A letter to the TEDx community on TEDx and bad science

http://blog.tedx.com/post/37405280671/a-letter-to-the-tedx-community-on-tedx-and-bad-science

by ColinWright • 14 years ago

195 153 14 years ago

blog.tedx.com

sdafdasdfasdf• 14 years ago

"Marks of good science: ... It does not fly in the face of the broad existing body of scientific knowledge"

Um... that's not very progressive science. So, the sun revolves around us, right?

jerf• 14 years ago

First, there's a continuum here, with perpetual motion and crystals on one end, and "bacteria cause ulcers" on the other. We aren't required to toss out all judgment just because some bits of the line may be true. I myself have some beliefs that I would currently put around "bacteria cause ulcers" on the line, but that doesn't mean I have to believe in crystal healing.

Second, this is not a scientific forum. It's an educational one. It is not particularly obligated to give equal airing to any ideas. The ones in the "bacteria cause cancer" area can make for very interesting talks, especially if the presenter passes the test mentioned in the article (secure enough to acknowledge doubts), but if they choose to close the door on those so they can avoid crystal healing, that's a fine and valid choice.

fatbird7• 14 years ago

Agreed, and I'd go further than you in saying that TEDx has a duty not to try to lead scientific discussion or research by presenting cutting edge information. They rightly identify that they have a role as a credible purveyor of science, but lack the domain expertise to do more than popularize the scientific consensus.

Which is fine: If they do nothing more than make the current consensus more easily available to everyone, that's a worthwhile activity in itself.

skylan_q• 14 years ago

What also bothered me is the notion that consensus determines what's good science. (If we all agree to something, then it must be true!)

Symmetry7• 14 years ago

Good science isn't identical to the truth. Rather, science is a social process whereby large groups of imperfect humans with their various vanities and weaknesses can eventually converge on the truth. Someone might come up with an idea that happens to be true, but until it's tested it isn't good science - and we have easy way to know it's true.

Aykroyd• 14 years ago

Right. It's a tricky line to walk. But the TedX name grants a certain level of mainstream acceptance to ideas. And it seems like they're trying to prevent people from taking advantage of that to pimp their latest miracle, effort free, libido enhancing, hair increasing, bicep growing treatment.

An earlier comment mentioned that it's a question of what's the right forum to debate new ideas. Going to direct to the public is probably not the right one. Another hallmark of these hoaxes tends to be the notion that "main stream scientists don't want you to know" etc... It's trash.

I wish the letter had ended by admitting that it's tough to exactly define bad science but it's a lot like porn, you know it when you see it.

fatbird7• 14 years ago

For a popularizer of science, sticking to current consensus is fine, and a good way to avoid promoting pseudoscience. No one's claiming TEDx is the last word on these topics, or on science in general, and if they accomplish nothing more than making mainstream science more accessible, that's pretty good by itself.

rscale• 14 years ago

Scientific consensus isn't "we believe"; it's "the results of widespread, independent, carefully executed, controlled experiments show."

Further, it doesn't mean that it "must be true" but rather that it is more likely to true.

nollidge3• 14 years ago

What do you propose as a superior alternative?

Symmetry7• 14 years ago

TEDx talks aren't science, they're popularization. Whereas investigating new and untried ideas scientifically is important, promulgating them to laymen isn't.

When Galileo made his discoveries he didn't start handing out pamphlets in the city square, he worked to persuade other astronomers first.

It isn't as if scientific discourse is off limits to non-professionals. Many journals are free, and you can probably get most at a good public library. But if you find journals to be too hard to read, then you don't know enough about the field to usefully have an opinion on heterodox viewpoints in it.

btilly• 14 years ago

When Galileo made his discoveries he didn't start handing out pamphlets in the city square, he worked to persuade other astronomers first.

And when he failed at that, he did the equivalent of handing out pamphlets in the city square - he wrote a popular book. That is what he got punished for.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chi... for the book.

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

The thing that makes TED(x) interesting is the broad range of topics, new ideas and unknown facts being presented, even if they are on the fringe of science. It's supposed to provoke thought, questioning and insights. If instead it becomes just another platform for established, proven ideas, what makes it different from a guest speaker round in a local school?

shawn-butler5• 14 years ago

I don't even think they are popularization to be honest. As that would involve an effort to educate or inform about the state of the art. Neil deGrasse Tyson is an effective popularizer (but not a very good one); Richard Feynman excelled as a popularizer.

