News Release from Rupert Sheldrake Online | India, March 15 2013
I am currently travelling in India with my wife Jill, and enjoying a few days of heat (currently 95 degrees F) before returning to snow-clad England. We recently visited a wonderful town on the Narmada River called Maheshwar, full of Shiva shrines, and a major pilgrimage centre.
Text: Rupert Sheldrake | www.sheldrake.org
Meanwhile a big controversy has erupted about my Whitechapel, London TEDx talk on The Science Delusion/Science Set Free. TEDx is a franchise system from the American media corporation TED, whose slogan is ”ideas worth spreading”. The video of my talk was posted online about a month ago, and all went well until last week, when two militant atheist bloggers in the US, Jerry Coyne and P.Z. Myers, denounced it and urged TED to remove it from their web site. The TED editors responded by calling for an online consultation, which can be read here: Online Consultation
Read more: Forbidden knowledge? TED.com pulls Hancock’s and Sheldrake’s videos from YouTube
Fortunately, most people argued in favour of a free, open discussion of the issues I was raising, and opposed any censorship by TED. Nevertheless, two days ago, TED officials ordered the London organizers to remove the video from the internet; when they did not do so, TED removed it themselves. It has now resurfaced on a number of independent sites – here is one: Independent Video
TED has now relegated my talk to an obscure corner of their website, with a statement by an anonymous ”Scientific Board” claiming it contains serious scientific errors. I have replied to their points and have asked them to post my reply immediately below the statement by the Scientific Board. Their new ploy has not made the problem go away. There are now hundreds of posts in the discussion forum, almost all condemning their behaviour.
The situation has become so serious that TED’s founder and head, Chris Anderson, has now had to enter the fray and take part in the online discussion. At the same time as they removed my TEDx talk, they also removed one by Graham Hancock, to whom Jerry Coyne has also objected. You can read the lively, ongoing discussion here: Ongoing Discussion
The last in my series of three podcasts with Mark Vernon is entitled ”Is materialism inherently atheistic?” and is now online here: Podcast Audio
Text: Rupert Sheldrake | www.sheldrake.org
Genom att försöka förtrycka det som Rupert Sheldrake sa på TED så har de lyckats göra det motsatta och ge det ännu mer uppmärksamhet.
Response to the TED Scientific Board’s Statement – Rupert Sheldrake finns nu publicerad på TED..
Jag skickade över intervjufrågor till Rupert Sheldrake idag. Hans svar kom snabbt:
Min kommentar: När jag kollar har inget av det Sheldrake beskriver lagts upp på TED.
Jag tror Sheldrake syftar på denna blogg (http://sciencesetfree.tumblr.com/), där han kommer att lägga upp texten om TED vägrar publicera den.