TED Community » Jim Spice

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: Religion, evolution, and the ecstasy of self-transcendence

  Mar 14 2012: In 44 years, I've had exactly one such "transcendent experience." Or "epiphany" or "moment of zen." Call it what you will, but I was struck with how absolutely ordinary mine was, an almost archetypical example of the type discussed in this talk. During a college choir tour of the eastern U.S., after each concert, the full choir would exit out of public sight and sing the Doxology. On one such occasion, we exited a church in Lancaster, PA and found ourselves outside on a cobblestone street on a warmer than usual spring evening. Holding hands in a large circle, my sense of self suddenly gave way as a warm breeze lifted my choir gown, and I felt as if I drifted upward becoming one with the group above the center of the circle. It was a REALLY nice feeling.

• A comment on Conversation: In ten words or less, what is a question no one (yet) knows the answer to?

  Dec 8 2011: What's past the edge of the universe?
• +9

  A comment on Talk: Michael Specter: The danger of science denial

  Apr 12 2010: After hearing the presentation, I couldn't help but inspect the comments for "yeah, buts." Sure enough, anti-science sentiment is well represented. I'd like to think that we TED aficianados would be more enlightened, but apparently not. At least not yet.
  
  I believe a major part of the anti-vax crowd's ability to gain adherents is the ability to present the photos and stories of once living, breathing children that died from vaccine complications, while the science side cannot point to a particular living child and say "here, look, THIS child would be dead if not for immunization." Even though there are hundreds of thousand if not millions of them, the emotional impact of one REAL tragedy can outweigh the less dramatic, and less "real" successes.