TEDx seems to be more about entertaining than informing a certain audience that attends because they want to feel part of the brand. It's like how Reader's Digest and Book-of-the-Month clubs formulated middlebrow culture and profited from middle class desire.

It could be argued that TEDx is the contemporary equivalent of salon culture that flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries. [0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)

napoleond• 14 years ago

It's basically impossible for people outside the scientific community related to a specific field to independently test or verify extremely progressive science in that field; if scientists working in that field are unable or unwilling to validate extremely progressive theories that is a separate problem from the fact that, to the layman, those theories are entirely indistinguishable from pseudo-science.

I can understand why an organisation like TED would prefer to err on the side of false positives over true negatives when it comes to their bullshit detector.

greenyoda• 14 years ago

"It's basically impossible for people outside the scientific community related to a specific field to independently test or verify extremely progressive science in that field..."

That's not necessarily true. For example, a statistician may not know anything about biology or medicine, but she could prove that a paper in a biomedical research journal was worthless by showing that the authors didn't get statistically significant results or made errors in their statistical computations.

Or someone with no knowledge of the field at all could notice that a paper that was cited as a supporting reference for a claim had been later withdrawn by its authors after being busted for scientific misconduct.

nollidge3• 14 years ago

99.9999% of scientific discovery is incremental progress. Even general relativity didn't throw out Newton's work - it just added an entire new dimension to it (so to speak).

protomyth4• 14 years ago

So, discuss the next Willow bark extract at a different forum first.

Symmetry7• 14 years ago

I suspect you're being sarcastic or flippant there, but yes that is precisely what you should do if you've got a new Willow bark extract. Some forum with the sort of medical expertise to compare your extract to current treatments.

protomyth4• 14 years ago

Not really being sarcastic or flippant, willow bark extract figures prominently in the history of aspirin and I would suspect something similar might happen again. I would suggest picking a different forum.

Personally, given the list, I would think TEDx would be better off discussing anything but science. It would save on staff time and possible future embarrassment. There are many topics that could fill the gap that don't often have a forum.

evv• 14 years ago

I hate the phrase "bad science." Can't we just call this not science?

marekmroz• 14 years ago

Pseudoscience would also work, and is easier to say than non-science.

hdctambien• 14 years ago

I agree with ChuckMcM's comment above, but I like how "non-science" sounds like "nonsense" when you say it out loud.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Except a number of these folks think of themselves as doing "science" they have "experiments" and "controls" and "theories" and more confirmation bias than is healthy. But they miss the bit about the 'review' and 'challenge' aspects of 'Good' science.

There is "bad science" done by earnest people, just like there is "bad music" created by earnest musicians. Properly labeling it as "bad" indicates that with work it can become "good" through better education about the scientific method, labeling it as "psudeo" dismisses the work outright and thus discourages folks who might actually have something from learning how to test whether or not they really do.

sunwooz• 14 years ago

"Holds a nonstandard degree. For instance, if the physics-related speaker has a degree in engineering, not physics; if the medical researcher does not have an M.D. or Ph.D.; if the affiliated university does not have a solid reputation. This is not snobbery; if a scientist truly wishes to make an advance in their chosen field, they’ll make an effort to engage with other scholars"

What? Not having a degree in something disallows you to "make an effort to engage with other scholars"? Just saying you're not snobbery does not make it "not snobbery".

bryze5• 14 years ago

Along the same vein: "The proposed speaker works for a university and/or has a phD or other bona fide high level scientific qualification". Many of the points they list are valid, but this conspicuous appeal to authority makes me much less inclined to watch the talks.

pekk• 14 years ago

If they are having a problem with perpetual-motion trolls and people speaking well outside their field of expertise then it is a valid reaction. If you are speaking on an academic subject then the default should be that there be some reason to believe you are credible on that subject.

jpdoctor4• 14 years ago

> but this conspicuous appeal to authority makes me much less inclined to watch the talks.

You prefer non-authoritative information?

