it last week, if Muslims like Yousafzai are standing up to the Taliban and demanding education for girls, how is Islam the problem?

In Harris's world, no "Moderate Muslims" have ever pushed back against extremists before -- just Malala. She apparently sprung up out of nowhere to become the lone voice in the entire Muslim world to stand up for a girl's right to be educated.

Throughout its roughly twenty year history, the Taliban has targeted education for women and girls, closing schools, forcing professional women out of their jobs and into burqas, and confining all females to their homes. A logical person, even with no real knowledge of the Muslim world, would deduce from that basic and well-known set of facts, that countless Muslim women in Afghanistan and Pakistan were educated and working in a range of careers long before the Taliban came along. Sam Harris, on the other hand, somehow deduces that Islam has been oppressing women and keeping them from getting an education for at least a thousand years. Huh? What then does the Taliban keep closing down?

Harris's post, entitled "No Ordinary Violence," goes on with such fact-free, ahistorical leaps in logic for many florid paragraphs. Muslims kill because they are Muslims. Period. They're deluded by promises of paradise. Iraq, Afghanistan, drone attacks... all irrelevant. In fact, all that military action would be unnecessary but for their religion-fueled, as opposed to clinical, insanity. No. Really. He says that.

Yes, our drone strikes in Pakistan kill innocent people—and this undoubtedly creates new enemies for the West. But we wouldn’t need to drop a single bomb on Pakistan, or anywhere else, if a death cult of devout Muslims weren’t making life miserable for millions of innocent people and posing an unacceptable threat of violence to open societies.

Blithely ignoring the fact that his new-found heroine is a passionate Muslim, Harris exploits her iconic status to bash the religion she loves.

Shortly after Harris posted his paean-to-Malala/anti-Muslim-screed, it was reported that she had told President Obama that, actually, the drones? Kind of a problem.

“I thanked President Obama for the United States’ work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees,” she said in the statement. “I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact.” 

Since then, not a peep from Harris about how his golden girl went off the script that exists only in his head and told the leader of the free world that it might just be ordinary violence after all.

Amazingly enough, this is not the worst thing Harris has ever said about Muslims. He has a long, documented history of bigotry masquerading as intellectual enlightenment. Even among New Atheists, his animus toward Muslims is extreme. And New Atheism has created a lot of slickly packaged Islamaphobia.

When criticism of religion morphs into an undue focus on Islam - particularly at the same time the western world has been engaged in a decade-long splurge of violence, aggression and human rights abuses against Muslims, justified by a sustained demonization campaign - then I find these objections to the New Atheists completely warranted. That's true of [Richard] Dawkins' proclamation that "[I] often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today." It's true of [Christopher] Hitchens' various grotesque invocations of Islam to justify violence, including advocating cluster bombs because "if they're bearing a Koran over their heart, it'll go straight through that, too". And it's true of Harris' years-long argument that Islam poses unique threats beyond what Christianity, Judaism, and the other religions of the world pose.

Not only has Harris aligned himself ideologically with European fascists who dream of turning Muslims "into soap," he opines in The End of Faith that, "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them."

I think it's safe to say that when one begins advocating genocide, one has given up the moral high ground.

The rabid anti-Muslim bias of New Atheists has come under increasing scrutiny as their fundamentalist zeal to rid the world religion has gained ground. They simply don't disparage all religions equally. Dawkins, for instance, has made numerous statements along the lines of “Religion poisons everything, but Islam is in a toxic league of its own.”

Dawkins has also refused to distance himself from Harris's many outrageous statements, saying at one point:

You mean the Koran and the Hadith don’t say what Sam claims they say? I’m delighted to hear that, but can you substantiate it? I do hope you can, then we can all sleep easier. If, on the other hand, Sam is summarising Islamic scriptures accurately, why should I be ashamed of myself for simply quoting Sam’s accurate summary?

What may be evident from that statement is something that he's also admitted publicly. He's never read the Quran.

Dawkins, in a recent rant on Twitter, admitted that he had not ever read the Quran, but was sufficiently expert in the topic to denounce Islam as the main culprit of all the world’s evil: “Haven’t read Koran so couldn’t quote chapter and verse like I can for Bible. But [I] often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today.” How’s that for a scientific dose of proof that God does not exist?

A few days later, on March 25, there was this: “Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read the Qur’an. You don’t have to read “Mein Kampf” to have an opinion about Nazism.”

It’s an extraordinary feat for an Oxford scholar to admit that he hasn’t done the research to substantiate his belief, but what’s more extraordinary is that he continues to believe the unsupported claim. That backwards equation — insisting on a conclusion before even launching an initial investigation — defines the New Atheists’ approach to Islam. It’s a pompousness that only someone who believes they have proven, scientifically, the nonexistence of God can possess.

As we know from years of seeing Dawkins and Harris in action, whatever scholarly standards they may apply to work in their own fields of science go right out the window when they start talking -- and writing -- about religion. They are scientists. Therefore everything they do is scientific, even when it isn't, seems to be the reasoning. As Terry Eagleton observed, "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."

That problem of ignorance masquerading as scholarly rigor can only be compounded when they start holding forth on a religion in which they were not raised. That they have a childlike grasp of Judaism and Christianity can carry them a ways in bashing both. But, notably, they've both made a great deal of apology for both of those religions as compared to the Islam of which they have zero experiential knowledge.

