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.

The Evolution of the Catholic Church

There's a lot about Pope Francis I like. I like that he's shifting the emphasis of the Church toward love, charity, and compassion and away from hate and judgment. I like that he's so outspoken on the issue of economic inequality. I like that he's at least flexible enough on GLBT issues that he apparently supported civil unions in Argentina. I like that he's driving Catholic hardliners crazy by giving tacit approval to a more gay, and divorce tolerant, direction. I don't like that he opposed same sex marriage in Argentina and equated gay adoptions with child abuse, only to make really lackluster efforts on the real child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

All in all, kind of a mixed bag, but when all's said and done, there's something about his face that makes me feel warm inside. There's an openness and a joy that emanates from Pope Francis that just makes me like him even when I'm disappointed in the lack of substantive progress. I get why the media loves him. He's loveable. I think, however, he's getting credit for radical changes in the Church that just aren't happening.

All day I've been watching stories pour in about how exciting it is that Pope Francis believes in evolution and the big bang. Such breathless headlines ignore the fact that there is nothing radical, revolutionary, or even new in his position. It's squarely in line with Church doctrine.

Study Finds Consciousness Survives Clinical Death

Buy From Art.com

Results from the AWARE Study were released yesterday and the evidence of continuing consciousness is compelling.

The largest ever medical study into near-death and out-of-body experiences has discovered that some awareness may continue even after the brain has shut down completely.

It is a controversial subject which has, until recently, been treated with widespread scepticism.

But scientists at the University of Southampton have spent four years examining more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria.

And they found that nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of ‘awareness’ during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were restarted.

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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Natural News Notices That TED's Dead

"Allow me to be the first to announce that TED is dead," says Mike Adams of Natural News. But Mr. Adams is a little late to the funeral, having only just noticed TED's "bad science" letter of December 7, 2012, previously discussed here. Natural News has observed that among the many areas of inquiry proscribed from the TED brand is any health topic not sanctioned by mainstream science, aka. pharmaceutical and chemical companies.

In that letter, TED says that people who talk about GMOs are engaged in "pseudoscience." Those who discuss the healing potential of foods are spreading "health hoaxes."

The letter also advises TEDx organizers to, "reject bad science, pseudoscience and health hoaxes," meaning anyone who talks about GMOs, "food as medicine" or similar topics.

Natural News overstates TED's policy guidelines. The letter does not say these subjects are banned outright. What it says is that these topic areas are "red flags" that should alert TEDx event planners to likely "health hoaxes" and other "pseudo-science."

That letter sets a bar that few natural health advocates are likely to meet. As stated, not even Einstein's groundbreaking work would have met TED's criteria.

TED has also let TEDx organizers know what it finds distasteful with this letter -- and what could put their affiliation on the chopping block. What organizer would want to test those limits by hosting a "red flag" topic, no matter how well-sourced? TED has made it very clear with its high profile actions against Graham Hancock, Rupert Sheldrake, and TEDx Hollywood that they will silence speakers and pull sponsorship without reasonable notice and without explanation. I repeat: without explanation. Note that Chris Anderson has never bothered to justify the decision to quarantine Hancock's and Sheldrake's talks even when directly asked to do so. What TEDx organizer would want to risk having their fate quietly decided in TED's star chamber?

There is no question that last December's letter and TED's subsequent actions can only have a chilling effect on anything but its nice, corporate-friendly, mainstream science -- no matter how poorly sourced, blatantly incorrect, or incredibly dull.

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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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Russell Targ's exTEDx Talk

Russell Targ from Suzanne Taylor on Vimeo.

I really loved Russell Targ's talk during the Brother Can You Spare a Paradigm, exTEDx event. It was an excellent program overall, but some of those talks are must hear and his was one of them. Suzanne Taylor has apparently uploaded the talks to individual videos on a dedicated Vimeo channel to replace the livestream version I originally posted here. More background on the TED's abrupt revocation of the West Hollywood charter can be found here.

If you haven't listened to these talks, I highly recommend doing so. I also particularly loved Gary Bobroff and I thought Craig Weiler did a great job of explaining the paradigm shift that is leaving TED behind. But the whole thing is worth listening to and it can now be accomplished in easily digestible bites.