Permit• 14 years ago

An appeal to an authority who is an expert in the field is not a logical fallacy. It makes complete sense to want to hear about global warming from a climate scientist.

wpietri2• 14 years ago

The TED folks are definitely not making an argument from authority; if they were they would say: all things said by people with scientific bona fides are true and you can't question them.

Instead, they're correctly observing that there's a correlation between scientific bona fides and scientifically accurate speakers. And that organizers will be better off if they use that as one rule of thumb in evaluating speakers, which is also true.

You only see an argument from authority because you've reduced their argument to a straw man. The purpose of TEDx isn't to be a final arbiter of all things true; it's just to surface things that are true and interesting.

babarock• 14 years ago

I agree with you that it's poorly worded, however keep in mind that they're giving red flags. The way I understand it they mean "clues that the speaker might be engaging in pseudo-science" and not a definitive arbitrary rejection.

Experience can teach you certain things, even if not 100% politically correct. What they're doing is simply passing on their experience to other TEDx organizers.

lukifer• 14 years ago

So in other words, one is supposed to detect bad science using bad science?

If I were to take the stage saying "I can't disprove Theory X using empirical data, but here are some red flags that cast that theory into doubt", many would consider that textbook pseudoscience.

I'm not saying that red flags and intuition have no value, but they should be taken with a boulder of salt, and definitely not suggested to a layperson who may not have the experience and context to know when red flags should and should not be applied.

jpdoctor4• 14 years ago

> For instance, if the physics-related speaker has a degree in engineering, not physics;

Yeah, that set off my WTF alarm too. I don't think it's news to TED admins that the line between physics and engineering is messy (I worked on quantum devices but (surprise!) engineering degrees paid substantially more in the 80s so my PhD is engineering.)

I'm gonna guess there's a backstory and they got burned hard.

jlgreco4• 14 years ago

No so much a back-story as several back-stories all with the common theme of quacks, sometimes with degrees in irrelevant fields, making plainly false claims.

theorique• 14 years ago

Likewise - my PhD is engineering, but my advisor was cross-appointed and I published primarily in Physics journals.

Any due diligence done by a TEDx committee should find this, though.

drzaiusapelord• 14 years ago

>Not having a degree in something disallows you to "make an effort to engage with other scholars"?

For non-trivial things? Yes, generally. Why not?

I mean, why do guys with phds in earth science or geology have to get lumped in with nuts like Neal Adams and his expanding Earth bullshit? Why would Tedx weigh them as the same?

I'm so sick of this "My bullshit is just as good as your facts" Fox News mentality. There should be discrimination and vetting and standards. The world simply has too many opportunistic and money hungry crackpots. These guys can go start their own little events.

The problem with branding yourself as a rebel outlet is that only a very, very small percentage of rebels know what they're doing. Climate change was once a rebel position, but the science backs it up, so we can rely on a basic form of meritocracy in academia to help unpopular ideas along. We don't need comic book artists going to conventions and yelling about "the establishment holding down expanding earth theory" and then trying to get a talking gig next to a real scientist who gives a shit about the science.

This also applies to guys speaking outside their fields too. Okay your phd is in engineering but you want to give a speech on how global warming is fake? Yeah, no thanks.

guscost4• 14 years ago

Do you think that it would be possible for someone who doesn't agree with global warming alarmism to complete a PhD in Climate Science? Honest question.

jeffdavis• 14 years ago

The problem with that statement is how specific it is. There are many routes to credibility in a field that might be perfectly normal and consistent with mainstream science. Limiting it only to people with PhDs in the specific field from select universities is snobbery.

What if I had some interesting advance to present in the field of computer science, and I had plenty of data to back it up, and it got listed on Hacker News and my peers on this site reviewed it and agreed with my conclusions? But then I only have an EE degree, so that's a "red flag" because I "didn't make an attempt to engage with other scholars"?

Credibility is a difficult subject to pin down, but science is not an exclusionary endeavor. All you really need to be credible is the review of other credible people, and universities are not the only places to find such people. Similarly, lots of people use a PhD to give themselves false credibility.

lutusp9• 14 years ago

>> Not having a degree in something disallows you to "make an effort to engage with other scholars"?

