Does colour exist?: Andrew Parker at TEDxSydney

Andrew Parker studied marine biology and physics at the Australian Museum and Macquarie University, and then moved to Oxford University. After founding the 'Light Switch Hypothesis' -- that the Big Bang of evolution was triggered by the evolution of the eye -- he now works on biomimetics, copying good design found in nature. This includes hummingbird colours for paints, non-reflective surfaces on insect eyes for solar panels, and water-capture devices in Namibian beetles for collecting clean drinking water in Africa.

He was selected as a 'Scientist for the New Century' by The Royal Institution (London) and wrote the popular science books In the Blink of an Eye and Seven Deadly Colours (Simon & Schuster). Today he is a Research Leader at The Natural History Museum, London and Green Templeton College, Oxford University.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[queenz]

Fun fact: there are colors that the human eye cannot detect. We are color blind compared to mantis shrimp. A flower may be a new color, let's refer to the color as "XYZ", but we don't have the cone cells to interpret XYZ so our eyes just see the flower as purple but in reality the flower is actually XYZ color in reality, a mantis shrimp can see the flower as XYZ but humans just see the flower as purple

[raulgalets]

ted talks like that are rare nowadays.

[kristiancolak-barac]

So colors actually dont exist its just my eye and brain

[HarryNicNicholas]

as attenborough said "the trilobite could sea anemone coming"

[manjinder]

Great talk I was thinking about colors for long time.

[alexovenden]

This learned person contradicts himself when he says on the one hand that colours don't exist unless you can see them with an eye and on the other hand talks about diffraction gratings which create colours by causing light waves to break up and that these cause some colours to be emitted and others to be absorbed by the cells of the organism. Surely, the colours which are emitted must be there even if no one or nothing sees them. It's just physics.

[bhaveshmahale]

Basically, we are all blind still we all can see.

[leedogification]

Possibly the most boring lecture I have ever seen. It also had almost nothing to do with the title. "Does color exist?" - then just talks about color. Never once relating back to trying to actually answer the lecture title. A very poorly put together lecture. A more accurate title would have been "Color creation in biology and how we can learn from it."

[Existentialist]

I disagree from the off. I think that colours, odours etc really exist out there, they are not a creation by the brain. I hypothesise that vision, smells, sounds are a form of ESP. The brain merely modifies this perception, it doesn't create these qualitative aspects of reality.