"(1) TED says of my “War on Consciousness” presentation: “…he misrepresents what scientists actually think. He suggests, for example, that no scientists are working on the problem of consciousness.”

I would like TED to identify where exactly in my talk they believe I say that “no scientists are working on the problem of consciousness”? Also in what other specific ways does TED believe I misrepresent what scientists actually think?

(2) TED says of my presentation: “He states as fact that psychotropic drug use is essential for an “emergence into consciousness,” and that one can use psychotropic plants to connect directly with an ancient mother culture.”

I would like TED to identify where exactly in my talk they believe I state as a fact that psychotropic drug use is essential for an emergence into consciousness. I would also like TED to identify where exactly in my talk I state that one can use psychotropic plants to connect directly with an ancient mother culture.

(3) TED states that there are many inaccuracies in my presentation which display a disrespect both for my audience and for my arguments.

I would like TED to indentify where exactly in my talk these alleged “many inaccuracies” occur.

TED says of my “War on Consciousness” presentation: “He offers a one-note explanation for how culture arises (drugs), which just doesn’t hold up.”

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Graham, greetings, and thanks for engaging here personally. We’ll try to get you some more detailed comments early next week. I’m currently tied up at National Geographic in DC helping launch the TEDxDeExtinction event (which, by the way, is an indication that we have no problem with radical scientific ideas per se.)

I understand why you’re upset at the talk being pulled off Youtube, but we’re quite serious in saying we’re not censoring you. The talk will live here as long it takes for this conversation to work itself out, and perhaps indefinitely. I must say, you’re a compelling speaker and I personally enjoyed the talk quite a bit. I can understand why you and your books have attracted a huge following.

It would help your cause to let this whole discussion calm down a little. You seem to have whipped your supporters up into a bit of a frenzy. There’s no conspiracy out to get you. We just have certain guidelines for our TEDx events that weren’t fully implemented in this instance, and it’s OK to have a public discussion about that.

So here’s a suggestion. While I reach out and see if any of our advisors is able to go into more depth in answering your specific questions, perhaps you could help me understand why your work is widely characterized as pseudo-archeology, as in the current version of this wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoarchaeology
Is that a distorted description of your views? Is mainstream archaeology simply misguided? Or is there some other explanation?

Do you agree that we should have *some* form of guidelines for our TEDx organizers as to what constitutes credible science, or do you think our approach should be let anyone put anything they want out there and just let the public decide?

I’m signing off now till Monday, but truly I would value your and your supporters’ help in turning this into a more constructive discussion.

Thanks, Graham.

Chris, your reply is very strange and does no credit to you in your role at the Curator of the TED Conference or to TED as a whole.

Quite simply the issue is this: TED has defamed me by making a number of accusations against me in this public forum on the TED website – accusations that are highly damaging to my reputation as an author and public speaker. I have asked you to substantiate those allegations which surely should be a matter of the highest priority to you if you have a genuine commitment to science and to truth. Yet instead of doing so you dodge my reasonable request for substantiation by telling me you are attending an event in DC, posing a number of irrelevant questions to me, making a reference to Wikipedia, and asking those you see as my “supporters” to “calm down a little.” This is all sleight of hand. All that is required of you here on the public record is simply to substantiate the grave allegations that TED has made against me in the introductory remarks to this page of the TED blog, or, if you cannot substantiate those allegations then retract them and apologize. Your present tactic allows the allegations to remain in the prominent opening statements to this blog page while you “reach out to see” if any of your advisers are “able to go into more depth” in answering my specific questions and while you yourself “sign off” until Monday.

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(4) TED says of my “War on Consciousness” presentation: “He offers a one-note explanation for how culture arises (drugs), which just doesn’t hold up.”