> For non-trivial things? Yes, generally. Why not?

Because science rejects authority, preferring evidence. If those who are listening can't evaluate the evidence, then they're reduced to asking about degrees, but this is dangerous -- there are as many charlatans with degrees as there are without. Recent case in point:

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/10/diederik-s...

A quote: "Stapel resigned in 2011 after an investigation revealed that he made up the results in many of his eye-catching social psychology studies. So far, 25 of his papers have been retracted; a commission is still investigating others."

All of his papers were published in peer-reviewed journals.

jmilloy2• 14 years ago

No, that's not what it means at all.

What it says is, "If a scientist truly wishes to make an advance..., they'll make an effort to engage with other scholars." In other words, anyone holding a nonstandard degree who is serious will engage other scholars who do have standard degrees.

Having a nonstandard degree is a red flag. Having engaged scholars who have a standard degree reduces that red flag, while the opposite supports it.

Symmetry7• 14 years ago

You misread that as backwards of what the author said. It's not that having a nonstandard degree disallows you from making an effort to engage with other scholars. It requires you to make an effort to engage with other scholars.

Turing wasn't a biologist, but when he had ideas about biology he published them in Biology journals and so it would be perfectly appropriate to have had him give a Ted talk on Biology, for instance.

fatbird7• 14 years ago

It's not a strict criterion, but it's a great heuristic for whether or not someone knows what they're talking about. Sometimes an outsider makes a valuable contribution to a field, but 99% of the time, it's a crank blaming his lack of a degree on his exclusion from the standard outlets.

This is less true in fields like programming where a lot of self-educated people still work happily. But in fields like physics that demand years of intense study just to grasp the field properly, then yeah, whether or not you have the relevant degree is a pretty good signifier of whether or not you're peddling bullshit.

dpapathanasiou• 14 years ago

Ironically enough, the current issue of Wired magazine has an article praising TED for creating the TEDx franchise and allowing anyone to use its brand: http://www.wired.com/business/2012/11/ff-tedx/

omnisci• 14 years ago

"It has been published in a peer reviewed journal (but beware… there are some dodgy journals out there that seem credible, but aren’t.)"

Dodgy journals should be omitted from everything relating to science. It's a shame that many of them get picked up by the mass media and blown out of proportion.

Also, the peer review system is so faulted that even bad studies make it into good journals due to politics. Thanks for the post OP, it continues to drive me to get my company started which will hopefully reduce the amount of "bad science" data out there.

pbharrin• 14 years ago

The TED community is full of snobbery.

HOWEVER: I'm glad they are blowing the whistle on pseudo science related to GMO food.

zzzeek5• 14 years ago

some good articles and analysis regarding GMO, generally opposed to it as performed in practice (not necessarily in theory), from the Union of Concerned Scientists:

http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-...

> We see that the technology has potential benefits, but we are critics of its commercial application and regulation to date. GE has proved valuable in some areas (as in the contained use of engineered bacteria in pharmaceutical development), and some GE applications could turn out to play a useful role in food production.

> However, its applications in agriculture so far have fallen short of expectations, and in some cases have caused serious problems. Rather than supporting a more sustainable agriculture and food system with broad societal benefits, the technology has been employed in ways that reinforce problematic industrial approaches to agriculture. Policy decisions about the use of GE have too often been driven by biotech industry PR campaigns, rather than by what science tells us about the most cost-effective ways to produce abundant food and preserve the health of our farmland.

these are the real reasons GMO is better off being opposed, as long as companies like Monsanto are in charge of it.

mseebach2• 14 years ago

This is a political argument masked as a scientific one. Unless they have peer reviewed research to back up their opinion, it's irrelevant to the point of dishonesty (appeal to authority) that they are scientists.

jhawk28• 14 years ago

This removes any talks related to evolution unless it is "micro evolution": "Is not based on experiments that can be reproduced by others"

estel• 14 years ago

It doesn't remove those talks at all, it says that these are factors to consider when trying to determine if a talk is likely to perpetuate a hoax or not. Just because there are exceptions to any of these flags doesn't mean they aren't valid criteria.

splawn• 14 years ago

"experiments that can be reproduced by others" is just one example of a theory making a prediction, imo. Effects of "macro evolution" (macro vs micro is usually a distinction only made by creationists) have made such predictions. Here is a famous example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthopan_morgani

tokenadult2• 14 years ago

The scientific theory of macroevolution makes a series of interconnected testable predictions, all of which have held up as new natural history discoveries and controlled experiments have been made over the last century and a half.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

mogrim4• 14 years ago

Escherichia coli. Go look it up.