Now, into the thick of that fiercest of ironies, Sam Harris has dragged a devout Muslim, magically transforming her courage and faith into a testament to his lack of both. Hasn't she suffered enough?

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Richard Dawkins Meets Max Headroom

I first watched this video last week and still haven't quite recovered. So Graham Hancock's comment today cracked me up.

Has Richard Dawkins, arch materialist and formerly professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University, entered the DMT realms? When I asked Dawkins if he would take psychedelics to challenge his view of reality his answer was interesting: http://goo.gl/rqaU0. Now he's participated in this utterly bizarre video. Skip to 4.45 and watch everything: http://goo.gl/NHnSH

And, yes, Dawkins did indeed hint that he might just pierce the veil.

I still think this is one of the worst things I've ever seen. The incongruity of the Hawaiian shirt and the bleak, grey podium against black background... How can a shirt that loud be so dull? And then there's sing-songy tone of this utterly humorless man attempting to be entertaining and edgy.  And then... and then... Dear God.

I just think he was better when he was trying to brainwash Derek Zoolander to kill the Malaysian prime minister.

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From the Memory Hole: Dawkins/Sheldrake Face Off

Once upon a time Rupert Sheldrake and Richard Dawkins had a debate, however brief. Except that it wasn't so much a debate as it was a set-up, proffered on false pretenses, and designed to make Sheldrake look foolish. But Dawkins was unable to spring the trap, came off looking a bit foolish himself, and the whole thing disappeared down the memory hole.

I previously mentioned Dawkins's "Enemies of Reason" here. I recently stumbled on Sheldrake's account of his futile attempt to discuss evidence with Dawkins. His write-up can be found here. Most telling, I think, is Dawkins's statement on science and belief.

The Director asked us to stand facing each other; we were filmed with a hand-held camera. Richard began by saying that he thought we probably agreed about many things, “But what worries me about you is that you are prepared to believe almost anything. Science should be based on the minimum number of beliefs.”

I would humbly suggest that the number of beliefs a scientist holds is far less important than their willingness to suspend disbelief and follow the evidence wherever it may lead. And that is the problem with so called "skeptics" like Dawkins. However many beliefs they may have they're completely caught up in them and refuse to surrender them even when they're contradicted by evidence. So they go about asking for extraordinary proof, not for what are genuinely extraordinary claims, but for anything that defies their belief system. And not only is no amount of proof enough, they won't even look at the evidence before dismissing it out of hand. And these are the people who think they're defending the scientific method.

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TED Finds Deepak Chopra's Lost Talk

Click for Video

As discussed, one of Deepak Chopra's criticisms of TED's censorship referred to his own talk, in which he rebutted Richard Dawkins in 2002. He apparently shamed Chris Anderson into retrieving it from the vault of hidden ideas. He has posted it, but in "the naughty corner" like Graham Hancock's and Rupert Sheldrake's talks. As with those, it's in an unembeddable format. It also comes complete with snark and insulting framing about its "misleading" science. But at least we get to hear it and I now have. I also forced myself to sit through the Dawkins talk he was responding to, which can be found here. It's actually titled "Militant Atheism." Wow.

Chopra's write-up on the restoration of the talk is here. His talk turns out to be mystical in orientation, arguing that where science is failing is in viewing the universe as separate from the observer. His quote of Krishnamurti thoroughly won me over.

A Christian fundamentalist was once conversing with the noted India spiritual teacher, J. Krishnamurti.

"The more I listen to you, the more convinced I am that you must be an atheist," the fundamentalist said.

"I used to be an atheist," Krishnamurti replied, "until I realized that I was God."

The fundamentalist was shocked. "Are you denying the divinity of Jesus Christ?"

Krishnamurti shrugged. "I've never denied anyone their divinity. Why would I do it to Jesus Christ?"

That the audience laughed at this anecdote while militant atheists scowled, seeing an imminent danger to sanity, reason, science, and public safety, shows how far apart two worldviews can be. But I persist in believing that an expanded science will take consciousness into account, including higher consciousness. Until it does, our common goal, to understand the nature of reality, will never be reached. A universe that we aren't participating in makes no sense, and our participation takes place at the level of consciousness, nowhere else.

And so it becomes apparent why this talk would go afoul of TED's rules, at least as they have recently defined them. It fuses "science and spirituality" -- that thing Chris Anderson can't really seem to decide if he does or doesn't want.

I could not help noticing that his talk also focuses a great deal on non-locality of consciousness, which, as discussed, seems to be the recurring theme amongst TED's targeted speakers.

Dawkins's talk starts out reasonably enough, arguing for evolution to be taught in schools. He even acknowledges that many religious leaders are fully on board with the theory of evolution and are some of its strongest proponents. So far so good. But minutes in he reverts to his characteristically nasty, insulting self.

But here I want to say something nice about creationists. It's not something I often do so listen carefully. I think they're right about one thing. I think they're right that evolution is fundamentally hostile to religion. I've already said that many individual evolutionists like the Pope are also religious but I think they're deluding themselves. I believe a true understanding of Darwinism is deeply corrosive to religious faith.

And he's off and running. Atheists are the smart people. Religious people aren't. Blah, blah, blah...

