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.
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.
But on HN people tend to show their working, rather than using an irrelevant degree as a badge of authority.
There's a difference between saying "I think this is the case; here's why I think it; it needs a bit of iteration" and "I have a degree (in X); here's the truth about Y; some people disagree but they are wrong; I tried to publish this on Z but they are controlled by shills of the big industry and they squashed my free speech rights".
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.
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.
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???
"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".
>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.
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.
No, it isn't snobbery. First, they're guidelines that trigger heightened scrutiny, not an automatic exclusion. If you had an important CS result, and could point to a credible CS community accepting your result, you'd have no problems because you could survive the scrutiny. If you couldn't point to a credible CS community accepting your results, then it's perfectly appropriate for TEDx to turn you down. They're a popularizer of current scientific consensus, not a publishing avenue or outlet for new discoveries.
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.
There are no degrees in "Climate Science". But plenty of skeptics on global warming alarmism are PhD's in the relevant academic fields (one good example is Richard Lindzen at MIT), and they are still teaching students and helping some of them to get PhD's.
That said, I agree that academia is heavily skewed on the topic of global warming alarmism; I just think the skewing is more subtle than keeping skeptics from getting degrees. I think it takes the form of pressuring journals not to publish results that don't support the "consensus". And, of course, making sure that all the "official" information that politicians use to justify policies comes from the IPCC, and then controlling the IPCC process to only produce results that support the "consensus".
Hm, yes, so there is at least one degree program in "Climate Sciences" (they use the plural, not the singular, but that's a minor point). So I should amend that particular claim to: most of the people working in the field called "climate science" do not have degrees in "climate science(s)". Most of them seem to have degrees in physics, meteorology, "earth science" or some variant thereof, or geology.
I don't think this materially affects the rest of what I said.
Sure. Not if they referred to it as "alarmism", because that would indicate that they don't give a shit about the science of it, which seems problematic in a science PhD. But if they did proper science, they wouldn't have a problem.
The use of "alarmism" is a political judgment dismissing the extreme of what some scientists claim is the only possible policy choice. Ethics and cost benefit analysis is never a scientific question. The cost benefit analysis needs input from science, but it is separate from the purely scientific questions.
Science is falsification, not some kind of dogma. Questioning assumptions leads to progress, although many scholars have forgotten this inconvenient fact.
Falsification as the royal road to truth was debunked some time ago, and isn't taken very seriously in contemporary philosophy of science. Partly, because Popperian falsification only gets you so far when you look at the actual history of science.
That is, when you look seriously at what scientists do as opposed to what they say they do when they attempt to justify their work, you will find they are not falsifiers but model-builders. If you like to learn more about how Popper has fared in the philosophy of science, you might find Thomas Kuhn [0] and Paul Feyerabend [1],[2] interesting counterpoints, I would throw in the work of Larry Laudan too as it is a good overview of "realist" attempts to move beyond falsification while trying to avoid Feyerabend's embrace of "relativism." [3],[4]
Obviously alot of more recent and good literature on the subject!
[0]: Kuhn, T.S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962
[1]: 1975. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge
[2]: 1978. Science in a Free Society
[3]: 1977. Progress and its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth
[4]: 1996. Beyond Positivism and Relativism
After looking into this a bit, I can say that I don't subscribe to positivism or relativism, even if they are trendy in philosophy class these days. Both seem to reject realism and promote groupthink.
"Can we not account for both science's existence and its success in terms of evolution from the community's state of knowledge at any given time? Does it really help to imagine that there is some one full, objective, true account of nature and that the proper measure of scientific achievement is the extent to which it brings us closer to that ultimate goal?" (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 171)
I have not been publishing in many years so my reading appetite has diminished, but I think the trendy -ism in philosophy of science is not so much relativism but pluralism.
Regarding your quotation, Feyerabend explicitly rejects that science is successful and in fact has been actually harmful in understanding in the case of biology. And he argued cogently that "science" should be seperated from the state with as much rigor as "religion" is. He was one of the greatest anarchist minds I ever had the pleasure of meeting.
