"TED’s decision to remove public talks by
Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock from YouTube and the main section of
their web site has created quite a furore. To date there has been well
over 1000 supportive comments posted on TED’s discussion pages. The
latest page opened regarding the topic on the TED site is here. TED
initially made quite a mess of the entire process. The first
announcement they released was incredibly sloppy, and almost all the
statements they made about the content of the two videos was inaccurate.
It looked like the writer had either not watched the videos, or merely
skimmed them."
"The massive backlash against TED indicates something else of great importance. People are getting smarter" TED has permitted the debate after having removed the video.
"The massive backlash against TED indicates something else of great importance. People are getting smarter" TED has permitted the debate after having removed the video.
8 comments:
Is this even a news item? TED is part of the entertainment silo (it's in their freakin title). Hancock and Sheldrake (like Dawkins and Dennett) are entertainers (Sheldrake since 1981). Don't the stage managers and producers at TED get to choose who gets to entertain the masses on their venue?
Sure they do, and their choice here still provokes me to wonder why they balk when it comes to the topic of cognitive liberty? Have any of the proponents of cognitive liberty ever been anything other than entertainers? Since serious study of psychedelia is constrained by the prohibition, so much so that Ruck felt it necessary to coin the neologism "entheogen" to try and shift the subject away from the popular cultural taboo - the fact that this subject remains an academic, scientific, political and religious 3rd rail never fails to amaze me.
Lastly, if as I believe, the dying god cults were code for entheogenic mushroom cults, and the dying god cults essentially formed the blueprint or the cultural DNA for western civilization, what exactly is it about these traditions/rituals/origins that gives pause to western cultural elites to this very day? Why the continuing mystigoguery?
Nah, call me cynical, but I'm seeing the LCD driver of behavior going on here. Just another piece of flair on the TED jacket, and more of that modern churn, churn, churn of a topic, and not single stick of butter to be seen. (Any press is good press).
So I see your homeboy Jerry Coyne harshly going in on Rupert Sheldrake like Sheldrake's name was boo-boo the fool http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/tedx-talks-completely-discredited-rupert-sheldrake-speaks-argues-that-speed-of-light-is-dropping/
But I have a question. Does Dr. Coyne's materialist evolutionary genetics hold that random mutation is the primary cause of negentropic genetic variation said variation resulting in ever upward and onward improvement in species? Because if so, and I suspect that that's what he believes and believes himself to be scientifically interrogating, then as a practical matter he himself has taken a very great leap of faith with no particularly compelling evidence to back it up.
At this moment in time, there isn't a single iota of evidence in support of the belief that random mutation can cause constructive evolutionary change.
Mine? No, not mine. If he pooed in your yard, talk to his owners. I don't see him on the end of my leash, so...
So then, what is your beef with the good Dr. Sheldrake?
Did you ever consider what it might be like as the Comanche? Who detest both the Texans and the Mexicans? As far as I can see, both parties are all full of shit.
okay comanchero...,
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