TED Community » Glen Reese

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  A comment on Conversation: The debate about Graham Hancock's talk

  Mar 27 2013: I am a scientist, and I was posting in favor of Hancock and Sheldrake.
  
  I have learned that the fringiness of a science- if I can use the term "science"- is usually inversely proportional to the hostility of it's supporters towards the "censorship" and "self-protection" arrayed against them by conventional scientists. Creationists and climate-change denialists are examples of this.
  
  I don't see anybody trying to shut these people up. But I also don't see them being actively supported in conventional science circles, partly due to the difficulty of experimentally testing their claims, or incorporating them into what is currently known. Which are pretty standard requirements. It does not help when their supporters scream "favoritism" and "censorship". Not many legitimate sites want to encourage those kinds of screaming matches.
  
  I am glad to see these guys pursuing their ideas in the face of the difficulties. I am sympathetic to their ideas. But attributing their lack of mainstream support to a monolithic bias for materialism is a caricature, and it does not help their cases.

• A comment on Conversation: The debate about Graham Hancock's talk

  Mar 26 2013: I understand completely why TED would be spooked about allowing every self-appointed expert, creationist, and flat-earther a voice on their site. TED would soon look like the comments section of most blogs- full of claims and counterclaims, with little actual information.
  
  I also understand their ambivalence about the talks by Graham and Sheldrake, because both skirt on the edges of mainstream science but- more importantly- ignite a lot of passion among people who are pretty hostile to the "mainstream" science they see as a monolithic, repressive bogeyman. Just witness the passion on this site. Both Graham and Sheldrake suffer- just a little- from this same paranoid, monolithic viewpoint, and that may be what a) makes TED nervous, and b) ignites their most passionate supporters.
  
  That is a pity, because I think that they both speakers bring up valuable questions and valid areas for further inquiry by other scientists. Yes, other scientists, because I believe that both have acted scientifically in their pursuits of ideas that science has few tools to apply. Many "mainstream" hard-headed scientists are intellectually open to questions that seem to have merit, but are difficult to pursue. I'm a physicist myself, and we are not all the blind materialists that the many critics make us out to be. (You can't be that way and still believe quantum mechanics.) It's just hard to make a living in those areas that are pursued by those two gentlemen. I wish them success, and a continued platform from which to speak.
  
  I would only expect equal respect for the mainstream scientific viewpoints. They have been hard-won over the past few centuries, and are backed by a lot of data,

• A comment on Conversation: What is the greatest security challenge facing humanity today?

  Apr 11 2011: The biggest problem affecting the security of humanity is the growing disconnect between our actions and our awareness of their consequences- for other people and for the environment. When humans lived in small tribes in limited surroundings, there was rapid feedback about the negative consequences of behaviors that were antisocial or deleterious to the immediate environment that supported the tribe's survival. In face-to-face situations, we are adept at reading the emotional reactions of others, and in adjusting our behavior to maintain peace and stability. Without this direct feedback, however, we tend to drift into self- promoting behavior, oblivious to the consequences.
  
  This shows up clearly in our driving behaviors, where the lack of an obvious face behind the steering wheel leads us into silly displays of road rage at perceived insults. Also in Internet "communications", which rapidly devolve into flame-wars without any body language feedback. We no longer depend on a local environment, and receive our sustenance from far-away farms and oceans; we receive no direct feedbacks about the alarming degradation of these systems. We are a world of small tribes- sensitive to those we have facetime with, but with little feeling or compassion for faceless others who get lumped into categories such as Liberals, or Muslims, or CEO's, or illegal immigrants, and etc.
  
  If technology could put more of a human face on the consequences of our actions, to replace the feedback systems that we have evolved to respond to, then we might be able to identify, agree upon, and support solutions to problems that threaten us more than most are willing to believe.