Nancy Cartwright makes a similar argument but keeping a realist stance about how science doesn't really make progress describing the fundamental truths about the world. That is, people usually hold up the wonders of the modern world as evidence that science progresses towards universal knowledge, e.g., jets fly! But she would say I think that jet engines do not depend at all on scientific understanding of turbulence, which tend to be completely wrong in the material world, and require all kinds of simplifications and specializations in order to make this concrete jet engine work. [0]
I fail to see why it wouldn't be possible. I assume a PhD in climatology would require 1. an understanding of the field and its state and 2. being able to perform research in the field.
I'd certainly expect somebody serious about climate change (including disagreeing with its existence or with it being anthropogenic) to be able to understand what it's about in the first place, how climate model work, how to create new model matching available data or mine for new data, etc...
And thus I see no reason why they wouldn't be able to get a climatology PhD.
Most professors I know are not professors because of the money. These are usually the people who were the best students and as such could have found nice jobs in other sectors.
And do you really think they would have difficulty getting funding for climate research contradicting the current consensus?
> And do you really think they would have difficulty getting funding for climate research contradicting the current consensus?
Indeed, as BEST showed.
edit: erm... why the downvotes? I was giving an example of a climate research study from the "climate change skeptic" side and funded in no small part by the Charles G. Koch Foundation, not exactly a proponent of anthropogenic global warming.
Did you ever study for a Ph.D? From your example it appears you did not.
There are also plenty of research lines to get a degree in climatology that does not involve studying this type of stuff and which are not exactly a political issue, after you get your Ph.D you can study whatever you want, I'm pretty sure there's lots of think tanks who would pay for research countering the global warming hypothesis.
Bullshit. A compelling counterexample to "all these graphs that keep getting published" is far and away the best way to establish your scientific reputation, get a job, get money from the NSF, etc.
>> 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:
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.
> And if someone cannot get their paper published in a system that allows such results, then what can we reasonably assume about said rejected paper?
Nothing at all, really. Remember that Wegener (plate tectonics) couldn't get published for decades after his initial theoretical proposal, on the ground that so many geologists disagreed with him. In fact, his ideas were verified only after his death.
But the publication of an idea, and the scientific standing of an idea, aren't comparable states. Scientific publication is as much a business as it is a source of the best papers science has to offer.
And to go further, scientific persuasion doesn't really depend only on publication and dissemination.
Scientists in the historical record who are successful of achieiving significant theory change use about every means at their disposal not limited to just "consensus building" but also including underhanded tactics such as excluding opponents from professional appointments, conferences, access to data and equipment, etc.
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.
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.
As the letter clearly states, tripping red flags should result in a higher level of scrutiny from the organizer. They do not, in themselves, trigger rejection.
Keep in mind that these are volunteers from a broad set of backgrounds. Their only demonstrated expertise is running small to medium events. The central TED organization is modest in size and staffed by people who are fiendishly busy. Go!
If the problem isn't tractable enough to apply hard science, then rough heuristics and human judgment are about the best you get.
The context, in this case, is a recent scandal in Valencia (Spain). If you didn't follow the links: lots of New Age, Homeotherapy, Reiki and such.
I suspect TED trusted the wrong persons. I don't know if TED has revoked their licences. Maybe there're are contracts in place and it might be difficult to walk out of them.
Under that light, this letter seems to be a public way of saying "we didn't approve what happened, next time call us if in doubt and don't say you weren't warned".
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Well argued, by far the clearest rebuttal I've read so far and I concede. I just hope that the rules of thumb they listed for "good science" are prioritized as listed, because I really believe content should be the key consideration.
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.
To clarify. The bullet points are listed under "Marks of Good Science". Holding a degree does not mean your publications or claims are good science. It's fine if Ted wants to only have degree holders as speakers, but they should be clear that it's a bias they've chosen, not "good science".