SeanLuke• 14 years ago

Why not just peer-review the Tedx proposals?

jpdoctor4• 14 years ago

Who will peer-review the peer reviewers?

toddmorey• 14 years ago

I'm curious if any knows of a particular talk that prompted this response. I did a brieft search but didn't uncover much.

rm9992• 14 years ago

The article links to a reddit thread that links to this thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/tedtalks/comments/1443ke/the_ted_nam...

It looks like the issue was with the speakers at a specific event, not just a specific talk.

shrikant• 14 years ago

This probably didn't prompt the proposal (given that this speech was in June 2011), but at the time certainly contributed to the loss of TEDx credibility: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtNRHo_AMfM

> Conventional medicine failed to help him, but an introduction to nutrition and alternative health care completely changed the quality of his life and health forever. A homeopathic doctor, Lindsey opened Home Nutrition Clinic in Santa Monica, California in 1985.

DanBC2• 14 years ago

Depressing that a list of calm mostly common-sense suggestions is seen as some deeply flawed oppressive list.

The HN kneejerk contrarianism is a bit frustrating.

jlgreco4• 14 years ago

Quite so. They are not proposing a blacklist of all people without degrees in their subject matter.. they are presenting general guidelines to skepticism to a group of people (TEDx organizers) who seem to have forgotten their skeptics cap at home a few times too often.

There should be nothing controversial about telling people to be on their toes when somebody without a relevant degree tries to tell you something fantastic.

sliverstorm2• 14 years ago

You may not have noticed, but HN is fairly negative about college degrees, so many people probably see the bit about degrees as a personal attack on their beliefs.

tokenadult2• 14 years ago

Other comments in this thread helpfully explain the context of these recommendations. The TEDx brand name is now used to label local events set up by busy volunteers who need criteria for evaluating speaking proposals. The majority of the criteria are sensible and helpful, but I see one criterion that is overly broad, as another subthread first noted.

Well, unless what is meant here by "make an effort to engage with other scholars" is publish in the same peer-reviewed journals as the scholars with the expected credentials, this criterion sweeps up too many path-breaking scientists. I will give one famous example. James R. Flynn is a researcher on human intelligence who has had several peer-reviewed publications in Psychological Bulletin, the premier research journal on psychology in the United States.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=author%3AJames+author%3A...

But Flynn's Ph.D. degree is in sociology, not in psychology. He looks at the discipline of psychology as an outsider, and it is precisely that outsider's view that helped him make a discovery missed by dozens of psychologists. He discovered that IQ scores have been rising in national populations all over the world during the last century, and that trend of rising raw scores on IQ tests is now called the "Flynn effect" in his honor.

Here is what the late psychologist Arthur Jensen said about Flynn back in the 1980s: "Now and then I am asked . . . who, in my opinion, are the most respectable critics of my position on the race-IQ issue? The name James R. Flynn is by far the first that comes to mind." Modgil, Sohan & Modgil, Celia (Eds.) (1987) Arthur Jensen: Concensus and Controversy New York: Falmer. Here's what Charles Murray (all right, not a psychologist nor a geneticist) says in his back cover blurb for Flynn's book What Is Intelligence?:

http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Beyond-Flynn-Effect/...

"This book is a gold mine of pointers to interesting work, much of which was new to me. All of us who wrestle with the extraordinarily difficult questions about intelligence that Flynn discusses are in his debt." As psychologist N. J. Mackintosh (1998, p. 104) writes about the data Flynn found: "the data are surprising, demolish some long-cherished beliefs, and raise a number of other interesting issues along the way." Flynn has earned the respect and praise of any honest researcher who takes time to read the primary source literature. Robert Sternberg, Ian Deary, Stephen Pinker, Stephen Ceci, Sir Michael Rutter, and plenty of other eminent psychologists recommend Flynn's research. So, yes, sometimes "an effort to engage with other scholars" will happen after a scholar has already earned his last academic degree, and a scholar that has an important concept named after himself by people who have the standard degree will never have the standard degree for the field in which he made his mark.