In a stunningly absurd attempt to turn creationist theory on its head, he winds up arguing the exact same thing in reverse. Creationists argue that creation is too complex not to have a designer. Silly creationists, argues Dawkins. Any creator complex enough to design all this while doing all the other things he's expected to do is inconceivable because it would compound the problem of complexity. Darwinism is simple and elegant, therefore it must be true. Creationism is too complex to be true reasons Dawkins and without a trace of irony.

Dawkins explains that his idea for stopping creationists is to "attack religion as a whole." For someone looking for simple, elegant solutions to difficult questions, such a Herculean task seems out of character.

So in a TED talk, you can't combine "science and spirituality" but apparently you can combine science and anti-spirituality. It's perfectly acceptable to verbally bludgeon people for their spiritual beliefs using the "language of science" and to "present one [anti-]spiritual view as the 'truth.'"

As I always am with Dawkins, I'm struck by how much he sounds like a religious fanatic. Here, he expresses his lack of patience with the noncommittal nature of agnosticism -- echoes of the condemnation of "lukewarm" faith I heard ad nauseum during my own flirtation with evangelical Christianity. (Revelation 3:14-17) And then of course there's the victimhood. Everybody thinks it's just fine to pick on the atheists! Atheists are marginalized, isolated, targeted. They're lonely. They're so lonely. Honestly he sounds like Bill Donohue.

I also note that he pitched his books in this lecture, albeit with wink and a nudge. And here I was given to understand that this is the ultimate no-no. Where's Al Meyers when you need him? I don't hear him calling Dawkins "sleazy."

Honestly, that this is what TED thinks is stellar enough for its main platform -- this angry, hate filled diatribe cloaked in soft-spoken, British, professorial tones -- is just another reminder that I'd rather traipse through the TED ghetto or listen to its discards. That's were the real "ideas" are spreading.

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Of TED, Militant Atheists, and the Revenge of Woo

The controversy over TED's censorious nature just refuses to die. Over the past week, Deepak Chopra stepped into the fray and incorporated the voices of a number of credentialed scientists who aren't as easy to dismiss. Chris Anderson was forced to defend himself once again and in the very public forum of The Huffington Post. And once again, he didn't come off real well.

Chopra's initial volley can be found here. He and his co-authors -- Stuart Hameroff, Menas C. Kafatos, Rudolph E. Tanzi and Neil Theise -- took direct aim at the radical atheist contingent that seeks to suppress, not only theistic religion, but spirituality more broadly. This New Atheism, which has staked a claim on the sciences, refuses to allow any possibility of non-local consciousness to creep into discussions of science.

Freedom of thought is going to win out, and certainly TED must be shocked by the avalanche of disapproval Anderson's letter has met with. The real grievance here isn't about intellectual freedom but the success of militant atheists at quashing anyone who disagrees with them. Their common tactic is scorn, ridicule, and contempt. The most prominent leaders, especially Richard Dawkins, refuse to debate on any serious grounds, and indeed they show almost total ignorance of the cutting-edge biology and physics that has admitted consciousness back into "good science."

Militant atheism is a social/political movement; In no way does it deserve to represent itself as scientific. . . .  Dawkins, who has a close association with TED, gave a TED talk in 2002 where he said the following:

"It may sound as if I am about to preach atheism. I want to reassure you that that's not what I am going to do. In an audience as sophisticated as this one, that would be preaching to the choir. [scattered laughter] No, what I want to urge upon you is militant atheism."

In a society where militant atheism occupies a prestigious niche, disbelief in God is widespread, but it isn't synonymous with science. In his mega-bestseller "The God Delusion," Dawkins proclaims that religion is "the root of all evil." He describes teaching children about religion as "child abuse." He spoke publically on the occasion of a papal visit to London calling for the Pope to be arrested for "crimes against humanity." To propose, as Dawkins does, that science supports such extremist views is an errant misuse of science, if not a form of pseudoscience.

The arrogance of Richard Dawkins never ceases to amaze me. Chris Anderson, though, is showing himself to be a real contender on the self-important arrogance front. In his response, he trivializes the detailed post by Chopra, et al., referring to it as "your note," and reduces it to a series of questions that weren't asked but that he'd clearly rather answer than the points posed. It's always easier to win an argument with straw men than real people with nuanced views.

Anderson, once again, manages to show that he doesn't quite know what's going on or exactly why he's excluded these particular speakers from the TED "brand." A response from Chopra that includes commentary from eighteen working scientists underscores the incoherence of his position. Physicist Theresa Bullard points out, for instance, that his response blatantly contradicts the guidelines against "pseudoscience" he's defending.

In the TED reply they say:

"Nothing would excite us more than to include talks which offer a credible contribution to understanding [consciousness] better. Such talks could use the third person language of neuroscience, the first person language of experience or spirituality. We've carried plenty of each. We're hungry for more.

Yet in their guidelines to their TEDx organizers regarding the "Red Flags" of "Pseudo-science" topics to watch out for they specifically list:

• The neuroscience of [fill in the blank] -- not saying this will all be non-legitimate, but that it's a field where a lot of goofballs are right now
• The fusion of science and spirituality. Be especially careful of anyone trying to prove the validity of their religious beliefs and practices by using science

As she notes, use of terms like "goofballs" also undercuts TED's credibility. It's unprofessional, it's ad hominem, and it's more than a little childish. Such name-calling, however, is de rigueur amongst the New Atheist defenders of the materialist paradigm against all comers, no matter how credible. If they're all just "goofballs," you never have to actually debate them or in any way address their arguments. You can just dismiss them.