They're organizers of a conference, not academics. If you require them to replicate the experiment to prove it's good science, you're crippling them. It's perfectly appropriate for them to apply conservative heuristics to make their editorial load manageable, and a good heuristic is "has the appropriate academic credentials."
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.
Yes it does, but that doesn't make their arguments valid. My whole point is not to keep experts out, but to judge the content on its scientific merit alone.
Appealing to an authority is not a fallacy unless it's misapplied. Saying "I'd rather learn about X from an expert in X" is completely legitimate; it's common sense, really.
From your link:
>Although certain classes of argument from authority can constitute strong inductive arguments, the appeal to authority is often applied fallaciously: either the authority is not a subject-matter expert, or there is no consensus among experts in the subject matter, or both
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.
> 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:
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.
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.
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.
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]
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?
Now granted, I'm still in (probably) the first third of my life, but one thing I've come to realize is that there is too much stuff for me to learn. Even if all I ever did was sit in a room and learn stuff, I would never learn it all. Not just that, but if I sat in a room and learned only the interesting stuff, I'd still probably croak from natural causes before finishing. And even if that was all I did, why would I want to just sit in a room learning stuff if I never had time to apply it and build interesting things?
Maybe you learn faster than me. So be it. But, given all that--that I don't even have enough time in my life to learn all the interesting, no, fascinating, things that are so boring as to be considered the current scientific consensus--why should I want to waste my time listening to things that are likely to be bullshit? I don't. I don't have time for bullshit, and neither should you. But the thing is this: Just because you exclude the bullshit it doesn't follow that you can't have talks that cover the cutting edge of research in science and the humanities.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Yes, but all legitimate sciences (a) put forth falsifiable theories, and (b) abandon those theories that fail comparison with reality.
The fact that cosmologists don't perform laboratory experiments with miniature black holes doesn't reduce the scientific standing of cosmology, as long as there are equally persuasive sources of evidence to support the theories.
'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.'
"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.
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:
> 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.
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.
um. did you read any of the articles linked from that page. They are all based on factual evidence and peer-reviewed research. are you saying the union of concerned scientists just makes things up ? or that expert opinions are useless by the fact that they are opinions ?
edit: here's a summation of much of what's linked from that page from wikipedia:
> In 2009 the Union of Concerned Scientists summarized numerous peer-reviewed studies on the yield contribution of genetic engineering in the United States. This report examined the two most widely grown engineered crops—soybeans and maize (corn).[211] The report found that engineered herbicide tolerant soy and maize did not increase yield at the national, aggregate level. Maize engineered with Bt insect resistance genes increased national yield by about 3 to 4 percent. Engineered crops increased net yield in all cases. The study concluded that in the United States, other agricultural methods have made a much greater contribution to national crop yield increases in recent years than genetic engineering. United States Department of Agriculture data record maize yield increases of about 28 percent since engineered varieties were first commercialized in the mid 1990s. The yield contribution of engineered genes has therefore been a modest fraction—about 14 percent—of the maize yield increase since the mid 1990s.
I find the UCS position interesting and have no argument with the data on yield increases or the ineffectiveness of Glyphosphate-resistant GM Crops in increasing yields (Although I find this questionable from personal experience).
My experience relates to Cotton, not Maize (corn in the rest of the world) and so is more relevant to the discussion of fibre rather than food cropping
I grew up on a cotton farm in Australia and witnessed first-hand the introduction of both Bt- (branded Bollgard by Monsanto) and Roundup-Ready Cotton varieties.
I think an often overlooked aspect of the introduction of genetic modification is the Environmental and economic improvements.
For Example.
When we first started growing cotton (around 1993), in a bad (insect) season we would occasionally spray our crops 7-8 times. Stories abound of farmers getting planes in perhaps 15 times.
Enter Bt-modified Cotton - 0 Sprays.