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Sheldrake's View From TED's "Naughty Corner"

In very pointed comments, Rupert Sheldrake takes aim at the New Atheist cabal that co-opts the authority of science to advance their cause. He explains that there is a lengthy history of New Atheists and so-called "skeptics" targeting media organizations that give any coverage to topics they don't like. Their organized assault on TED which resulted in the still unexplained removal of Hancock's and Sheldrake's talks was just another chapter in their attempt to control the organs of information so that their world view dominates discussions of anything even vaguely related to the sciences.

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Graham Hanock on TED Censorship

Two of my favorite writers, Graham Hancock and William Henry, discuss TED and its censorship of talks that deal with non-local consciousness. I won't belabor this, because I have a nasty head cold and I'm headed back to bed, but it's a great interview and distills what Hancock learned from this experience and what it means for the status of the reductionist, materialist science that seems to be driving TED's choices.

On that subject, I also recommend this recent article discussing materialist science and how it fails to answer the experiences of those of us who have glimpsed what lies behind the veil. It's a sumptuous description of the writings of Walter de la Mare and his unique vision of the supernatural.

Materialism - the philosophy, not the perennial human tendency to pursue and accumulate material things - sees the universe as a physical system. Everything that exists in it must be some sort of matter, or something that emerges from matter. In a fully scientific view of the world, only material things are real. Everything else is just a phantom.

In this view, science is a project of exorcism, which aims to rid the mind of anything that can't be understood in terms of physical laws. But perhaps it's the dogma of materialism that should be exorcised from our minds. Science is a method of inquiry, whose results can't be known in advance. If scientific inquiry is the most powerful tool for increasing human knowledge, it's because science is continuously changing our view of the world. The prevailing creed of scientific materialism is actually a contradiction, for science isn't a fixed view of things, still less a dogmatic faith.

The belief that the world is composed only of physical things operating according to universal laws is metaphysical speculation, not a falsifiable theory.

For the complete rundown on TED's attempts to censor consciousness see here.

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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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ExTEDx West Hollywood Live Stream ~ Sunday 2:00pm ET ~ UPDATED

Apparently the whole thing is embeddable so it can be viewed from this page. If that doesn't work out, here are the direct links: ExTEDx West Hollywood and Live Stream

UPDATE: This program has been moved to a Vimeo. Details can be found here.  

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Self-Deportation from TED?

I was wondering if and when we might start hearing from the other TEDx Whitechapel speakers. In their open letter, discussed here, the Whitechapel team said that a number of the speakers were unhappy with how Graham Hancock and Rupert Sheldrake were treated by TED, but that they had been willing to wait and see how it would all play out. I noticed on my Reality Sandwich feed this morning that at least one of them has now gone public. Charles Eisenstein wants his talk removed and is urging others who are displeased with TED's actions to request the same.

With this in mind, I have a modest proposal that I'd like to extend to anyone who has (as I have) spoken at a TED or TEDx event. I propose that we respectfully request that our videos be taken down from TED-affiliated youtube channels just as Sheldrake's and Hancock's were. One might frame this as an act in solidarity with two fellow speakers who received shabby treatment, but really, I have no ax to grind. I do not want to punish TED, or make them regret their actions, or set them up as the bad guy. It is simply this: TED says it doesn't want to implicitly endorse the views of these men by having them associated with the TED brand. By the same token, I would prefer not to implicitly endorse TED's repudiation of the realm of inquiry those two (and TEDxWestHollywood) represent, by having my "brand" associated with TED.

Pretty straightforward, really.

Eiesenstein also beautifully articulates the problem with TED's position. (read: the opinions of the super-secret "science board" and the New Atheist special interest group that now dictates TED policy)

First, there's the scientism.

It is certainly true that the work of Sheldrake, Hancock, and many of the WestHollywood speakers is far removed from mainstream scientific thinking. Part of the mythology of science is that cogent thinking equals scientific thinking, and that therefore anything that science rejects is likely founded on shoddy reasoning, poor observation, self-delusion, or perhaps outright fraud. This belief depends on two assumptions: that the Scientific Method is superior to other sources of knowledge, and that the institution of science honestly upholds and applies the Scientific Method. Granting all that, we can draw a convenient line in accepting or rejecting new ideas by asking, "Is this idea consistent with accepted science?" 