Again I would like TED to identify the point in my talk where I state this. Do I not rather say (between 1 min 06 seconds 1 min 54 seconds) that some scientists in the last thirty years have raised an intriguing possibility — emphasis on POSSIBILITY — which is that the exploration of altered states of consciousness, in which psychedelic plants have been implicated, was fundamental to the emergence into fully symbolic consciousness witnessed by the great cave art? I can cite a wide range of respectable peer-reviewed scientists who have suggested this possibility and I do not see how reporting their work, which I have every right to do, can be construed as offering “a one-note explanation for how culture arises (drugs).” Besides is every talk that touches on the origins of culture obliged to consider all possible factors that might be involved in the origins of culture? How could any speaker be expected to do that in one 18-minute talk?

(5) TED says of my “War on Consciousness” presentation: “… it’s no surprise his work has often been characterized as pseudo-archeology.”

Of what possible relevance is this remark? Many different people have characterised my work in many different ways but at issue here is not what people have said about my work over the years but the actual content of this specific TEDx presentation.

So there are the damaging and defamatory allegations TED has made against me in its website, and here again is my request that you either substantiate these allegations forthwith, or withdraw them and apologize to me prominently and publicly, allowing no further time to elapse to worsen the harm and damage you have already done.

Signed Graham Hancock, 15 March 2013, at 09:50 GMT

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Right now this comment section is over-run by the hordes of supporters sent our way by Graham Hancock

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Chris, unless I’ve missed something no-one at TED, including yourself, has replied yet to my two posts posing four questions asking TED to substantiate the allegations you have made publicly against my presentations. Answer these questions, with reference to my statements within my presentation and referring us with minutes and seconds to the exact points in my talk that you feel justify your defamatory allegations against me. You are receiving a lot of criticism here and it is patronising and shameful of you to try to write that off as “this comments section is over-run by hordes of supporters sent our way by Graham Hancock.” My “supporters” are small in numbers by comparison with the millions who log on to the TED website, but their comments deserve to be taken as seriously not dismissed in this high-handed way. You want posters to read criticisms of my work but I still await your reply to the four questions I have posed in my two original comments here. Surely, if you have a leg to stand on, then those four questions offer you an excellent opportunity to present criticisms of my work?

I liked the talk. People don't like what they don't understand... I guess Ted and his people don't understand or don't want to understand what Graham is discussing

another banned ted talk

very weird stuff. especially after seeing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wadlow

Glad it happened as i'm hoping there will now be a proper re-examination of why people are so quick to jump on the 'psudeoscience' accusation bandwaggon without fully listening with an open mind.

The comments are worth reading to see how others have responded;

a comment i found on there from the 20th:

TED, the term ‘PSEUDOSCIENCE’ is a non-scientific, propaganda term designed to insult researchers of unconventional claims. If you use that term, you are aligning yourself with aggressive political pressure groups that popularized the term. There is no need to use the term ‘pseudo-science’ at all.

It is ironic TED are being duped into using the term ‘pseudoscience’ as if performing some ethical duty, for the term ‘pseudoscience’ was first coined by a 1840s notorious vivisectionist Francois Magendie, who nailed living animals to lab benches for days to perform experiments.

The term ‘pseudoscience’ was rarely used until the 1980s because it is not a scientific term. The reason the term is all over wikipedia and other places today is that political pressure groups have put it there to try and exclude claims they dislike with a contrived list of what is and isn’t science to suit their political agenda. The term ‘pseudoscience’ is not scientific, it is a form of bigotry.

Science is a method, if enough replicated experiments produce evidence supportive of an unconventional claim, the scientific world view is supposed to accept it. Instead we see pressure groups label claims ‘pseudoscience’ and create contrived lists of what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ science with an attempt to move the goal posts from what science actually is – a method – into a dogma of preconceived prejudices.

TED’s list of pseudoscience guidelines contains circular reasoning fallacies. There is no need for such a list.

Sheldrake has long used the conventional scientific method to test unconventional claims. He has conducted randomized, blinded experiments in a properly controlled manner that rule out ‘normal’ explanations. If a conventional theory cannot explain his experimental results, one is perfectly free to speculate on other theories and create hypotheses and test these too over time. This is good science and it is exactly what Sheldrake has done for decades.

another banned one...this ones really hilarious