These chemicals weren't good, and I think not spraying them was a big win for the environment. This, combined with intelligent management of resistance (Crops are required to have a 10% 'reserve' area of either unmodified Cotton or another crop the insect is attracted to, so that selective pressures don't evolve resistance), is surely a benefit that is hard to calculate and to the best of my knowledge no study of this kind has been made.
Roundup ready cotton, when introduced, meant that we saved around $100,000 per field of cotton on Cotton Chipper costs (That is exactly what it sounds like - around 80-100 people walking through the rows of cotton with hoes to chip out weeds, which will otherwise grow and contaminate the crop). This had an economic effect for us, the grower (save money) - which I must admit was not all savings as of course the cost of the technology through seed must be taken into account).
It also had an economic effect on the labourers - seasonal employees. It may be good or bad individually but economics suggests that those labourers are now driven further up the supply chain & re-allocated through the economy.
Interestingly there would have been further environmental gains if Terminator seed technology had of been introduced. I dont want to get into the ethics of terminator technology for food crops as I am also concerned about the impact any use in that area would have on continual seed usage, particuarly in developing nations as most developed nation farms use hybrid seed which must be purchased each year anyway: But i digress
Terminator technology, by rendering second generation seed sterile, would stop harsh chemicals being used to kill regrowth after the crop is harvested; and also mean that the soil may not have to be plowed which also has environmental effects in terms of fuel use, soil compaction, increased erosion and moisture loss.
Yeah, it's funny how the anti-GMO people seem unconcerned with the much worse stuff we spray in terms of pesticides. And it's not like you can avoid consuming pesticides and pesticide byproducts just by eating organic food, not when planes are saturating the area with it. GMOs have the potential to greatly decrease pesticide use.
> it's funny how the anti-GMO people seem unconcerned with the much worse stuff we spray in terms of pesticides
You are seriously suggesting that anti-GMO advocates are in favor of pesticides? Even though you disagree with the concept of organic food, it's an outrageous suggestion that people are "unconcerned".
The linked articles also contain many examples of how GMO's attempts to reduce pesticide use tend to backfire - but also, their position is, as practiced by multinational corporations like Monsanto.
Remember, the only point here is, "anti-GMO" is not "pseudoscience". There is real, expert analysis based on peer-reviewed studies behind this position.
I think what Cmccabe is trying to say is that a major benefit of GMOs would be reduction in pesticide usage, which is not something that is really heard much as a benefit of GMOs.
I agree that anti-GMO by itself is not a pseudoscience but anti-GMO is a position that is very often lumped in with other pseudosciences- 'natural' therapies, anti-vaccinationers, anti-establishment and conspiracy theory types. This is not to say there is not a legitimate point that they have, but that there is a larger cultural movement which finds their aims aligned with the anti-GMO body of knowledge, and a lot of those proponents are not known for their rational approaches to evidence.
absolutely, and it peeves me to no end when so-called "rationalists" on hacker news aren't able to understand the distinction between legitimate GMO concerns versus the more fringe cultural system that embraces the anti-GMO stance. UOCS is definitely concerned about Monsanto's profit motive taking precedence over sound ideas that benefit society, and that is a political stance, for which they've offered many reasoned and fact-based arguments. But right wing patriot/militia groups also embrace the same free market/libertarian ideals so popular on HN, yet it of course would not be at all reasonable to label any free-market enthusiast as being a wild-eyed member of the john birch society.
It peeves me to no end when people respond to my posts with what seems like some kind of pre-programmed response. I never called the anti-GMO movement "pseudoscience," never said I disagree with the concept of organic food. "The linked article" which you refer to has nothing to say about Monsanto or GMOs, except a one line bullet point that GMOs are a "red flag topic." Yet you implied otherwise in your post.
Are you actually reading what I'm writing, or just responding to what you think "someone like me" would write? Do you actually think critically about the topics at hand or just pick up the banner of some political movement and treat the debate like a football game?
If you're so concerned about food safety, then surely you are in favor of irradiation, which would prevent many e-coli deaths every year? And surely you are upset that lead and DMSO are still permitted in cosmetics by our archaic laws? Haven't heard of it? Don't come to the debate empty-handed. We're not interested in hearing your prejudices.
