TED Community » Steen Petersen

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Evolution, medicine and simple solutions

An idea worth spreading

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further - Richard Dawkins

Comments

• TEDCred score: +3.20 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +5

  A reply on Talk: Sheila Nirenberg: A prosthetic eye to treat blindness

  Jan 19 2012: "I do not think the significance of it was matched by the audience's response."
  
  I was thinking the exact same thing, seems people in that audience did not fully grasp how world changing this is for many blind people, if it works. not to mention how it would be an "eye-opener" (pun intended) for how to speak to the brain. Im sitting behind my computer and i felt like clapping half way through that talk!
• +5

  A reply on Talk: Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea

  Jan 19 2012: Big Media needs to adapt to us, the users, not the other way around. Im tired of being labelled a theif just because currently it is easier to get things for free than it is to get things "legally". I am all for paying for Art and supporting the artists and creative people that i enjoy, but make it easy for me to do so.
  
  We have to stop thinking in this old fashioned way. Its become easier to distribute your art now, we no longer need the middle man. If your Art is good enough it will make it and it will be sold. if its not good enough, its not good enough.
• +2

  A reply on Talk: Bill Gates: How state budgets are breaking US schools

  Mar 7 2011: Hi there,
  
  I suggest that people who are interested in this topic should watch the documentary called "Waiting for Superman". I am not an American and I found it very interesting, if you are an American I think it's very important to watch, specially if you have children in school or about to reach the school going age.
  
  There is a bit of talk here about the teachers unions and I do not see why teachers who are professionals should be treated any differently then other professionals. Why should they not be able to be fired for doing a poor job? and why should they not be able to rewarded for doing a great job? should it not be considered an honor to be given the privilege to teach to the future generation of workers? and why is this privilege given out so lightly?
  
  I don't agree with abandoning unions for teachers, not at all. But 'tenure' which was original invented to protect professors in universities from being fired for coming with unpopular remarks in an attempt to heighten learning. Has for some reason been turned into something teachers can gain easily and remain safe in their work places. Professor's however for whom the concept was invented still have to prove their worth for many years before being granted tenure and many are never granted tenure at all. Obviously something is very wrong.
  
  I also wholeheartedly agree that IQ testing is a very poor way in which measure success or ability for success. The IQ test was standardized almost 100 years ago and little has been done to optimize it. BBC horizon has made a great episode about the IQ test called "what makes us clever?" I would advise people to watch it if they are interested. and although the idea of testing all students and separating them into the perfect brackets for them sound like a good idea I would still think that creating a good overall system that the brighter students can take advantage of would be far more effective. Great discussion though.
• +2

  A reply on Talk: Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work

  Feb 11 2011: Its so funny how many of the problems that we find in the world that surrounds us, famine, poverty, war etc can many times be traced back to our poor choice in priorities. We long for the wrong things, I think that this is the message that we can once again extract from this talk as well. It seems simple it is simple.... we just like to complicate things.
• +2

  A reply on Talk: Nathan Myhrvold: Could this laser zap malaria?

  May 18 2010: Malaria is a protozoa if im not mistaken but yes the of the genus Plasmodium. And yes technically it is a living organism, but im all for blowing them out of the sky with lazers... I mean... come on... blowing stuff out of the sky with lazers is always cool.
  
  As a side note if it were a virus then no it would not be considered alive since Viruses are not considered to be living organisms... but youll have to ask a smarter person then I exactly why that is.
  
  Great talk by the way and great idea.

• A comment on Talk: Elizabeth Pisani: Sex, drugs and HIV -- let's get rational

  Apr 5 2010: Very informative and very funny. Information isn't everything when our rational decisions can be 2 sides of the same story. I thoroughly enjoyed this talk.

• A reply on Talk: Kary Mullis' next-gen cure for killer infections

  Apr 5 2010: On your "just thinking": The short answer is yes, sadly even with the best of intentions this could happen by mistakenly making it identify a bacteria we need to survive. However that does not lessen the possibilities and wonderful advances that we could use this technique for. The science is good, its how we decide to use it that matters.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Eric Dishman: Take health care off the mainframe

  Apr 5 2010: Eric DIshman brings up some interesting ideas, however the premise of the talk focuses on the idea that this technology is the solution, and to this I tend to disagree.
  
  Massive hospitals although somewhat vilified in this talk are also the source of great amounts of research and areas to which funding has great results. Without these huge institutions it could become somewhat more challenging to perform some of the research that may save lives with one or several of the many many technologies that we all hear about here on TED. It is hard to find an answer to resolve this issue, what we need is multidisciplinary teams working on different aspects of the problems. As a small part of this team, the technological devices spoken of here "could" have a part to play.
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Anthony Atala: Growing new organs

  Apr 5 2010: It becomes increasingly apparent to me as I watch these TED talks that when I finish my medical education this feild will be a whole new ball game... and I welcome that.
  
  Inspiring talk!
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Marc Koska: 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe

  Apr 5 2010: After having read almost all of these posts I must agree with Theodore A. Hoppe in that we do indeed learn as much from this dicussion as we do from the actual talk.
  
  I applaud Mr Koska in coming up with a simple solution to a massive problem. We do however all seem to agree that education lies at the heart of the problem and although fancy technology will help we need the education to further understanding.
  
  As a physical therapist and starting medical student for me this education has already made its mark and this is definately a topic that will be on my mind as a future health care provider so that I too can further educate and hopefully do my part. The education must start somewhere and with someone. Having a TED talk is a very good step and I thank you, mr Koska for the talk and all the subscribers for sharing their opinion to allow people like me... to learn.