Then, there's TED's unquestioning acceptance that what's good for technology and science is good for the world.

More broadly, TED generally seems to stand for several overarching principles that are foundational to our civilization's dominant narratives: that technology is a force for good, that technological solutions exist to all our problems, that life is getting better and better. The TED presentation aesthetic communicates a can-do spirit, offering a kind of showcase for the Next Great Thing. Unsurprising, given its origin as a celebration of "technology, entertainment, and design."

. . .

The challenge to science (as an institution if not as a method) that Sheldrake, Hancock, and several of the exTEDxWestHollywood speakers pose implicates much more than science. For instance, science has often been an agent of colonialism, devaluing and replacing indigenous ways of knowing. It has been an agent of social control, celebrating as progress the transition from traditional, organic, community-based modes of interaction to those which are planned, optimized, centralized, and engineered. It has often been an agent of economic and ecological exploitation, disregarding and destroying anything it cannot or will not measure. TED's genuflection toward science (as institution), and in particular an intransigent faction within that institution, is actually a defense, however unwitting, of a primary pillar of the world as we know it.

The business of TED is business... and imperialistic ethnocentrism.

Eisenstein and his "crowd of researchers" found many talks in TED's archive that don't seem to conform with TED's newly-defined, slavish devotion to the status quo. He is therefore calling on past speakers whose talks don't  align with global corporate hegemony as a value system to leave TED willingly.

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TED: A Postmortem... of the Censorship Debacle

The issue of TED's pulling the Hancock and Sheldrake lectures isn't dead. It's still proliferating through the mainstream press and the blogosphere. But as far as TED is concerned, it's a wrap. They allowed their two weeks of discussion on each lecture and now they'd like everyone to just move along. They declined the opportunity to debate Hancock and Sheldrake, explaining that the discussion pages would suffice. But they also refused to explain their reasoning in those discussions. TED's final summations on the deleted Graham Hancock and Rupert Sheldrake talks a can be found here and here. If only they were satisfying.

Despite the fact that many people called on them to explain their reasons for disavowing the talks -- after crossing out their initial justification -- they never have. You can glean fairly quickly that neither summation addresses the reasons by the fact that they're virtually identical and the talks were on very different subject matter. They're perfunctory and span only a few full paragraphs addressing only two of the "questions raised" in the discussion. Of the vast number of substantive issues discussed, TED chose only to address a couple issues of policy: whether or not consigning the videos to an unembeddable format on its back pages constituted censorship and an explanation of who their science board is without revealing their super-secret identities. We're left to take their word for their number, five, and vaguely described credentials.

While TED is advised by this shadowy body of "working scientists or distinguished science journalists," it is claimed that Chris Anderson's "team" makes the final decision. None of them, however, have seen fit to make their reasoning public. Since the original debacle of Anderson's attempt at explanation which had to be  redacted, they seem to have given up on explanations entirely.

In their more recent cancellation of TEDx West Hollywood's license, no factual justification has been offered. Suzanne Taylor just got a lot of "we're not comfortable with it" and that there were complaints about some of the authors. They refused to specify which speakers and what those complaints were. They just poked around with questions about certain speakers because they were "interested to hear" what was planned. They claimed in their note to the TED community that their "decision was not based on any individual speaker, but our assessment of the overall curatorial direction of the program." How's that for vague?

In their haste to dispose of this matter, they cut short the discussion period on the license cancellation by a week, citing some sniping in the comments. There doesn't appear to have been much of a flame war. What it was specifically that made the discussion so untenable is hard to say as only a handful of comments appear to have been deleted. It is clear from what's left that a good bit of it had to do with an apparent plant -- a participant who seemed to have secret admin privileges and was inappropriately deleting comments.

As with the Sheldrake and Hancock threads, TED made no further effort to clarify its reasoning or address concerns.

A couple of the West Hollywood speakers made statements about having their credentials questioned.

