Mar 8 2013: There is plenty of room for unscientific information. Much can be said about psychology, economics, sociology or art and music. The problem with Sheldrake is bad information. If an alternative economist stood up and said he had the solution to everyone's economic problems, including the government, and that it would be painless and cost nothing, but he can't share the details, and that all of mainstream economics is wrong and ignores his solutions, what would you say? That is what is being done here, except with respect to science rather than economics.
Mar 7 2013: I like to digest my own food as well. But when I go to a nice restaurant, I hope the chefs have prepared something good, not swill and slop fit for pigs.
You seem to be saying you are willing to accept swill because you don't trust the chef's recommendations. If you were scientifically literate or a culinary expert, you could be right.
Being independent minded is fine, but you have to be willing to consume a lot of very bad meals. I suppose if one likes to eat pig slop, who's to say it's a bad meal? Rupert Sheldrake's uninformed fairy tales are not valid critiques of science. They are a very bad meal that no self-respecting person should swallow, except as entertaining science fiction. Sadly Sheldrake pretends his ideas are not science fiction.
Mar 7 2013: I don't say he should be censored. He has books, he can put videos on You Tube, and he can make his own web sites. My point is that he lacks the quality of information that should be accorded the respect of being aired in the TED forum, unless TED is to become a laughingstock that can't be taken seriously.
This is not science dictating. How silly it would sound to you if I said "who has the right to dictate to my dentist that he can't use a chain saw as his primary tool". Sheldrake is using tools that are outside the scope of scientific validity, and providing nothing in exchange beyond science fiction. If people take him seriously because he is given a TED platform, they may as well allow that dentist with the chainsaw to double as their brain surgeon as well.
Mar 7 2013: There is a difference between saying "who decides what is a good movie", and "who decides what is unscientific". Films, books, and art are cultural objects and people are welcome to their personal opinions. But you should feel a bit nervous if your dentist tells you "who defines what is good dentistry" as he fires up a chainsaw. If you were as qualified to validate scientific claims as you are to judge your dentist's work, Sheldrake's claim to present valid alternatives to science should make you equally uncomfortable.
Mar 7 2013: It's all well and good to be open minded and to be nice to everyone. But TED loses its value if it provides a forum to everyone with no standards. If TED is inclusive and tolerant without limit, then it would be overrun by the limitless supply of imaginative crackpots with a book to sell and who are willing to stand up and spout any kind of foolish nonsense in order to gain exposure and notoriety.
There is a very strong case to be made that TED is most valuable if the audience can rely on knowing that every video will be of high quality, vetted by experts in the chosen field who can certify that the speaker is conveying valuable information. We can rely on viewers with even basic levels of scientific knowledge to recognize what is wrong and what is dishonest in Sheldrake's performance, but not all TED viewers expecting to be educated with quality information are equally capable of making these distinctions.
TED should not just become another You Tube. Sheldrake is welcome to deposit his videos among the vast wasteland of random submissions on You Tube. TED will greatly diminish its value as a resource if it uncritically accepts every presenter's own representations of their work. This will make it too difficult for those exploring TED to locate quality. Rupert Sheldrake claims to be presenting valid alternatives to current scientific consensus, but he is not doing this. He is misinforming the unsuspecting.
Mar 7 2013: As they say, talk is cheap, and it's quite easy for Sheldrake to stand up and emit words from his mouth to the effect that science is based on dogmatism. Should it be so easy to discredit science in order to make room for alternative ideas? We are all used to respecting and valuing the ideas of fairness and democracy, and Sheldrake tries to exploit this by implying that science is a democracy of ideas that has gone astray by mindlessly embracing a set of dogmas that should be every bit as open to criticism as any other known religious dogma or orthodoxy jealously guarded and preserved by high priests with candles and incense burners.
But science is not a democracy, in that all opinions are not equally valid. Science uses consensus based not on opinion, but on reliable repeatable measurement that verifies the accuracy of ideas. Science converges on what natural reality dictates is real and true, not on what people think sounds best or most appeals to their hopes and wishful thinking. In fact any scientist could make his career and win a Nobel Prize by attacking the so-called dogmas and proving that they are wrong. So the idea that science is an orthodoxy defending its flanks from valid criticism is pure nonsense, and amounts to nothing but a rhetorical move to enable the propagation of a whole other set of dogmas and unverifiable speculations as somehow deserving to be placed on an equal footing with scientific knowledge. Only a fool would fall for this trick.
Sheldrake asserts that it is as likely that a star should be conscious as an unimaginably complex network of 100 billion nerves and trillions of connections, and that genes merely produce proteins, but "morphic resonance" does all the hard work of creating a baby giraffe in the womb. These are assertions without evidence. It is no coincidence that googling "morphic resonance" takes you to one place: a bio of Rupert Sheldrake. The only thing we can learn from Sheldrake is how to sell books to fools.
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A reply on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues
A reply on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues
You seem to be saying you are willing to accept swill because you don't trust the chef's recommendations. If you were scientifically literate or a culinary expert, you could be right.
Being independent minded is fine, but you have to be willing to consume a lot of very bad meals. I suppose if one likes to eat pig slop, who's to say it's a bad meal? Rupert Sheldrake's uninformed fairy tales are not valid critiques of science. They are a very bad meal that no self-respecting person should swallow, except as entertaining science fiction. Sadly Sheldrake pretends his ideas are not science fiction.
A reply on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues
This is not science dictating. How silly it would sound to you if I said "who has the right to dictate to my dentist that he can't use a chain saw as his primary tool". Sheldrake is using tools that are outside the scope of scientific validity, and providing nothing in exchange beyond science fiction. If people take him seriously because he is given a TED platform, they may as well allow that dentist with the chainsaw to double as their brain surgeon as well.
A reply on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues
A reply on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues
There is a very strong case to be made that TED is most valuable if the audience can rely on knowing that every video will be of high quality, vetted by experts in the chosen field who can certify that the speaker is conveying valuable information. We can rely on viewers with even basic levels of scientific knowledge to recognize what is wrong and what is dishonest in Sheldrake's performance, but not all TED viewers expecting to be educated with quality information are equally capable of making these distinctions.
TED should not just become another You Tube. Sheldrake is welcome to deposit his videos among the vast wasteland of random submissions on You Tube. TED will greatly diminish its value as a resource if it uncritically accepts every presenter's own representations of their work. This will make it too difficult for those exploring TED to locate quality. Rupert Sheldrake claims to be presenting valid alternatives to current scientific consensus, but he is not doing this. He is misinforming the unsuspecting.
A comment on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues
But science is not a democracy, in that all opinions are not equally valid. Science uses consensus based not on opinion, but on reliable repeatable measurement that verifies the accuracy of ideas. Science converges on what natural reality dictates is real and true, not on what people think sounds best or most appeals to their hopes and wishful thinking. In fact any scientist could make his career and win a Nobel Prize by attacking the so-called dogmas and proving that they are wrong. So the idea that science is an orthodoxy defending its flanks from valid criticism is pure nonsense, and amounts to nothing but a rhetorical move to enable the propagation of a whole other set of dogmas and unverifiable speculations as somehow deserving to be placed on an equal footing with scientific knowledge. Only a fool would fall for this trick.
Sheldrake asserts that it is as likely that a star should be conscious as an unimaginably complex network of 100 billion nerves and trillions of connections, and that genes merely produce proteins, but "morphic resonance" does all the hard work of creating a baby giraffe in the womb. These are assertions without evidence. It is no coincidence that googling "morphic resonance" takes you to one place: a bio of Rupert Sheldrake. The only thing we can learn from Sheldrake is how to sell books to fools.