EDIT PROMPTED BY SECOND REPLY: I'll attempt to be clear here. If the TEDx criteria included "has never been published in any major journal related to their chosen field" rather than "holds a nonstandard degree" not related to their chosen field (to speak about), I might have fully agreed with the criteria from the get-go. But degrees are both an overinclusive criterion and an underinclusive criterion. In other words, using degrees as a criterion for vetting speakers lacks both sensitivity and specificity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity

Instead, look at publications as the relevant criterion. A person who has peer-reviewed publications in a good-quality medical journal is competent to speak on the issues discussed in that person's publications, with or without a medical degree, while a person with the M.D. degree who has never published in anything but "alternative medicine" journals is not well qualified to speak about medicine. Publications matter more than degrees, as the example of James R. Flynn I gave in the original edit of this post shows.

On the broader "demarcation problem" of distinguishing science from pseudoscience, a really valuable recently published book is The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe by Michael D. Gordin,

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0226304426

which I found to be quite an interesting read, full of historical and ideological connections I had not heard about before. The author, a historian of science based at Princeton University, makes clear that demarcating between "science" and "pseudoscience" is not at all easy in any era. Reviewers generally like this book, as I did.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=42...

http://www.tnr.com/book/review/pseudoscience-wars-michael-go...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044470900457765...

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n21/steven-shapin/catastrophism

jlgreco4• 14 years ago

The issue that TEDx has been having is not that talks have been given that are "maybe pseudoscience-ish". Not stuff in which an unclear demarcation line is an issue. Rather the issue is that talks have been given that are plainly bullshit to anybody with a few braincells still firing. We are talking crystal and pyramid levels of bullshit here. Barely above the level of mad ravings on a street corner.

The issue with botched skepticism among TEDx organizers appears to be so severe that the guidelines to skepticism given, no matter how crude, are entirely justified.

zevyoura2• 14 years ago

Could you give an example of one that's particularly egregious? I've seen a couple that seemed questionable (based on my gut feeling, not any specific knowledge of the subject), but none that seemed as absurd as the crystal folks.

Symmetry7• 14 years ago

I'm curious as to why you think publishing in peer-reviewd journals wouldn't count as "make an effort to engage with other scholars". Honestly, I'd take that, or being a speaker at a mainstream conference, or getting someone with a relevant PhD to say something nice about you as clearly passing that hurdle.

shawn-butler5• 14 years ago

TedX are equivalent to local Grammy awards. They are just an excuse for people to get together and give themselves exposure in local context as experts or best practitioners. It's just promotional.

Also, Shapin is not a very respected historian. Social history of truth is more fiction promoting an agenda than history. I wouldn't cite him if I were you or only with caution.

csours• 14 years ago

I think these should be taken as permissive guidelines rather than exclusive guidelines, that is if several of them are true you should beware rather than excluding a speaker based on a single rule.

kevinpet2• 14 years ago

Your counter example is poor. Flynn holds a degree in a related (but not closely related) field. He holds a PhD from a real university. He has published in the leading journals for his area of research.

The only possible way he triggers any of these red flags is a degree in sociology rather than psychology. These are red flags calling for more scrutiny, not strict conditions. And indeed, it seems like Flynn does deserve more scrutiny. He's clearly a legitimate scientist doing important work, but this is despite the red flag of being someone from a different field offering up theories that go against previously established science. He shares several of the quickly observable features of a crank.

How do we know he isn't a crank? Because he's published in the leading journals and other scientists who meet the "not a crank" test have said that his work is worthwhile.

In short, this is not a false alarm by the "red flags". This is a correct alarm.

wisty• 14 years ago

The original example was poor. Engineering and Physics are closely related fields.

jmilloy2• 14 years ago

It's very simple. Using this document, you might interpret Flynn's psych degree as a "common warning sign" and so, as the document suggests, "be alert". A cursory search of Flynn's work, as you show, would alleviate those concerns immediately. The document doesn't claim to be a blacklist and doesn't read that way.

