The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

The Troubles with TED Talks

I love TED Talks. I find them very entertaining and somewhat informative. Very entertaining as they choose speakers who are engaging, intelligent, and knowledgeable.  Their mission, as explained on their website, is:

TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.

Our Mission: Spread ideas

TED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. On TED.com, we're building a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world's most inspired thinkers — and a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other, both online and at TED and TEDx events around the world, all year long.

In fact, everything we do — from our Conferences to our TED Talks to the projects sparked by The Audacious Project, from the global TEDx and TED Translators communities to the TED-Ed lesson series — is driven by this goal: How can we best spread great ideas?

TED is owned by a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation. Our agenda is to make great ideas accessible and spark conversation.

However, I do have some problems with TED Talks. They are somewhat informative as they do not go into depth on the subject matter. And there are also other problems with TED Talks.

The first problem is the choice of which speakers and which viewpoints are to be allowed. The subjects and speakers are chosen based on a TED consensus of topics and opinions. Although they are very eclectic topics, the viewpoints of the presenters seem to be from the progressive side of the political spectrum. Rarely does TED Talks select topics and speakers outside of progressive viewpoints. The consensus, therefore, seems to be to mainly provide TED Talks that reflect the progressive viewpoints. Consensus also changes over time, as new facts or experiences can change a consensus. An example is the topic of Climate Change. There are many TED Talks that affirm the position that Climate Change is a result of human activity and that changes need to be made to prevent human-caused climate change. Good luck finding a TED Talk that challenges this opinion, and there are many scientific voices that challenge this position and the scientific veracity of Climate Change studies.

Which leads to the next problem of content. The content presented is one-sided and little mention is made of opposing viewpoints. The presenter is naturally presenting what they believe to be the facts and truth of their subject matter. In this, I am reminded of the locution “There are three sides to every story – one side, the other side, and the truth”. On many of these topics, there are more than three sides, but TED Talks rarely presents or directs the viewer to the other sides of a topic. There may not even be any TED Talks on the other sides (see the previous paragraph on Climate Change).

And finally, there is the problem of how the audience utilized TED Talks. TED Talks are generally about twenty minutes. As such, there is barely enough time to outline what the presenter has to say, let alone provide a depth of understanding that would allow the viewer to comprehend the subject matter. Therefore, a TED Talk should be a starting point of your knowledge, reasoning, and deliberation on the topic. Unfortunately, the audience often decides to make the TED Talk a final point and base their opinions on the TED Talk. This is very dangerous when forming an opinion or a policy conclusion, let alone governmental laws and regulations.

So, therefore, you should approach a TED Talk with wariness. Remember the above points when viewing a TED Talk. TED Talks also needs to keep in mind that they should present:

Not what the audience wants to hear, but what the audience needs to hear.

I am not the only person to comment on these issues of TED Talks. Some recent articles and videos are as follows:

• In a TEDx Talk, Professor Calls TED "Middlebrow Megachurch Infotainment"
• The trouble with TED talks
• What's the Problem With TED?
• What's Wrong with TED Talks?
• You're Using TED Talks the Wrong Way

TEDx brings the spirit of TED’s mission of ideas worth spreading to local communities around the globe. TEDx events are organized by curious individuals who seek to discover ideas and spark conversations in their own community. TEDx events include live speakers and recorded TED Talks, and are organized independently under a free license granted by TED.

All talks should comply with TEDx Content Guidelines. It is with these guidelines that I have a serious problem, specifically in Guideline 4 dealing with TEDx talks on science:

Guideline 4: Only good science

Science is a big part of the TED universe, and it’s important that TEDx organizers sustain our reputation as a credible forum for sharing ideas that matter. It’s not always easy to distinguish between real science and pseudoscience, and purveyors of false wisdom typically share their theories with as much sincerity and earnestness as legitimate researchers. Indeed, the more willing a speaker is to abandon scientific underpinning, the easier it is for them to make attention-grabbing claims. So beware being seduced by “wow.” We want talks to be interesting. But before that, they must be credible. Here are some things to look for -- and to avoid.

Claims made using scientific language should:

• Be testable experimentally.
• Have been published in a peer-reviewed journal (beware… there are some dodgy journals out there that seem credible, but aren’t. For further reading, here’s an article on the topic.)
• Be based on theories that are also considered credible by experts in the field.
• Be backed up by experiments that have generated enough data to convince other experts of its legitimacy.
• Have proponents who are secure enough to acknowledge areas of doubt and need for further investigation.
• Not fly in the face of the broad existing body of scientific knowledge.
• Be presented by a speaker who works for a university and/or has a Ph.D. or other bona fide high level scientific qualification.
• Show clear respect for the scientific method and scientific thinking generally.
  