Said Larry Dossey:

I’ve lectured at dozens of top-tier medical schools and hospitals all over the U.S. for two decades. Although my colleagues don’t always agree with my points of view, this is the first time my scientific credibility has ever been questioned.

My TEDx talk would have dealt with the correlations between spirituality, health, and longevity, for which there is immense evidence; and recent experimental findings that point toward a nonlocal view of consciousness for which, again, there is strong and abundant support. In view of our lack of understanding of the origins and destiny of consciousness, and considering the demographics of the TEDx followers, I thought this information would have been of considerable interest.

As a board-certified physician of internal medicine, former chief of staff of a major hospital, author of twelve books and scores of papers on these subjects published in peer-reviewed journals, a recipient of many awards, a frequent lecturer at medical schools and hospitals, and executive editor of the peer-reviewed journal, Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, I’d be interested in knowing from TED where I came up short.

Said Russell Targ:

In cancelling the TEDx event in West Hollywood, it appears that I was accused of "using the guise of science" to further spooky claims, (or some such). People on this blog have asked what I was going to talk about. That's easily answered. I was co-founder of a 23 year research program investigating psychic abilities at Stanford Research Institute. We were doing research and applications for the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Air Force and Army Intelligence, NASA, and others. In this $25 million program we used "remote viewing" to find a downed Russian bomber in North Africa, for which President Carter commended us. We found a kidnapped US general in Italy, and the kidnap car that snatched Patricia Hearst. We looked in on the US hostages in Iran, and predicted the immanent release of Richard Queen, who was soon sent to Germany. We described a Russian weapons factory in Siberia, leading to a US congressional investigation about weakness in US security, etc. We published our scientific findings in Nature, The Proc. IEEE, Proc, AAAS, and Proc. American Institute of Physics. I thought a TED audience would find this recently declassified material interesting. And no physics would be harmed in my presentation.

What TED has done in not singling out any particular speaker is clever in a slippery, smarmy kind of way. It means they never have to confront the impressive credentials of speakers like Targ and Dossey and explain how such accomplished scientists aren't good enough for TED. In other words, it's a dodge.

For all TED's apparent squeamishness about what the most vocal TED defenders call "pseudoscience" -- psi research, remote viewing, spiritually tinged research -- sorting out their reasons is ironically a bit like reading tea leaves.

Their own broadly stated justifications paint a dreary picture for the future of TED as they would eliminate some of their best TED lectures past. Either this is just pure hypocrisy or this marks a tightening of TED curation that will make the product awfully dull.

There won't be much in the way of cutting edge science discussed on TED because there can be no controversy. They explain in their letter on "bad science" -- which appears to have come out last December in response to a Reddit drama much like the one that got Hancock and Sheldrake pulled -- that, basically, only established science that has reached broad consensus is to be discussed in TED talks. Here are some of their bullet points:

• It is based on theories that are discussed and argued for by many experts in the field
• It is backed up by experiments that have generated enough data to convince other experts of its legitimacy
• Its proponents are secure enough to accept areas of doubt and need for further investigation
• It does not fly in the face of the broad existing body of scientific knowledge

And the lecturers cannot have "failed to convince many mainstream scientists of its truth" or speak "dismissively of mainstream science." Never mind that some of the most important scientific theories and breakthroughs upset the establishment and are initially met a great deal of resistance.

An acceptable speaker on a science subject "works for a university and/or has a phD or other bona fide high level scientific qualification." As Rupert Sheldrake points out in the interview posted above, at about the 17 minute mark, this criteria would have eliminated Albert Einstein just as he was publishing some of his most important papers. He was only a clerk in a patent office at the time.

TED just comes off looking overly cautious and incredibly scared. The connotation of its motto "ideas worth spreading" is that the ideas would be at least a little original. But you can't do much of that without challenging the establishment. Perhaps it should change its motto to something like "ideas that have already been beaten to death."

Other criteria clearly eliminates some of TED's best lectures. For instance their warning against speakers fusing "science and spirituality" would eliminate, as I suggested before, Jill Bolte Taylor's "stroke of insight" talk. It's one of TED's most viewed lectures of all time.