I never claimed you called the anti-GMO movement "pseudoscience" - I was trying to get back on topic, after you made this point:
> Yeah, it's funny how the anti-GMO people seem unconcerned with the much worse stuff we spray in terms of pesticides.
As though this is some way to dilute my argument, which it is not, since I was only talking about, anti-GMO is not pseudoscience. The articles talk about pesticides quite a bit including an analysis of alternative ways to reduce pesticide use, which they came to the conclusion were more effective than GMO methods, but that's not even a point I cared to debate and I do not wish to, I was only introducing an alternative side to the debate.
As for organic food, the most prominent rationale for organic food is that it is not treated with pesticides, a point that you flat out disagree delivers a real benefit:
> And it's not like you can avoid consuming pesticides and pesticide byproducts just by eating organic food, not when planes are saturating the area with it.
People who consume organic do feel that they are avoiding the consumption of pesticides to a profound degree. The suggestion that this effort is pointless, because "planes are saturating the area with it" in any case, is a clear disagreement with the usefulness of this fundamental tenet of organics and is strongly suggestive of an overall disdain for the concept of organics, I apologize for reading into your statement something you did not intend.
> Are you actually reading what I'm writing, or just responding to what you think "someone like me" would write?
fully
> Do you actually think critically about the topics at hand or just pick up the banner of some political movement and treat the debate like a football game?
if i were not thinking critically, you'd have seen a much more emotionally-charged diatribe about the evils of corporations and free markets and all of that and I'd get my ass handed to me in a place like HN, so yes, I thoughtfully temper the things I say to a profound degree and am extremely careful in how I present things here, thanks for implying I'm a robotic regurgitator.
> If you're so concerned about food safety, then surely you are in favor of irradiation, which would prevent many e-coli deaths every year?
I don't have an opinion on irradiation, and at this point you're diving well into the realm of assuming many things about me for no good reason, which I have not done, contrary to what you imply.
> And surely you are upset that lead and DMSO are still permitted in cosmetics by our archaic laws? Haven't heard of it? Don't come to the debate empty-handed. We're not interested in hearing your prejudices.
I came only with links to peer-reviewed studies and scientific assessments from a well known and respected, if not somewhat politically oriented, scientific organization, which directly support the single point I wished to make, which is that the anti-GMO movement is not a pseudoscientific one. My opinions about Hacker News posters actually was not referring to you, it was referring to the original poster, perhaps you felt I was attacking you as you appear to be quite hostile at this moment.
I know better than to post prejudicially on hacker news. It doesn't fly very far, hence I'm extremely careful to act instead as a steward for reputable sources of information in areas where I certainly have opinions, but not the expertise, which would allow me to comment independently of including some very good sources. It is absurd to suggest that a person is not entitled to an opinion of something without that person themselves being an expert in that subject area, when that person is presenting these opinions backed up by expert analysis. We all have to make decisions every day based on our own curation of the expertise of others. I've come to this discussion only with references to expert analysis and it appears you've come to it mostly with frustration. Please try not to be so offended as I intended no offense towards you.
If there is just one point I can make, it is this. I have no intention or authority to debate GMO. I only came to say, the anti-GMO position is not an unscientific one, reputable experts have published worthwhile rebuttals to GMO, and here are some of them. In fact, it's not even an anti-GMO position, as I made clear, it's a "concern about GMO as currently practiced" position. I have absolutely no issue with ethical and proven-to-be-beneficial-to-society applications of GMO. If you'd like to debate, please read all the articles I've posted and then discuss your rebuttals to their points, I'd love to read that. That is all.
Let's be clear about this. If there are negative things that Monsanto, or any other company, is doing, then by all means let's discuss them. But I don't see why GMOs themselves are bad. If that is your position as well, then you aren't "anti-GMO" but just "anti-Monsanto."