Claims made using scientific language should not:

• Be so obscure or mysterious as to be untestable
• Be considered ridiculous by credible scientists in the field
• Be based on experiments that can not be reproduced by others.
• Be based on data that do not convincingly corroborate the experimenter’s theoretical claims.
• Come from overconfident fringe experts.
• Use over-simplified interpretations of legitimate studies
• Include imprecise new age vocabulary. (Phrases like “quantum consciousness”, personal “energy fields”, “crystal healing”, and the like, should be considered major red flags.) .
• Abandon evidence-based thinking or be dismissive of the scientific method.

While these guidelines are reasonable, as always, the “devil is in the details”. Questions such as how these guidelines are applied, who will make the judgment, and what appeal process are to be utilized have not been stated. These are fundamental questions of fairness and transparency. If these guidelines are broadly applied, they could, and do, restrict TED and TEDx talks to only “consensus” science. As I point out in the “Consensus” section of my Article ” On the Nature of Scientific Inquiry”, throughout scientific history many scientific hypotheses, when first proposed, were doubted and the consensus was against them. With the accumulation of new and more scientific knowledge, these doubts were surmounted, and the new hypotheses began to be accepted if not outright embraced as a new scientific theory. If these guidelines are broadly applied disputed science could, and is, unfairly restricted or label in TED and TEDx talks which also discredits the speaker.

In science, it should be remembered that nothing is settled. A scientific theory is simply the best explanation that fits all the known facts based on observations and experiments. New facts from observations and experiments, or discrepancies in older facts, or unexplained phenomena in a scientific theory leads to a reevaluation of the theory. Under these circumstances a scientific theory must be reevaluated, perhaps modified, or even replaced by a new scientific theory. Often this reevaluation comes from dissident scientists who dispute the consensus.

To scientifically dissent from a scientific consensus is good for science. It forces scientists to reevaluate their ideas, and perhaps come up with better ideas. To label them as heretical and to discount their ideas for heresy is bad for science.  For TED or TEDx to do so is contrary to their Mission to Spread Ideas. Of course, there are many TEDx science talks that are done unscientifically, and this warning is acceptable. But TED and TEDx must be very careful when applying this label to appropriate circumstances. It makes me wonder who, what, when, where, and how TED and TEDx are applying this warning. And as this warning is very general it is not possible to determine why this label was applied to a TED and TEDx talk.

As I mentioned previously I have yet to find any TED talk given by a credible scientist that has doubts about the veracity of the scientific claims of Global Warming. I know for a fact that there are many scientists that doubt the claims of Global Warming, and their doubts are scientifically based. Why is TED not giving them any talks to explain their scientific concerns? It seems that TED is only promoting scientific orthodoxy in its talks. As such, it is doing a disservice to its viewers and it is contrary to their Mission to Spread Ideas. Even on less controversial scientific issues this seems to be the case. For example:

Dr. Marc J. Defant is a professor of geology/geochemistry at the University of South Florida. Before he became involved in research related to the misuse or misunderstanding of science by society, he specialized in the study of volcanoes — more specifically, the geochemistry of volcanic rocks, the associated processes within the mantle, and the origin of the continental crust. He has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, the American Chemical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences, and has published in many internationally renowned scientific journals including Nature. He has been Editor of Geology and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research. He is a fully credentialed scientist and well respected in his field.

While doing my research on Intelligent Life in the Universe I came across a TEDx talk by him “Why We are Alone in the Galaxy”| Marc Defant | TEDxUSF. Much to my surprise, I encountered the following comment directly under the video:

NOTE FROM TED: We've flagged this talk, which was filmed at a TEDx event, because it appears to fall outside TEDx's curatorial guidelines. The sweeping claims and assertions made in this talk are based on the speaker’s own theory and lack legitimate scientific support. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: Content Guidelines.

Dr. Defant was explaining why he believed the emergence and evolution of humans was a series of fortuitous events. He did so in a rational, logical, and scientific basis. Other scientists also believe that Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence is unlikely as I have explained in my Article “Scientific Consensus and Settled Science“. Yet these viewpoints seem to have little or no visibility on TED or TEDx. However, his, and the other scientists’ conclusions are not a consensus opinion of many scientists. However, if a dissident scientist can explain their reasoning in a rational, logical, and scientific basis they deserve to be heard and not labeled inappropriately.

* * * *

Much of what I have said about dissent in this article applies to other areas of human activities; social, political, economic, philosophy, morality and ethics, as well as religion, needs dissent to evolve. If TED and TEDx talks cannot, or will not, present both sides of a disputed subject they are doing a disservice to not only their viewers but a disservice to humanity.

I have constrained my discussion of TED and TEDx talks to a few scientific issues with which I am very familiar. However, it makes you wonder if these same issues are occurring with other TED and TEDx talks?