As discussed, debate with Rupert Sheldrake is assiduously avoided -- apparently because he tends to win. In the one case where he went head to head with Dawkins, the evidence of Sheldrake having cleaned his clock ended up on the cutting room floor. One of the juicier details in Chopra's rebuttal is that his take-down of Dawkins was also hidden, in this case by TED.

I'm grateful for the even-handedness that you say TED displays in matters of atheism, religion, and science. In 2002 I spoke directly after Dawkins, mounted a vigorous riposte to his main points, and received a standing ovation. His talk appears in full at TED's website. Mine doesn't, nor can it be found with a Google search. I'd be grateful to see it restored as a gesture of TED's lack of censorship.

I'm not a huge fan of Chopra but his arguments against New Atheism and scientism are impressive.

As I've pointed out more than once, it's easy to look smart if you only argue against straw men and caricatures of religion rather than intellectuals and scientists who hold a wide range of spiritual beliefs. I am increasingly of the opinion that New Atheism and materialist science can't win on an even playing field. So they continue to demand a different standard of evidence for "extraordinary claims," effectively putting a thumb on the scale. And they refuse to debate non-materialists who might beat them. When they, usually accidentally, end up head to head with people who debate their points and win, they kick the footage down the memory hole. And now we know that TED is fully complicit in that agenda.

A recent article on Reality Sandwich by osteopath Larry Malerba explains the difference between science and scientism and how TED is participating in the suppression of important scientific and medical advances.

Science was originally conceived of as a systematic and organized method of studying and learning about the world around us and within us. Eventually, it came to mean the study of the "natural" world, where natural meant the material world of physical objects. Over time it became co-opted by persons invested in an objectivist, reductionist, mechanist worldview. Subjectivity as defined by personal experience and most forms of consciousness became taboo and unworthy of the efforts of real scientists. As such, anything other than the strictly material world was out of bounds as a subject of scientific scrutiny. Nature was thus severed from its connection to all subjective aspects of human experience.

Conventional medical science in particular has been badly hampered by this same materialistic dead end ever since. By definition, it is unable to seriously investigate emotion, thought, imagination, dreams, consciousness, bioenergetics and other factors that can have a profound effect upon health and illness, without appearing to be unscientific. The origins of this, of course, was the perceived need for medicine to distance itself from the superstitious thinking that it equated with religious doctrine. The irony is that modern medical science itself has become doctrinaire in the process.

Scientism is an ideology that attempts to apply conventional scientific principles to fields of knowledge where it has no business being. Scientism is an exaggerated belief in the knowledge that science provides and the ability of science to use that knowledge to solve all manner of problems, human and otherwise. Hardcore scientism asserts that scientific knowledge is the only real knowledge. Only science can provide access to truth. All other forms of human inquiry and experience are not to be trusted.

. . .

In a single fit of hysteria over its precious reputation, TED has done a serious disservice to countless individuals on the cutting edge of the emerging new medical paradigm and, in the process, has gone running into the arms of the left wing fringe of medical scientism. TED may be unwittingly doing the bidding for an organized community of skeptics who are known to raise hell in calculated ways in order to press their anti-alternative medicine and anti-consciousness studies agenda. 

Meanwhile, self-proclaimed militant atheist Jerry Coyne is taking credit for influencing TED... except that he's not... except that he kinda is. He is quite sure that "woomeister" Deepak Chopra is talking about him. (Note the characteristic use of dismissive name-calling.)

I will claim, with some justification, that I am one of the “angry, noisy bloggers who promote militant atheism” who lobbied TEDx to do something about those videos. But what Chopra & Co. don’t know is that other people, who don’t fit into his pejorative category, worked behind the scenes to oppose the serious presentation of woo at TEDx. I have no idea what influence I had on the talks’ sequestration—if any.

Do you get it? He's definitely one of noisy bloggers but he has "no idea" if he had influence. He'd just like to think he did. And yet, somehow, he knows what went on behind the scenes -- those super-secret machinations that can't be revealed to plebes like Chopra or, say, me.

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Will the DeleTED Debate TED?

The offer's on the table. Both Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock have very publicly challenged TED to debates.

Said Sheldrake:

I appreciate the fact that TED published my response to the accusations levelled against me by their Scientific Board, and also crossed out the Board’s statement on the “Open for discussion” blog. http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/

There are no longer any specific points to answer. I am all in favour of debate, but it is not possible to make much progress through short responses to nebulous questions like “Is this an idea worth spreading, or misinformation?”

I would be happy to take part in a public debate with a scientist who disagrees with the issues I raise in my talk. This could take place online, or on Skype. My only condition is that it be conducted fairly, with equal time for both sides to present their arguments, and with an impartial moderator, agreed by both parties.

Therefore I ask Chris Anderson to invite a scientist from TED’s Scientific Board or TED’s Brain Trust to have a real debate with me about my talk, or if none will agree to take part, to do so himself.