Furthermore, "Engage with other scholars" certainly does includes publishing in peer-reviewed journals; why wouldn't it? And beyond that, some of those publications are co-authored.

pseut2• 14 years ago

I agree with your point in general, but given this statement from the post:

> Start with some basic web research. You should be able to understand at least the big issues in every field you present onstage. Wikipedia is your first stop to gain a basic background.

(emphasis mine) you might be expecting too much of the TEDx organizers. If they're referring these people to Wikipedia to evaluate the speakers credentials, probably reading off the degree name is closer to their capabilities than evaluating the scope and prominence of their research.

jaredcwhite2• 14 years ago

Why is it bad science to be radically questioning the status quo? For centuries many major scientific breakthroughs have been in spite of the dogma of the scientific community of its day. Statements like good science = "It does not fly in the face of the broad existing body of scientific knowledge" or bad science = "Has failed to convince many mainstream scientists of its truth" is just garbage. Sickening to me, in fact. Everything that so-called "fringe psuedoscientists" complain about in regards to the arrogant elitism of the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of science are validated with this kind of letter.

Dislike.

jlgreco4• 14 years ago

It isn't "bad science" to be suggesting something radical... but it is suspicious.

> "Everything that so-called "fringe psuedoscientists" complain about in regards to the arrogant elitism"

Either you are not very familiar with the claims many psuedoscientists make about that, or you are using a very loose definition of "everything".

There is no conspiracy to silence anybody. TED is just advocating very basic common sense and skepticism.

lutusp9• 14 years ago

> Why is it bad science to be radically questioning the status quo?

It's not bad science unless the "questioning" isn't accompanied by evidence. Science is not steered by authority, but by evidence.

If you have authority but no evidence, scientists won't listen to you. Example Nobel Prizewinner Linus Pauling's claims about vitamin C and the common cold.

If you have evidence but no authority, scientists will listen to you. Example Albert Einstein, who as a lowly patent clerk overthrew much of the physics of his day -- but only after evidence and observation began to support his theories.

In science, evidence means everything, reputation means nothing. The greatest amount of scientific eminence is trumped by the smallest amount of scientific evidence.

mogrim4• 14 years ago

> In science, evidence means everything, reputation means nothing.

That's a bit optimistic, in the long run it may be true, but over shorter time periods reputation and authority often discourage proper criticism.

jaredcwhite2• 14 years ago

I agree with your last sentence. However, we're not talking about science as a discipline. We're talking about the community of human beings within the scientific community. In that regard, reputation quite often trumps evidence. If you don't believe that, you have a far higher opinion of human nature than is warranted.

1123581321• 14 years ago

It's important to remember this is for TEDx, which can be put on by some small, humble groups. My city (hardly a scientific or academic hub) just held a TEDx and the planning committee was only able to secure one talk from someone outside of the planning committee and its immediate circle. If someone outside the area peddling bunk had applied, the committee would have probably not looked over them too closely. Additionally, the bulk of the committee members would not have had the knowledge to evaluate the scientific claims. Guidelines such as having a degree in the field about which the topic is concerned, publishing peer-reviewed and others are bright lights to help guide people who cannot discern the quality of the actual content and lack the motivation to spend a lot of time trying to find faults in a presenter.

Organizers of prestigious TEDx events, and of TED itself, have many more interesting submissions to choose from and are more qualified and more motivated to examine the quality of submitted talks, so the selection committees are more easily able to welcome quality extra-disciplinary presentations and minority opinions because they can sufficiently evaluate the actual content to be presented.

pharrington2• 14 years ago

Exactly. I think alot of the kneejerk reactions to this post are because people don't know the context of TEDx events. The post suggests these guidelines (and they are just that, guidelines, not rules) and gives warnings about reiki and free energy and crystals because quality control has been thin to non-existent, and fraudsters giving BS presentations is a real problem.

SilasX• 14 years ago

I've also seen cases of legitimate science that is nonetheless way too out-dated and unsurprising. For example, one TEDx speaker presented a bold, "game-changing" (eye-roll) presentation on how charging for roads at peak times reduces traffic.

