Banned TED Talk: The Science Delusion - Rupert Sheldrake at TEDx Whitechapel

Re-uploaded (again, just in case), since TED's Chris Anderson censored Rupert Sheldrake, along with Graham Hancock, and removed this video and Hancock's from the TEDx YouTube channel. They dared question the Scientistic Orthodoxy, and for that they have been publicly castigated and defamed. Follow this link for TED's dubious statement on the matter (and the many comments appropriately critical of TED's rationale):

Presumably TED disavows any copyright claim, as they've disavowed association with the videos.

BIO:
Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. (born 28 June 1942) is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he was a Scholar of Clare College, took a double first class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He then studied philosophy and history of science at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University.

While at Cambridge, together with Philip Rubery, he discovered the mechanism of polar auxin transport, the process by which the plant hormone auxin is carried from the shoots towards the roots.

From 1968 to 1969, based in the Botany Department of the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, he studied rain forest plants. From 1974 to 1985 he was Principal Plant Physiologist and Consultant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, where he helped develop new cropping systems now widely used by farmers. While in India, he also lived for a year and a half at the ashram of Fr Bede Griffiths in Tamil Nadu, where he wrote his first book, A New Science of Life.

From 2005-2010 he was the Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project funded from Trinity College,Cambridge. He is a Fellow of Schumacher College , in Dartington, Devon, a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences near San Francisco, and a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut.

He lives in London with his wife Jill Purce and two sons.

He has appeared in many TV programs in Britain and overseas, and was one of the participants (along with Stephen Jay Gould, Daniel Dennett, Oliver Sacks, Freeman Dyson and Stephen Toulmin) in a TV series called A Glorious Accident, shown on PBS channels throughout the US. He has often taken part in BBC and other radio programmes. He has written for newspapers such as the Guardian, where he had a regular monthly column, The Times, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Sunday Times, Times Educational Supplement, Times Higher Education Supplement and Times Literary Supplement, and has contributed to a variety of magazines, including New Scientist, Resurgence, the Ecologist and the Spectator.

Books by Rupert Sheldrake:
A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (1981). New edition 2009 (in the US published as Morphic Resonance)
The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1988)
The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God (1992)
Seven Experiments that Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (1994) (Winner of the Book of the Year Award from the British Institute for Social Inventions)
Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals (1999) (Winner of the Book of the Year Award from the British Scientific and Medical Network)
The Sense of Being Stared At, And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind (2003)
The Science Delusion (2012, published in the US as Science Set Free)

[TheNymoo]

Finally someone talking REAL science as a method of inquiry, not science as a religion. this is refreshing, awesome material.

[vaughnslavin]

This man is not tearing down science, he is pointing out where the scientific community is not questioning previous assumptions, or established meal tickets to research grants. Set science free!

[trancerp]

Many people commenting here seem to interpret that this gentleman is tearing down science, perhaps in favor of religion. I disagree. His speech is about dogmatism, which can exist both in science and religion. At the very end of his speech, he restates the importance of science as well as the perils of dogmatism and why scientists should keep an open mind.

[janoycresva]

They censor this but their talk on pedophelia is totally ok to have up.

[davidowens]

I categorically oppose any and all censorship. If I don't 'like' an opinion, I ignore it. Censorship shuts down

[gfdthree]

Being banned is the highest honor. Your adversaries admit the power of your words

[tombrunila]

"Advances are made by answering questions.
Discoveries are made by questioning answers."
Bernard Haisch

[DixonWangYF]

This is a brilliant talk! I have no idea why they censor it. This man calls for an open-minded attitude to never stop questioning even the most commonly-known beliefs in the scientific community, so that we may discover new facts and develop new theories that can course-correct our understanding of the universe and ourselves, as opposed to everybody falling for the dogmatic assupmtions and not moving foward. I loved it when he said "Dogmatic assumptions inhibit inquiry".

[karlp]

Total irony. A TED talk that questions scientific orthodoxy gets banned by the scientific community for being unorthodox.

[normbabbitt]

I find it so amazing that just the questioning is so threatening.  Is this because the dogma of science is as much a religion as dogmatic religion which fears and cannot tolerate, contemplate or even let peep deep questioning!

[joshjohnson]

It disturbs me that this was banned...forget your beliefs or worldview this hurts everyone. We are all adults here and I imagine we all want to learn. Censorship is the enemy. How can we even study the discoveries or claims made when schmuck companies or organizations want to de-platform people suggesting their ideas. What do you all think?

[hermanthegerman]

Thanks for sharing. I'ts a shame for TED to have this removed, and does not shed a good light on them nor on "modern science", if censorship is the only way they can deal with it.

[branchingvine]

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” -Nikola Tesla

[briandoyle]

I remember my fascination in college learning about Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. The professor began the lecture by saying that the key assumption was that the speed of light is constant in all inertial reference frames: everything else in the theory is mathematically rigorous. I recall thinking at the time, "but what if it's not??" Everyone seemed to agree that it must be so, and I dropped the now. The implications of Dr. Rupert's hypothesis are staggering. When it comes to understanding the Universe, we are like the frog at the bottom of a well who thinks he knows the ocean.

[dixietarian]

"Oh dear, you've uncovered the most embarrassing episode in the history of our science."
"We don't like to use the word 'fudge'... we prefer to call it 'intellectual phase locking'."
These are the money quotes.

[MrThenry]

When someone is banned, they hit a nerve.

[davidanderson]

"There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's all right, it's the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of science."
- Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

[franklinmiller]

Science is supposed to question everything except science????

[paullelievre]

why would this be banned? I think we should question everything ....

[freecharles]

Always remember you get the most flak when you’re over your target