Said Hancock:

I previously commented that I would not post further on this Blog page because it is so clearly designed to distract public attention from the disastrous way TED have handled their attempt to censor my “War on Consciousness” talk and Rupert Sheldrake’s “Science Delusion” talk. That in my view is the important point, for it bears on the future of TED itself as a viable platform for “ideas worth spreading”. I am heartened that so many of the 400-plus concerned people who have now posted here (and the 1000-plus who posted on the original Blog page) have refused to fall for TED’s sleight of hand and continued to press the organization to rethink its policy.

Since TED have retracted and struck out all their justifications for the original deletion of my talk from the TEDx Youtube channel (http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/ ) and since they have published my rebuttal, and done the same re Rupert Sheldrake’s talk, I agree with Rupert on a new post he has made on this page (http://www.ted.com/conversations/17189/the_debate_about_rupert_sheldr.html). There are no more specific points surrounding TED’s misguided decision that he and I need to answer. Nor is it possible to make much progress through short responses to nebulous questions like “Is this an idea worth spreading, or misinformation?”

But I now make this one further post, simply to add my voice to Rupert’s and to put on record that I, too, would be happy to take part in a public debate with a scientist who disagrees with the issues I raise in my talk. My only condition is that it be conducted fairly, with equal time for both sides to present their arguments, and with an impartial moderator, agreed by both parties.

Therefore I join Rupert in asking Chris Anderson to invite a scientist from TED’s Scientific Board or TED’s Brain Trust to have a real debate with me about my talk, or if none will agree to take part, to do so himself. 

Said TED:

Well... so far... crickets.

So will TED put anyone forward to articulate and defend their reasons for deleting these talks from their main platform and putting them in quarantine? Their options for doing so are fairly limited. Chris Anderson is obviously ill-equipped to defend his decision as he doesn't appear to understand it. The only time he even attempted to lay out reasons for TED's decision, he made such a pudding of it he had to cross the whole thing out.

Putting forward someone from their Science Board is even trickier because TED refuses to reveal their super-secret identities. But they do have options as one Lewis Smart suggested:

Hell, let one of the anonymous science board members speak from behind a screen, with his voice vocoded to retain anonymity. It would be hilarious.

It would! And I like a bit of cabaret. It couldn't possibly be more farcical than TED's attempts to justify itself thus far.

The other problem for TED is that scientists who've attempted to debate Sheldrake in the past haven't fared well. He has many critics in the science world -- particularly of the New Atheist variety. They love to call him a "crackpot" but few of them would argue that he isn't wicked smart. When they take him on directly, he tends to pants them.

A comment posted by one Sebastian Penraeth brought up a very interesting discussion and analysis of how Sheldrake has been treated by the "scientific community" -- although, it's kind of hard to call them "scientific" after reading a record of their behavior. Community, yes. Scientific, no. What was revealed in a dissertation by Philip Stevens is something more like an entrenched group-mind -- high on knee-jerk rejection, low on dispassionate analysis. An interview with Stevens can be found here and the entire dissertation can be downloaded from that page.

It speaks badly of the state of modern science that the editor of the prestigious journal Nature joked about book burning. But John Maddox's review of Sheldrake's A New Science of Life was entitled "A Book for Burning?" He did not actually call for the book to be burned -- just ridiculed and marginalized with other "literature of intellectual aberrations."

Maddox clarified his thinking some years later.

Without any sense of irony, Maddox compared the condemnation of Dr Sheldrake by the scientific community to that of the Catholic Church’s criticism of Galileo, saying “[Sheldrake’s theory] can be condemned in exactly the language that the Popes used to condemn Galileo, and for the same reasons: it is heresy.”

When editors of prominent science journals start throwing around ideas like "book burning" and "heresy," even in jest, we should become very concerned that the institutions of science look far more like arbiters of a religious orthodoxy.

But the other thing indicated by this ridiculing and ostracizing of Sheldrake by establishment scientists is that they're panicked. Maybe they should be, because Sheldrake is questioning some of the fundamental assumptions on which many people are basing their careers. And he does it well.

As per Stevens, there have only been a handful of debates between Sheldrake and his critics. Other such debates have been pointedly avoided and in one notable instance a debate with a certain very prominent atheist reportedly occurred and then slipped down the memory hole.

In 2007, Dr Sheldrake was contacted by Channel 4 who asked if he would be willing to take part in an interview for a television programme presented by Richard Dawkins. The programme was called ‘Enemies of Reason’ (although Dr Sheldrake claims he wasn’t told that when he agreed to take part).

According to Dr Sheldrake, in the subsequent debate (which was not included in the resulting series) Prof. Dawkins accused Sheldrake of “trying to turn the tables on him” and refused to discuss any research on telepathy, instead saying that Sheldrake was “prepared to believe almost anything”. Dr Sheldrake claims he accused Prof. Dawkins of being dogmatic and attempting a ‘low grade debunking exercise’. To which Prof. Dawkins reportedly said “It’s not a low grade debunking exercise; it’s a high grade debunking exercise”. Prof. Dawkins has never publicly talked about the interview.

It seems Dawkins, like many of those who've gone up against Sheldrake, had not felt it necessary to familiarize himself with his work. This leaves them at something of a disadvantage in their attempts to discredit it.

