The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending (skeptics
kill talks about wider views)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: The Weiler Psi <comment-re...@wordpress.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 1:30 PM
Subject: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is
Sending
To: rmfor...@gmail.com
**
craigweiler posted: "TED talks is actually pretty cool. Although I've
been talking nonstop about the TED censorship for the past couple of weeks,
I don't hold a grudge against that organization. Truth is, they've been
pretty good to me. They've helped me increase my site v" Respond to
this post by replying above this line
New post on *The Weiler Psi*
<http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/author/craigweiler/> The Loud and
Clear Message that the TED Controversy is
Sending<http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/the-loud-and-clear-message-that-the-ted-controversy-is-sending/>
by
craigweiler <http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/author/craigweiler/>
TED <http://www.ted.com/pages/about> talks is actually pretty cool.
Although I've been talking nonstop about the TED censorship for the past
couple of weeks, I don't hold a grudge against that organization. Truth
is, they've been pretty good to me. They've helped me increase my site
views by 500% over this past month and pushed my blog into the top 5% of
internet blogs in general, by views. What's not to like? They have picked
sides in a growing controversy, which has galvanized the pro-psi camp in
ways that have never been seen before. Indeed, a lot is happening that has
never been seen before and I'm delighted to be in the middle of it. My
battle was never with TED, it's with the skeptics pulling the
strings<http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/ted-revokes-license-for-tedx-west-hollywood-event/>behind
the scenes at TED.
Which brings me to my point. The loud and clear message that has been sent
is that there IS a major scientific controversy brewing and institutions,
from TED to all of academia and the media need to stop taking sides. They
need to step out of the way and let the controversy play itself out or
suffer huge PR
damage<http://blog.ted.com/2013/04/01/a-note-to-the-ted-community-on-the-withdrawal-of-the-tedxwesthollywood-license/>as
a consequence. The new thing that is happening is that change isn't
coming from within the hallowed, starched halls of academia and within the
confines of scientific conferences, but from the outside. The ideas that
skeptics so quickly dismiss are gaining mas acceptance and are starting to
redefine the power structure. From what I can see, this is very confusing
to everyone on the skeptical side of the debate.
(For those not familiar with the debate, it can be oversimplified thusly:
On the one side we have materialists/reductionists/skeptics who see the
universe as a lifeless machine that can be understood by figuring out its
mechanics. On the other side we have Biocentrists, for lack of a better
term, who see consciousness and life as being fundamental to the universe.
In other words, they see the universe as a giant thought. You generally
won't hear much about the second theory, but the evidence is much better
than most people realize. Mainstream science does not acknowledge this
which is pretty much why there's a big controversy.)
Science, after all, is decided by scientists, right? What gives the
ordinary rabble the right to intrude on discussions about the fundamental
nature of the universe? This needs to be decided by people with advanced
degrees who have studied these matters their whole adult lives. Surely
only they have the requisite knowledge to decide? That certainly holds
true for most areas of science; the public is more than willing to just
accept what they are told. What makes the psi debate so different? What
the heck is *happening*?
In a word, this particular area of science is being crowdsourced. While
people obviously aren't out conducting experiments en mass and publishing
them in scientific journals, they are able to substantially verify
scientific claims such as "there is no evidence for psychic phenomena." If
this phrase is uttered by a scientist and turns up in a mainstream news
article it is a relatively simple matter to browse the comment section to
find more substantial sources of information. Often these days, links with
real scientific information will be shared by a knowledgeable person
effectively demonstrating that the statement was false. This scenario has
gotten pretty common.