Wow, charging for a scarce good ... why didn't I think of that???

hoverkraft• 14 years ago

"The neuroscience of [fill in the blank] — not saying this will all be non-legitimate, but that it’s a field where a lot of goofballs are right now". Love it.

ypeterholmes• 14 years ago

"Marks of bad science: Has failed to convince many mainstream scientists of its truth"

This is wrong. From Copernicus to Einstein to many others, agreeing with the "mainstream" has very little to do with science.

Symmetry7• 14 years ago

Nobody agree with Einstein and few with Copernicus before they published there work, but both were able to convince many mainstream scientists quite rapidly. In Copernicus's case not a majority, but to be fair he was fighting political oppression that doesn't exist today. And despite his theory's elegance (and ultimate truth) it was less successful at predicting the positions of planets in the heaven's than the overfited theories of his opponents with their epicycles. It wasn't until Kepler figured out how planets actually moved in ellipses (not perfect circles) that heliocentric theories provided superior experimental predictions to geocentric ones.

driverdan• 14 years ago

This is a list of potential red flags. The vast majority of people making claims that aren't accepted by mainstream science are wrong. The small percentage that are correct need to convince the scientific community before presenting at a conference like TED or TEDx.

CarlosOnline• 14 years ago

I value TED for bringing me new info. Sure some of it is not applicable, yet. However I am glad to see this info. As to its results, I take a wait and see attitude. As to the intentions be good this letter, I find it suspect. Frankly the critics should stay away from censoring TED.

pella• 14 years ago

Is Ignaz Semmelweis a TEDx compatible person?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

'The Semmelweis reflex or "Semmelweis effect" is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex

wwalker3• 14 years ago

When I saw the TEDx guys' caution about a "physics-related speaker [who] has a degree in engineering, not physics", it struck a bit of a nerve for me.

My Ph.D. is in electrical engineering, not physics. I recently got a computational physics paper accepted in a peer-reviewed journal, and I'm hard at work on a second paper. And in a different world, I could speak at a conference and no one would have to worry about my bona fides.

But I think the TEDx caution is well-founded.

Engineers are often accustomed to knowing more about science than the average person. It can be very easy for them, with the best of intentions, to convince themselves and others that they know more than they really do. It's easy to think you've got some great new idea if you don't engage existing experts in the field via peer review and reading papers.

This is not to say electrical engineers can't be authorities on physics topics -- quite the contrary! But I agree with the TEDx guys that it does merit a bit of extra checking, especially in their situation.

lutusp9• 14 years ago

> Engineers are often accustomed to knowing more about science than the average person. It can be very easy for them, with the best of intentions, to convince themselves and others that they know more than they really do.

I agree, but that's true of scientists also, many of whom have a very narrow specialty in modern times and may not be qualified to speak outside their field of expertise. Example Nobel Prizewinner William Shockley and his now-infamous lectures on the topic of race:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley#Statements_abo...

BTW I agree with you that one can make too much of a person's degree, especially when compared to actually understanding the topic to be discussed.

likpok• 14 years ago

There was some discussion a while ago about the tendency of Nobel prizewinners to go off into crazyland (see Linus Pauling, others [1]). I recall hearing some speculation that this was (somewhat) inherent to getting a prize. I think the willful ignorance of established thought (to make the great discovery) plus the feedback loop of the prize made Nobel winners uniquely confident in their more off-the-wall theories.

[1] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

mansoor-s• 14 years ago

No moere "'Free energy' and perpetual motion machines, alchemy, time travel" ?

Well... I no longer have any reason to watch ted videos

_pferreir_• 14 years ago

This was inevitable.

I've seen several speakers of dubious credibility in local TEDx events. Not necessarily people advocating unscientific things, but clearly individuals whose authority in their field of work has yet to be proven. It would be just a matter of time till TEDx became a perfect stage for self-help gurus and bad science in general.

I like the idea of spreading the TED philosophy to local communities, but they should try to make a clear distinction between the "official" TED events and TEDx. I believe most people end up thinking it's the same thing (I've seen it happen IRL). Otherwise, just follow up with the local communities more closely.

In the end, it's the TED brand that loses credibility. It's a pity since it's been doing a really nice job in the "Pop science" front...

A letter to the TEDx community on TEDx and bad science

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