Lewis Wolpert, Professor of Biology at University College London, apparently lobbed ad hominem attacks and disparaged the subject matter for 15 minutes of his allotted 30, and gave up the rest of his time. “The blunt fact is that there's no persuasive evidence for [telepathy],” Wolpert summed up. Then he sat, looking bored, tapping a pencil, and pointedly ignoring Sheldrake who methodically laid out his evidence for telepathy.

Such self-satisfaction may play well to other self-satisfied skeptics but it didn't play well to audience members whose reaction was described in Nature: “Many in the audience... variously accused Wolpert of not knowing the evidence and being unscientific.”

Other debates have gone similarly. Of a debate with Jan Willem Nienhuys, botanist Richard Hardwick said:

[Sheldrake] comes well prepared, and he speaks fluently and clearly, as if he really wants to communicate. He marshals his arguments with precision, he provides (so far as I can judge) evidence for his statements, and he brings his nul hypotheses out into the open, ready to be shot down by the force of disproof.

. . .

In my judgement, Nienhuys’ counterattack failed... it seems Dr Nienhuys had not done his homework. He did not have any data or analysis to hand, and his attack fizzled out.

In a debate with Peter Atkins, Sheldrake asked him pointedly if he'd read the research he was dismissing.

Sheldrake: Well I’d like to ask him if he’s actually read the evidence? May I ask you Professor Atkins if you’ve actually studied any of this evidence or any other evidence?

Atkins: No, but I would be very suspicious of it.

Sheldrake: Of course, being suspicious of it in advance of seeing it is normally called prejudice.

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, who was caught giving critiques of  Sheldrake's work without reading it, agreed to debate Sheldrake... if only he could find the time.

In March 2003, Dr Sheldrake challenged Shermer to a debate, which he accepted, and several times and venues were suggested, but all were rejected by Shermer. As of 2009, the debate has still not taken place.

What Stevens found in researching Sheldrake's relationship to the scientific community is that they badly depart from the rules and norms of science in their dealings with him. They dismiss his research without reading it. They make demonstrably false claims about the results and methodology. In one case, a colleague of Sheldrake's replicated his research but, shall we say, selectively reported his own results.

Sheldrake had set an experiment into pet-owner telepathy, finding that even with controls for any possible cuing and patterns, the dog in the study went to the window more than 3 times more often when her owner was headed home.

Jaytee spent 18% of the time at the window before Smart was told to return home, 33% of the time when she had been told to go home but had not yet started off in the car, and 65% of the time when she was travelling home.

His colleague Richard Wiseman replicated the study and pronounced it a failure. He got much press for disproving pet-owner telepathy. But when Sheldrake requested the data from the study, he found that, in fact, Wiseman's results were much like Sheldrake's, with the dog going to the window substantially more often when the owner was headed home. This, Wiseman did not bother to report in his research paper.

In 2007, nine years after the original paper was published and over eleven years after the completion of the research, during an interview with Alex Tsakiris on Skeptiko, Richard Wiseman said “I don't think there’s any debate that the patterning in my studies is the same as the patterning in Rupert’s studies...it’s how it’s interpreted.

Well, no, it isn't. Hiding data is hiding data, and data can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Who's to say that his interpretation of that data is correct and Sheldrake's isn't?

It's very easy to dismiss as "pseudoscience" research into things classified as "paranormal." Many people won't even question that assessment. But one hopes that establishment scientists wouldn't approach the subject matter in a manner so sloppy, so lazy, and even misleading, that it borders on misconduct.

The problem for establishment sciences is that some of the results in this outre research are very compelling. It's marginalized by applying very different standards of evidence for status quo science and that which challenges it.

I have long hated the phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." I reads to me like an admission of bias. Just what constitutes "extraordinary" is extremely subjective. Stevens provides a little history of this now well-worn phrase.

The French mathematician and astronomer, Pierre-Simon Laplace said that “The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.”⁹ This idea was later expanded upon by the sociologist Marcello Truzzi who said “In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded... and when such claims are extraordinary, that is, revolutionary in their implications for established scientific generalisations already accumulated and verified, we must demand extraordinary proof.”¹⁰ This was later popularised by Carl Sagan who created the phrase “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.

This would seem to fly in the face of science as a dispassionate practice, and as Stevens explains, pretty much throws the Mertonian norms out the window.

Stevens quotes Wiseman in another context as saying:

I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do... Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions.

Again, it's a clear admission of bias. Screw any concept of equity and dispassionate, results-based science -- and torture the English language in the process.

The talk by Sheldrake that was deleted by TED didn't get into any of his research into telepathy or other phenomena. If anything, it was more threatening to the status quo. It was on philosophy of science and questioned the willingness of establishment scientists to challenge the assumptions of materialist science.

Thus far, TED has been unable to explain its specific problems with the speech. As stated, what reasons it initially laid out were thoroughly refuted, and had to be crossed out. One hopes that if they are sticking by their decision to hide his and Hancock's lectures in increasingly obscure locations, they could at least put someone forward in a debate to explain it. And one hopes they would do a better job of it than their efforts so far.

In their original criticism of Sheldrake's talk -- that would be the crossed out part -- they took issue with his statements about natural constants. They referred the reader to a "careful rebuttal" of his statements by physicist Sean Carroll, as quoted by Jerry Coyne. But even though that rebuttal included a table omitting the data from the time period Sheldrake referred to, it not only didn't disprove his statements, it validated them. Carroll's other table showed exactly what Sheldrake claimed.

