weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com
by Craig Weiler
March 2013
TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. This is an organization on a collision course with consciousness research and it was only a matter of time before the war spilled over into their territory.
In this case, the brouhaha started when apparently skeptics by the names of Jerry Coyne and PZ Meyer tried to have a video by parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake removed from TED talks because they felt he was unscientific….To the Immense credit of TED staff, they opened up the controversy to the public. Even more to their credit, the staff person who did this, Emily McManus, is an atheist who set aside her personal beliefs to open up the discussion. A comment section was set up for this topic and the floodgates opened….
….
I did not read through the whole 478 comments because frankly, the discussion is always the same with minor variations. The skeptics claim that there is no proof, etc, but provide no compelling evidence and the pro psi crowd counters with a barrage of links and counter arguments. The skeptics attempt to define evidence according to radically narrow definitions and the pro psi crowd calls them on it. Back and forth, back and forth. What was interesting to me was how many well informed posters were pro psi and how willing they were to work together to get their side of the debate heard. They even made a very strong effort to “like” comments from their side, which is new as well. That is usually a skeptical tactic. Somewhere, somehow, these people have learned how to counter the skeptics and they did it very effectively.
This supports my hunch that the internet is changing how science is done by making the skeptical gate keeping much more difficult. Information about consciousness research has spread far and wide and its supporters are growing ever more vocal. Among those supporters is a growing group of people who are persistent and engaged enough to do battle with the skeptical paradigm. Their numbers are apparently growing from what I’ve seen while the number of skeptics has stayed pretty much even. It looks like the tipping point has been reached. Skeptics are not winning.
Hopefully the staff at TED took notice because a wrong move on their part will create all sorts of havoc…..
http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2...s-come-to-ted/