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As many have pointed out Elizabeth Gilbert's much viewed talk on creativity and "muses" should also be in TED's crosshairs.

TED's new-found concern over talks involving hallucinogens would remove a number of existing talks including this one by renowned artist Alex Grey. Wrote TED:

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.

We all know how easy it is for the average kid to hop a plane to South America without their parents noticing. But where Hancock emphasizes that an ayahuasca journey is a painful ordeal that no on would undertake recreationally, Grey had his life changing experience after dropping acid at a party. So obviously it's the Hancock lecture that has to go.

An open letter to Chris Anderson from Reality Sandwich's Ken Jordan offers as good a theory as any to explain TED's actions. Surmises Jordan, for TED, investigation into the non-locality of consciousness is a third rail issue.

The five people identified as problematic by TED work in different fields. Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist. Graham Hancock is a journalist who has written about archeological ruins. Larry Dossey is a doctor. Russell Targ is a physicist. Marylin Schlitz is a social anthropologist and consciousness researcher. The one subject they all have in common is a shared interest in the non-locality of consciousness, the possibility that consciousness extends beyond the brain. Each speaker has devoted many years to the rigorous study of consciousness through the lens of their respective disciplines, and they have come up with provocative results.

Through its actions, TED appears to be drawing a line around this area of investigation and marking it as forbidden territory. Is this true? In the absence of any detailed reasoning in TED's public statements, it's hard to avoid this conclusion. It would seem that, despite your statement that "TED is 100% committed to open enquiry, including challenges to orthodox thinking," that enquiry appears to not include any exploration of consciousness as a non-local phenomenon, no matter how it may be approached.

The other thing I can't help noticing is that the two TEDx conferences that invited TED's abysmally handled crack-down both had to do with challenging the existing paradigm. The TEDx Whitechapel conference that produced the Hancock and Sheldrake talks was called "Visions for Transition: Challenging existing paradigms and redefining values (for a more beautiful world)." The TEDx West Hollywood program that caused TED to pull its license is called "Brother, Can You Spare a Paradigm?" (As stated, the show will go on and a livestream will be run on April 14 for those who can't attend. More of the deets can be found here and here.)

Of course the most obvious explanation for all of this is that TED is making a business decision. It needs to satisfy its wealthy donors and many of them are large corporations with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

TEDx was clever but risky. It allowed TED to spread its brand name without paying anybody. Not paying anyone while it collects huge amounts of money seems to be what TED actually does best.

But in recent months, a series of controversies dogged the not-for-profit organisation and whose acronym stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, leading many to question the integrity of the organisation which charges audiences several thousands of pounds to watch a speech, yet pays its speakers nothing. In 2009, TED decided to license its brand allowing anyone, around the world to stage ‘TEDx’ events.

Some of those very popular lectures I pointed out above were TEDx talks, not TED talks proper. And it's lectures like those that TED will have to eliminate in future -- exactly the ones that made TED look interesting. In the end, TED is proving itself just another establishment shill.

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TED: So Cowardly, So Cultish -- UPDATED

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Well. It's official. TED will not be putting anyone forward to debate Rupert Sheldrake or Graham Hancock, despite their generous offers. It does not appear that they told either of them directly. They did not respond on the threads where both of the censored TEDx speakers issued their challenge. They have done so through a spokeswoman when asked by a reporter.

A spokeswoman for TED told Positive News: “TED has opted for an open, online discussion, rather than a specific public debate with Sheldrake, Hancock and the science board. While the videos do not meet the stated TEDx guidelines, they will continue to be displayed on TED’s blog, with a lively ongoing debate.”

What the spokeswoman did not mention is that the "lively" debate will only be "ongoing" for a couple more days, because TED set a time limit of two weeks to allow discussion of the quarantined talks. (See above) So "ongoing" is rather a strong word for the discussion forum TED has provided in its back-pages.

It is also not a substitute for an actual debate between the relevant parties, the censored speakers and those who censored them. It would be an opportunity for TED to lay out its reasons for removing the talks, which they have thus far failed to do.