In my talk I said that the published values of the speed of light dropped by about 20 km/sec between 1928 and 1945. Carroll’s “careful rebuttal” consisted of a table copied from Wikipedia showing the speed of light at different dates, with a gap between 1926 and 1950, omitting the very period I referred to. His other reference (http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/lightandcolor/speedoflight.html) does indeed give two values for the speed of light in this period, in 1928 and 1932-35, and sure enough, they were 20 and 24km/sec lower than the previous value, and 14 and 18 km/sec lower than the value from 1947 onwards.

Coyne's post is premised on a straw man -- that Sheldrake claimed the speed of light was dropping. His point of course was that the recorded speed varied for a period time and that this anomaly might merit further investigation. And as one Conor O' Higgins points out, in the discussion thread, Carroll also restated another of Sheldrake's more eyebrow-raising claims.

Seán Carroll also backed up Sheldrake's claim about the speed of light being fixed by convention rather than empirical measurement:

Rupert Sheldrake: "How can we be so sure it's not going on today and that the present values are not produced by intellectual phase-locking? He said, 'We know that's not the case'. I said, 'How do we know?' He said, 'Well,' he said, 'We've solved the problem.' I said, 'How?' He said 'We fixed the speed of light by definition in 1972.' " (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEo2hChKeMs&t=12m15s)

Seán Carroll: "Indeed, today the speed of light is fixed by definition, not by measurement." (http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/tedx-talks-completely-discredited-rupert-sheldrake-speaks-argues-that-speed-of-light-is-dropping/)

So, if say, Sean Carroll is put forward by TED to debate Sheldrake, he might want to stop agreeing with him so much.

I will actually be pleasantly surprised if TED accepts the challenge by their censored speakers to debate. I expect they will demur. They will either continue to ignore the offers or beg off with some excuse for not putting anyone forward. They'll say they want their Science Board to remain anonymous and reject the suggestion of putting them behind a screen -- which is too bad because that's my favorite suggestion thus far. They'll pull a Michael Shermer and agree to a debate but refuse to schedule a time for years on end. Or they'll go for the tried and true method. They'll say it would be terribly bad science to give these ideas even a modicum of respectability by debating them. But I doubt they'll go through with a debate. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

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The TED Censorship Saga Continues

Graham Hancock posted last evening that there has been a small victory in the battle against TED's censorship of his and Rupert Sheldrake's lectures. 

I appreciate and respect the fact that TED have now bitten the bullet -- which cannot have been easy for them -- and fully retracted their original incorrect allegations against the content of my TEDx presentation "The War on Consciousness". They have done so by crossing out the original allegations and publishing my rebuttal here: http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/

They have done the same as regards their original incorrect allegations against the content of the TEDx presentation "The Science Delusion" by my colleague Rupert Sheldrake.

Yes, if you look at the blog post set up to quarantine Hancock and Sheldrake's ideas, their original stated reasons for deleting the videos from YouTube have been crossed out and the rebuttals have been added. But the update at the top of the post doesn't really acknowledge their rebuttals. It refers the reader to their new page.

UPDATE: Please see our new blog post Graham Hancock and Rupert Sheldrake, a fresh take, which replaces the x-ed out text below.

So by all means, read their "fresh take," but if you're looking for an explanation of their reasons for deleting the videos from their standard platform you will be sorely disappointed. This is the extent of it.

Both Sheldrake and Hancock are compelling speakers, and some of the questions they raise are absolutely worth raising. For example, most thoughtful scientists and philosophers of science will agree it’s true that science has not moved very far yet in solving the riddle of consciousness. But the specific answers to that riddle proposed by Sheldrake and Hancock are so radical and far-removed from mainstream scientific thinking that we think it’s right for us to give these talks a clear health warning and to ask further questions of the speakers. TED and TEDx are brands that are trusted in schools and in homes. We don’t want to hear from a parent whose kid went off to South America to drink ayahuasca because TED said it was OK. But we do think a calmer, reasoned conversation around these talks would be interesting, if only to help us define how far you can push an idea before it is no longer “worth spreading.”

How Hancock and Sheldrake are "so radical and far-removed from mainstream scientific thinking" they do not say. Their nameless, faceless Science Board says that it is so, therefore it is so.

So here is where TED stands to date. They've removed the videos from YouTube. They provided a litany of reasons for that removal. Hancock, Sheldrake and numerous commenters on that thread pressed them to explain how their critiques in any way applied to the talks in question. Hancock asked them repeatedly to show where in his talk he said any of the things they said he said. The best Chris Anderson could come up with was that they'd get back to him on that. They did not. Clearly, being unable to justify their list of reasons for removal, they crossed them all out. They then referred people to a new page justifying their reason for removing the videos, which does nothing of the kind.

Still missing in action: any explanation of their reasons for removing the videos.

I highly recommend reading the original blog post to which they consigned the matter. The comment section now stands at 25 pages and counting. I normally hate reading comments because they so rapidly degenerate into pointless name-calling and trollery, but despite TED's best efforts to make the commenters look like a deranged Hancock fan cabal, the thread is largely made up of very lucid comments. Many extremely knowledgeable people challenged TED to explain itself and, and as stated, TED has still avoided doing so. Instead they've dismissed the commenters as "hordes of supporters sent our way by Graham Hancock." Read the comments. You'll see that nothing of the kind is true. It's the most reasonable comment thread I've read in an open comment section in some time.