It's precisely this kind of thing that has sent TED reeling these past
couple of weeks. Just a few short years ago, this problem with Sheldrake
and Hancock would have been easily managed. Drop the speakers, ignore the
few protest emails and proceed as if nothing had happened. It would have
been over before most of the public even knew what was happening. What
happened a few weeks ago however, is something that will play out more and
more in the future. The two videos were taken down for the usual
skeptical reason of being unscientific. People who were well informed
about this topic showed up for the debate, but it also started to draw
attention largely due to the fact that word spread about what had
happened. Someone mentioned it on the parapsychology
forum<http://forum.mind-energy.net/>I hang out on and I
blogged about
it.<http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/the-psi-wars-come-to-ted/>
I sent a link to parapsychologist Dean
Radin<http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2013/03/psi-wars-at-ted.html>,
he posted a link on his blog, it got picked up by The Daily
Grail<http://www.dailygrail.com/>and took off from there.
Now, all eyes were on TED and they were forced to back down from their
original position due not only to the outcry, but also the obviously well
informed logic behind it. Anyone who saw that comment thread
<http://www.ted.com/conversations/16894/rupert_sheldrake_s_tedx_talk.html>objectively
could see the weakness of skeptical arguments, the irritating nature of
paternalistic drive-by comments by TED staff and, well, *everything*. This
is the new reality; everyone gets to share and see what everyone else is
sharing.
One outcome of this is that skeptics are being forced into the intellectual
debates which expose the weakness of their arguments and more importantly,
their arrogant attitudes. One of the hardest things to convey to other
people not familiar with the debate is the unreasonableness of skeptics,
but in these comment threads it's there for everyone to see. TED and it's
skeptics have not recognized the impact of this yet and do not understand
how much this is changing things. This crowdsourcing is going to
increasingly force intellectually honest discussions which will ultimately
force change that companies and institutions like TED and its skeptics
would rather not deal with. They are operating according to an old
paradigm in which they believe that they can make whatever decisions they
please, irrespective of pesky comments. That era though, is fast coming to
a close. The tail is wagging the dog.
Academia will surely be the last bastion to fall under the new order, but
it ultimately answers to the public and if that public is well informed and
communicating constantly with each other, as they now do, then fall it
will. The basic problem, -that they are ignoring important evidence- is
exactly the sort of thing that will put a target on their back. An
energized public can award power and prestige to some while taking it away
from others. Universities aren't blind, deaf and dumb. If they start
losing money and grants because their skeptics are putting people off,
they'll do something about it. I'm fairly sure that's what it would take.
I've been following the psi wars for a number of years and I can see two
things: First of all, this is not a debate over science, despite what
skeptics claim. The body of evidence supporting the marriage of
consciousness and physics is simply enormous and utterly convincing by any sane
scientific
standard<http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/telepathy-has-been-scientifically-proven-to-be-real/>.
(and here <http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/evidence-for-psi/>) The
science, in other words, is settled. The TED controversy deeply
underscores this point: TED has never clearly defined their reasons for
censorship; they have never taken Rupert Sheldrake up on his offer to
debate the TED science board; the reasons for axing TEDxWestHollywood
have never
been convincingly laid
out<http://blog.ted.com/2013/04/01/a-note-to-the-ted-community-on-the-withdrawal-of-the-tedxwesthollywood-license/>;
Jerry Coyne, in his blog, (which unwittingly helped raise the profile of
the censorship issue considerably) has never scientifically spelled out his
objections either. They all pretend as if it's a problem with a solution
so obviously in their favor that it doesn't need discussion. Thus, they
never engage the evidence in any meaningful way. The lack of meaningful
discussion highlights a very significant point. The controversy isn't a
scientific one; it's a social one.
Second: The internet has given the opposing side two tools it has never
had before; we now have an easy way to find each other and we have a way to
spread scientific information that skirts the normal walls that science
builds around ideas it doesn't like. Typically, the mass media goes along
with this wall and tends to avoid publishing controversial topics as truths
because they are far too technical and it's easier to trust mainstream
scientists than to go out on a limb. But the internet skirts around mass
media as well. A community has developed that spreads the information
through an informal chain of blogs that together have the reach of lesser
forms of mass media. It's hard to judge exactly, but I would guess, based
on the interest that this topic has generated, that news of the axing of
TEDxWestHollywood has probably reached 100,000 people with *no mass media
intervention*. (My blog post alone would account for about 12% of that
traffic.)