No one from TED has appeared on the discussion threads they've provided to explain their reasons. Instead we get inanities like this from Chris Anderson, in a response to a content-free eruption from a TED translator:

Krisztian, I understand your frustration with the talk. We've read a lot of such comments. They're what initiated this whole process. But I'd prefer you to make the case in more temperate language. I personally didn't think the talk was 'crap'. I spoke with Rupert Sheldrake a few days ago and I think he genuinely respects scientific thinking. He just disagrees with a lot of it. Some of his questions in the talk I found genuinely interesting. And I do think there's a place on TED to challenge the orthodox. Maybe I'm expecting too much for this forum, but I was hoping scientists who don't buy his ideas could indicate WHY they find them so implausible. [emphasis mine]

Thanks for being a TED Translator. You guys amaze me.

So the curator who made the decision to remove the talks doesn't understand that Sheldrake is a scientist, and not someone who "disagrees" with scientific thinking. And he would like some scientists to explain why they deserved to be pulled. He made the decision but he can't explain it. He refers to a science board who can't or won't show up even anonymously on the provided forum to explain the reasons and now we know for sure that TED won't put any of its brain trust forward to explain their reasoning in a debate.

After making a couple of comments of about that quality, Chris Anderson left the building. He has not been seen on either thread since March 20.

The discussions of both talks are informative and worth reading, just light on reasonable critique of either talk. What valid critiques have been offered have also been well debated by the many people who disagree with TED's decision. Such debate is healthy. I wish there were more of it presented but most of the criticism has come from trolls. And the bottom line for me is that, while I certainly think there are things to disagree with and debate in both talks, disagreement shouldn't lead to censorship or marginalization and that's what's happened.

The idea of actually debating these talks on their merits apparently terrifies TED. They'd rather hide the talks and provide a time limited forum to let Hancock and Sheldrake supporters vent their spleens, while they slink off and wait for the whole thing to die down.

If they did debate Sheldrake, they might have to grapple with the fact that one of the central points of his talk has been validated by two new studies. As discussed, Sheldrake raised a question about anomalous data regarding the speed of light. His statements were misrepresented by Jerry Coyne on his blog, who claimed that Sheldrake "argues that speed of light is dropping." Coyne consulted physicist Sean Carroll to refute Sheldrake's assertion that he never made, and Carroll accidentally confirmed Sheldrake's actual statements. Said Sheldrake in his refutation of TED's criticisms:

In my talk I suggest how a re-examination of existing data could resolve whether large continuing variations in the Universal Gravitational Constant, G, are merely errors, as usually assumed, or whether they show correlations between different labs that might have important scientific implications hitherto ignored. Jerry Coyne and TED’s Scientific Board regard this as an exercise in pseudoscience. I think their attitude reveals a remarkable lack of curiosity.

Now come two new studies showing variations in the speed of light as it moves through a vacuum.

Where did the speed of light in a vacuum come from? Why is it 299,792,458 meters per second and not some other figure?

The simple answer is that, since 1983, science has defined a meter by the speed of light: one meter equals the distance light travels in one 299,792,458th of a second. But that doesn't really answer our question. It's just the physics equivalent of saying, "Because I said so."

Unfortunately, the deeper answer has been equally unsatisfying: The speed of light in a vacuum, according to physics textbooks, just is. It's a constant, one of those numbers that defines the universe. That's the physics equivalent of saying, "Because the cosmos said so."

Or did it? A pair of studies suggest that this universal constant might not be so constant after all. In the first study, Marcel Urban from the University of Paris-Sud and his team found that the speed of light in a vacuum varies ever so slightly.

TEDx Whitechapel has also come out with a full-throated call for the reinstatement of the two talks. They also explained a bit about their thinking and the reasons for inviting Hancock and Sheldrake to speak.

We have been genuinely transformed through many of the inspiring TEDTalks; they have profoundly challenged our perceptions of and assumptions about the world, opening us up to new perspectives outside of the established mainstream thinking. Moreover, we really believe TED to be an ingenious medium to spread ideas across the globe. As such, TED represents the free and open flow and exchange of ideas globally, enriching and empowering an increasingly connected global community.