I like organic food and I eat it when I get a chance. At the end of the day, it's a luxury product, like fine wine or private jets. It's something that's inherently expensive because the labor it requires is greater than that of conventional agriculture. We can't feed the populations of tomorrow with the methods of the past.
Perhaps in time some new technology like robotics will come along to square this circle. In the meantime, we're stuck with the agricultural economics we've got.
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...
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.
"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."
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.
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?:
"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.
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,
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.
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.
A lot of physics quackery comes from engineers.* Their knowledge of advance physics is generally nowhere near that of a physics PhD, but their title lends them credibility to many people.
I don't know about physics, but a few years ago here in Argentina there was a epidemy of "engineers that solved the Goldbach conjecture". A few (¿maybe 5?) of my math Ph.d. students friends had each one his/her own engineer with a different unrelated proof.
The histories where all different, but generally it was a long (100 pages) proof that was involved and not very clear. So the math Ph.d. student and the engineer meet weekly for one year to try to understand the proof. It was very painful because they have to understand which part was only unclear or has only small gaps, and which parts had errors that were impossible to fix. And then they had to explain that to the engineer, that were happy to had solved the conjecture.
All of this is in a scientific field that there isn't too much money, press coverage or social prestige involved (not like a "cure for cancer"). So I think that in more applicable fields the problem is worse.
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.
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.
I am speechless... What appals me the most though is the applause and cheers at the end, even one person -- that I could see -- standing up while clapping. As far as I could tell this talk was generated by a bot(something like this: http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/) or something and nobody seemed to notice anything wrong. Just a stream of jargon strung together in what seems like english.
Another gem from this video, not that there is a shortage of them - at 3:55 - "It makes us into a vortex machine, sucks things in at the top and shoots them out of the bottom"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> And I really hope you're being ironic using a Feynman quote there!
If you had met Feynman, you would realize when he said something like that, he wasn't posing as any kind of authority. This naturally reminds me of one of my favorite Einstein quotes:
"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself."
Paul, I just looked you up and realised of course you would have met Feynman.
Although he died when I was 3, Reading books by and about him when I was going through my final years of undergrad changed the course of my life - I am now a final year medical student due to the influence of him and, subsequently, Carl Sagan.
so, I guess this is just a hand wave across the internet at someone who has achieved much and met one or more of my intellectual idols.
ps. I find your aperger's by proxy article very interesting.
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.
> However, we're not talking about science as a discipline ...
I have to say that, when I use the word "science", I'm not talking about scientists, but scientific principles. I do this because science exists primarily to defend against all the ways scientists will get it wrong without the discipline science provides.
> We're talking about the community of human beings within the scientific community.
It is because of that "community" and its foibles that science exists and has its present form.
> If you don't believe that, you have a far higher opinion of human nature than is warranted.
I hope you see now that it's exactly the reverse of your assumption.
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.
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.
Yes, I know how willow bark extract relates to aspirin. And if you think you've made a similarly important medical discovery you really shouldn't be making TED talks, but rather publishing in a journal first, and then maybe founding a medical startup to produce a medicine based on it.
Until you've demonstrated that you can actually make a safe and effective medicine based off of your discovery there really isn't much point in doing a TED or TEDx talk.
and that's what I said - twice - don't use TEDx for the next science discovery
I happened to use "willow bark extract" as my example because it would have been a red flag in the guidelines and last month was "Native American Heritage Month" in the US and it happened to come up as a bit of trivia.
I really don't know what you seem to think I am saying other than repeating what I said as some opposition. Whatever point seems to resonate with someone given my down votes.
At this point, I really wish all down voters had to give their reasons.
I give a perfectly fine example of something that would fit in the guidelines as a warning that you should probably discuss somewhere else and get down voted. Meanwhile Symmetry does two insulting posts which give the same point I already gave as if I was on the other side and I get down voted responding. I am well and truly at a loss.
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.
"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
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.
The HN kneejerk contrarianism is a bit frustrating.