TED Community » Bret Simmons

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Leadership excellence

An idea worth spreading

Unless and until you assume full responsibility for yourself, you force others to assume responsibility for you.

Talk to me about

Yourself. I'd rather learn about you than talk about me.

People don't know that I'm good at

I'm an introvert, but I enjoy public speaking

My TED Story

I am the producer of TEDxUniversityofNevada. I attended TEDActive 2013. I spoke at TEDxReno on April 26, 2013. I also attended TEDxBerkeley 2013 and will attend TEDxUCDavis 2013 and TEDxBeaconStreet 2013.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +1301.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Talk: Meg Jay: Why 30 is not the new 20

  May 13 2013: This was my favorite TED 2013 talk. Brilliant. I bought my 19 year old daughter Meg's book. Very important message of self-responsibility.

• A comment on Talk: Amy Purdy: Living beyond limits

  Mar 10 2013: This was the first video we showed at TEDxUniversityofNevada 2013. The audience loved it as much as I did
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues

  Mar 7 2013: Good points, Ed. I must admit after watching the video I too was a little confused about the objection. Not all TEDx talks are good, and some are crap. But some of what I think is crap others think is brilliant. That is the beauty of this forum - talks that push the boundaries and lead some of us to have to agree to disagree.
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues

  Mar 7 2013: Hi Rick. Our gatekeepers are very well qualified, and of course believe their own ethics are above reproach - as most of us do. The peer-review system is very good, but it has limitations what we would be wise to be aware of.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues

  Mar 7 2013: Hi Fritzie: Yes, I am. You might be aware that many consider social science research merely pseudo science; nevertheless, we do try to follow rigid research principles while acknowledging the limitations of what we can really "know" and especially prove. Bret
• +6

  A comment on Conversation: Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx talk: Detailing the issues

  Mar 7 2013: I just watched the talk and thought it was very good TEDx material. I am a practicing research scientist and I know first hand science is not all it is craked up to be. Any of us that use statistics in the course of our research must confess that there are ways we can massage our equations to get them to tell the stories we want to advance and mask the stories we don't. What we take as scientific truth is that which ends up published in our best research journals, but those journals are controlled by powerful gatekeepers that are not always entirely objective. The gatekeepers have paradigms that influence what does and does not get published, and this is often times confounded with economic self interest. For example, if you have done research on employee engagement, and that research has lead to consulting and speaking gigs on engagement, can you really be objective about data that might disprove your theory, fame, and business interests? Disproving established theory is by the way the real pursuit of science.
  
  Sheldrake suggests that we should continually challenge our dogma and paradigms. I find that utterly consistent with the message of TED. The only way you might be offended by that is if one of your favorite world views was mentioned in his talk. We have a bad habit of wanting to kill those that threaten our golden calves.
  
  I don't buy everything he had to say, but I find it intellectually stimulating. No less or no more offensive than the place in Dan Pallotta's talk at TED last week where he blamed the problems we have with charities today (a very valid observation) on the Puritans.
  
  I hope Sheldrake's talk remains online. It would be a great shame to have it removed.
  
  Just my humble thoughts.
  
  Bret