In addition to challenging TED to explain itself, there are numerous requests for TED to remove other lectures which resulted in credible critiques, such as this one. Those requests remain unacknowledged as of this writing.

The most risible comments in the thread come from TED people, and there aren't many of those. This one stood out. It's from one Al Meyers who runs TEDx Peachtree.

Click to Enlarge

Let's unpack this, shall we?

I have not read all the comments, nor have I watched the talks in question. However, I'm going to support David and Stephen 100% here.

In other words, Meyers has no idea what's going on, but whatever it is, he's throwing his full support behind TED on whatever it is they're saying.

The brand equity is at risk if TED is spreading ideas claiming to be supported by scientific research, yet subsequently proven otherwise.

So Mr. Meyers has absolutely no idea how science works. That would mean that no scientific hypothesis could ever be discussed in a TED lecture because hypotheses are disproved all the time. So are theories. So much of what we accept as "fact" is just theory that could be disproved tomorrow. It's part of the process. Such are the dangers of scientific dogmatism -- this horribly warped idea that science produces unassailable facts, rather than a continuously revised body of research and knowledge. If no scientist could ever risk being wrong, science couldn't happen.

TED's brand... brand equity is at risk... built a brand... best for the brand... not letting social media wreck havoc on the brand...

Meyers uses the word "brand" five times in that one, brief paragraph. In other words, this was a marketing decision and Meyers fully and unequivocally supports TED's commitment to market-based science.

Meyers is a good soldier and, as near as I can tell, a good representative of the TED  ethos. I have no idea what's going on or why we're doing what we're doing but the people I've vested with authority say it's so, so it is so.

The people TED has vested with authority is those who must not be named, aka., their Science Board.

They are (deliberately) anonymous, for obvious reasons, but they are respected working scientists, and writers about science, from a range of fields, with no brief other than to help us make these judgements. If a talk gets flagged they will advise on whether we should act or not.

So this star chamber shall heretofore decide what lectures are allowed to see the light of day. Their reasons don't matter. TED won't even bother to try to explain them anymore because when they do they just bungle them and have to cross the whole thing out.

Am I alone in thinking that if TED is going to make a decision to censor something they should at least be able to articulate their reasons, rather than pointing to an anonymous panel? By their own admission, they could not. The result was in their words "clumsy" and "less than convincing," but it's also the closest we're ever going to get to an explanation.

We do, however, have some indication of just who it was put pressure on TED to silence Hancock and Sheldrake. We know because TED's Emily McManus took the time to thank them personally.

And we're grateful to those who've written about this talk in other forums, including but not limited to Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers, Kylie Sturgess and some thoughtful Redditors.

In other words, it's the New Atheist brigade, once again, making the world safe for scientism. McManus, by the way, also identifies as an atheist. I have no problem with atheism. I do have a problem with fundamentalists who set out to crush any view that does not comport with this very particular stripe of atheist world view, and that is exactly what's happened here. A comment by Kent Bye even identifies a timeline. It's actually quite clear what happened, as Rupert Sheldrake acknowledges in his rebuttal to be found here.

As I've said more than once, the New Atheists make me nervous for the same reason the Christian Right makes me nervous. They're bullies and if you want to see that bullying in action, just roll up your trousers and wade into the chain of events that led to the censorship of Hancock and Sheldrake's talks.

As I noted the other day, atheists make up 3 percent of the population of the United States. There's nothing wrong with being a minority population and I will always fight for the right of the minority to have their views respected. I wish the even tinier minority of New Atheists had the same kind of respect for everybody else. But if you're an evangelical minority, determined to spread the good news that there is no God, it helps if you're a really loud, aggressive, and self-satisfied, minority.

What it makes me think of is the early days of the Moral Majority -- which was neither -- who codified the now well-worn method of targeting advertisers on shows that did not comport with their views. This trend was rather brilliantly satirized, I thought, by WKRP in Cincinnati, at the height of the furor.

The most dangerous thing about ideologues is that they never think they're ideologues. They just think they're right.

TED, of course, didn't fight back like our fictional heroes at WKRP. They folded like a cheap tent.

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The TEDx Whitechapel program Hancock and Sheldrake were invited to speak at was subtitled "Challenging existing paradigms and redefining values (for a more beautiful world)." But it would seem the parent organization has absolutely no interest in doing that.

The conundrum was summed up brilliantly by a commenter named Geoff Fitch.

If Sheldrake’s criticism are valid, they cannot simply consult their “Scientific Board” for an opinion, since, in all likelihood they would be subject to very cultural blinders that Sheldrake exposes. Is there anyone in the TED leadership that understands what Sheldrake is pointing to and can identify it in your own thinking and assumptions? Will you speak up?

I wouldn't hold my breath. TED's willingness to accept the judgement of Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers, and their ilk seems all too clear. They won't let these "heretical" ideas be debated fairly, in an open forum. There apparently was a vigorous debate well under way on YouTube which was deleted with Graham Hancock's video. It's all gone down the memory hole in favor of an unexplained, unjustified decision by a shadowy Science Board.

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