And it is with this passion that we decided to host a TEDx event with the theme “Visions for Transition: Challenging Existing Paradigms and Redefining Values (for a more beautiful world)’. We believe that in order to deal with the diverse and complex crises converging on our planet, we need to challenge the dominant thought paradigms and radically reassess the values which govern our world. In line with Einsteins wisdom “problems cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them” we saw TED as a truly special platform.

You can understand therefore, how shocked and saddened we were when we were alerted to the news that you had decided to remove Graham and Rupert’s talk from the TEDx Youtube channel and furthermore the disrespectful way in which they were treated publicly on the TED blog where you moved them.

I can't speak to what may or may not be going on behind the scenes, but in public, where this was posted -- it was also posted on both of the TED discussion threads -- there has been no response from the parent organization.

Sadly, I think TEDx Whitechapel has been dissed. I say that, in part, because TEDx West Hollywood was just dissed. This time it was pre-emptive.

TED, the parent organization, is removing the license of TEDxWestHollywood only a couple of weeks before their planned event “Brother, Can You Spare a Paradigm?” after they had spent more than a year preparing.  Tickets are already on sale. After summarily dismissing the program with no recompense at all for monies that had been expended, they amended their stance to offer a fraction of the operating costs in compensation and all because they deem the program to be . . . wait for it . . . unscientific.  Does this sound familiar?  It does indeed.  This is the same charge that was leveled at Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock when TED first pulled their videos.

. . .

So what is the fuss all about? (here is her lineup of speakers.) Although TED refused to “name names” in their dismissal, whereby an argument could be made, it surely has to do with three of the speakers who are scientists, about whom they earlier had raised eyebrows asking for justification for their place on the program with the caution that if they weren’t pleased with the end results they would not post the talks on their YouTube page. Pulling the program was never brought up. The three are: Russell Targ, who will talk on the reality of ESP and Larry Dossey, who will talk on the revolution in consciousness and Marilyn Schlitz, who is a social anthropologist and psi researcher, speaking on “How do we shift our paradigm.” All three have the proper credentials along with ability to speak to the evidence and present their views using credible science. They, more than the other speakers, represent the real threat to the Materialists/skeptics at TED. However, in addition, TED also had objections to Marianne Williamson and Paul Nugent although neither was giving a science talk. This is the pertinent email to Suzanne Taylor:

We will be especially interested to hear about the ideas that Marianne Williamson, Russell Targ, Larry Dossey, Paul Nugent, and Marilyn Schlitz will be presenting.We feel that the pseudoscience struggle is an important one. TED and TEDx cannot be platforms that give undo legitimacy to false evidence and selective logic — regardless of brilliant packaging.

I'm sorry... the "pseudoscience struggle?" It's a struggle now? The phrasing is just so... odd. Wait. I had no idea Marianne Williamson had ever pretended to be a scientist. Oh, right. She didn't. Of course, neither did Graham Hancock. Has it ever been more plain that TED is way out of its depth on this issue? They seem to be badly parroting criticisms from their shadowy science board that they don't even understand. They appear to have been hijacked by militant atheists. I really wonder if something like this would make the cut in the current environment, and Jill Bolte Taylor gave one of their most popular talks, ever.

I will say this, though. I'm pretty sure TEDx Peachtree is safe. I say that because Al Meyers is a real team player. I mentioned Mr. Meyers, TEDx co-organizer and all-around TED sycophant, here. Meyers dropped by the Sheldrake and Hancock discussion threads long enough to drop the phrase "TED brand" ten or twenty times. He got really wrapped around the axle when he learned that Sheldrake had briefly mentioned his book at the beginning of his talk. So I learned something new about TED of which I was previously unaware. As a TED speaker you cannot self-promote at all. This is addressed in the, I kid you not, TED Commandments. There are ten of them. The sixth commandment reads:

No selling from the stage! Unless we have specifically asked you to, do not talk about your company or organization. And don’t even think about pitching your products or services or asking for funding from stage.

I didn't think there was anything pitchy at all in Sheldrake's talk. He referenced the book to provide a little context. It would seem the Whitechapel folks didn't see a problem either. But Meyer, who still hasn't watched the lectures, was very distressed that a book was mentioned at all.