This community contains parapsychology
scientists<http://deanradin.blogspot.com/>and other
people with advanced degrees <http://www.hiddensolution.com/>; as well as a
very large number of well read individuals <http://www.mind-futures.com/>,
such as myself, who can see the evidence and decide for themselves. These
scientists, by the way, no longer need rely on academic and scientific
institutions to forward their ideas and evidence and make rebuttals to
obvious smears: They can take to to the streets, so to speak. It has
taken several years for this community to form because much of the
information has not been on line and people needed to get used to this new
format of communicating. People, such as myself, needed time to develop a
portfolio of work and build a reputation, which is just now coming to good
use. As these blogs have developed, people needed to find them and set the
groundwork for this loose connected network of like minded people. There
have always been far more of us, than skeptics, so the issue hasn't been
persuading people, but merely getting them together and getting them
properly informed.
Now that the network is in place and this group has had time to settle in
and grow in numbers, an attitude change has taken place. With the
scientific evidence on its side and a firm sense of being right, this group
has gone increasingly on the offensive, pushing back at empty skeptical
claims and denouncing obvious lies and half truths. The message is fairly
simple and straightforward: "Don't suppress this stuff." This is where we
are now; pushing back. The controversy, which is social, is getting a
social solution and it's starting to have a pronounced effect.
The effect has been to cause the skeptics to polarize the debate and send
them into a furious
campaign<http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/wikapediatrician_susan_gerbic_discusses_her_guerrilla_skepticism_on_wikiped>to
put the genie back
into the
bottle<http://web.archive.org/web/20090421174810/http://www.soultravel.se/2009/0409-PSI/research-parapsychology.shtml>.
There is no longer any pretense of being nice about
it<http://web.archive.org/web/20090421174747/http://www.soultravel.se/2009/0409-PSI/parapsychology.shtml>and
in the near future it is this
frenzied activity <http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/411401.article> by
the skeptics that will create the change more than anything we do. The
skeptics are to science, what the Tea party is to Republicans. They're on
the same side, but their radicalized attitude, just as with the Tea Party,
presents both a solid base of support and sends moderates running in the
other direction. You can see what has happened to TED as the skeptics have
gained control. Their heavy handed attitude is having an impact on the TED
brand (it's too soon to tell just how much), and they are so consumed with
their small battles that they are losing sight of the war they are losing.
The parapsychological sciences that are shunned by mainstream science have
always been very popular with the public. This huge gap has always existed
and it has led to a sort of running 140 year battle between the mainstream
sciences and parapsychology. The skeptics in academia have always
succeeded by simply shutting out both the scientists and the public
interest, but they can't do that anymore. Their main tool, control over
information, has been taken away from them. As the TED drama has shown,
they have no ability to fight on open ground. It is just the beginning of
an ideological clash that will spread all over the world and eventually
force a change.
The wall that the skeptics have put up is like a shaky dam with a rapidly
growing river behind it. They will hold sway for awhile, and it will look
as though they are succeeding because so little gets past them, but it is
an illusion. The broad network of people supporting an alternative view of
the universe, backed by solid evidence, is still growing and getting
increasingly aware of its power. Everything will be fine in Camp Skeptic
until it isn't. Then, change will come swiftly and the sciences will be
fundamentally altered forever.
*craigweiler <http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/author/craigweiler/>* |
April 2, 2013 at 1:30 PM | Tags:
skeptic<http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/?tag=skeptic>,
TED <http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/?tag=ted>,
TEDxWestHollywood<http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/?tag=tedxwesthollywood>|
Categories: Psi
Wars <http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/?cat=2490984>, Skeptics and
Skeptic Arguments <http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/?cat=17625980> | URL:
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