If Sheldrake did, in fact, open his talk by promoting his book, then the talk should have never been uploaded because it is ABSOLUTELY a violation of the TEDx rules. That puts the TEDx organizer in a difficult spot - if they had seen an advance copy of his slides and this was an "ad lib" addition by Sheldrake, then that is pretty sleezy but as an organizer, nothing you can do about it.

Whitechapel may have been asleep at switch if Sheldrake didn't know his TED Commandments and it all reflects badly on the brand.

Every TEDx speaker is given the rules on how to give a TED Talk. If they did not receive them, then the TEDx organizer did not do his/her job. Anyone who knows about TED knows that you NEVER self-promote on the stage. The "TED Commandments" are all over the web. So if Sheldrake used the stage to plug his book, that is a huge red flag and should have been edited from the version uploaded to the web. Steve, if you don't like the rules, you are under no obligation to participate in the TED community. My TEDx event has declined to invite speakers who do not respect the brand.

In retrospect, Meyers felt bad about calling Sheldrake "sleazy." But he's very much on his guard about hucksters pitching their wares at TED conferences.

Last night I used an inappropriate word ("sleazy") to describe Sheldrake pitching his book in one part of his talk, which I deeply regret. It is unfortunate that using this word has riled up this already "spirited" group, including that of an alleged "TED Fellow," on here, and that someone would flag that comment as inappropriate. While I believe that folks are a bit "insensitive" in their responses to using that word, I apologize for using it.

I didn't have to read the deluge of comments I received when I woke up this morning to realize that there are some folks who believe VERY STRONGLY that TED has "wronged" these two presenters. What I can tell you is this:
1. It appears that a vast majority (not all) of the talks that TED has "flagged" in the past are related to a speaker who has a book published. When last year's talk by Nick Hanauer caused a stir for crossing the political line, his PR agent caused a stir. When these things happen, as a TEDx organizer, I have found that a speaker's true motives for taking the TED stage come out. I question those motives to some degree here. I don't need the "marketers" who responded to my comment to chime in. TED is NOT a trade conference, so speakers who are doing this or business development reasons should rethink their approach for this type of forum.
2. TED's guidelines are VERY specific about what speakers can/can't do onstage. A speaker can talk about the substance and not even mention the book onstage.
3. I suspect that TED will work with its staff and TEDx organizers to improve its curation practices and how it can prevent this situation from repeating itself. TEDx organizers had been issued rules about pseudoscience and must share the responsibility in how they select speakers. They are stewards of the brand, and they must do better in this area, or else the TEDx program could be at risk. [ All emphases mine]

Hanauer was discussed here. I don't think it was about selling the book he didn't mention in the talk. That's chump change to a billionaire, venture capitalist. He probably paid more to his flacks to get the talk reinstated than he could ever hope to make in whatever book sales might have been generated. His talk was in many ways working against his own economic self-interest. He wants his own taxes to go up, so...

I can absolutely understand why TED wants to keep its conferences focused on ideas rather than pitching products. It could get very obnoxious if they didn't have some rules where that's concerned. But as Meyers lays it out here, it seems a little extreme. For one thing, books and other accomplishments speak to a speaker's credentials. I'd want to know. But what really disturbs me is this idea that speakers can't be there to promote their own careers at all. They can't have "a brand." They are enlisted only to support the "TED brand."

TED speakers aren't paid. They just get to rub shoulders with wealthy benefactors but they receive strict guidelines which are transparently to ensure the comfort of those wealthy benefactors. Eddie Huang's deeply disturbing story of cultish weirdness describes an organization requiring total fealty from its presenters.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you're doing a TED Talk, you are their product.


UPDATE: The disaffiliated TEDx West Hollywood will be presenting on its own and is calling for help in getting its message out.  The Live Stream of the event can be viewed on April 14 here.

I also just noticed this comment from the organizer on how TED addressed its concerns before it formally pulled the plug.

They want to cancel my program. Reason: “We are not comfortable with it.” I kid you not. That’s all. Repeated over and over on the phone as to why. No more, except there are objections to some speakers, but, “We’re not naming names.” I must be joking, right?

Once again, I think TED would be a lot more credible if it had some idea as to why it's making these decisions.

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