There seems to exist an institutional ban on certain ideas and areas of inquiry. Dominant paradigms — perhaps guarded by folks with ready access to tax dollars as well as established patterns of prestige — do not allow investigation into competing paradigms.
Of course, there is a lot of competition in ideas. Paradigms shift. But only by so much. Outside a prescribed (or intuited) band of acceptable dissent, the paradigm enforcers brook no denials, no expansions of knowledge, no uncomfortable conjectures.
Here we see one. A man gives a talk at a TEDx event. It is filled with scientific findings, and recounts his “pulling at a thread” (as Walter Bosley likes to put it) that unravels from the stories of our past that are approved by academic historians, paleontologists, geologists, et al. It is a fairly popular talk. But the higher-ups at TED flag it as “unscientific.”
I have watched a lot of goofy TED talks. The idea that this talk is less acceptable than many of the moralistic, inspiring, weird, and downright bizarre talks on the main TED platform is preposterous.
So. What is wrong with this TEDx talk?
It is too easy to see. It explores the idea of past catastrophes and of lost ancient civilizations. This is verboten in the academic world.
It may be that folks at TED are scared. They need the cooperation of academics, and academic schools of thought are maintained with a chillingly cold grip, strangling dissent within their ranks and consigning to complete and utter disregard those who persist in the shunned speculations and scientific work.
Read the “NOTE FROM TED,” above, an image of the YouTube page that addresses the flagging of the video in question. Read it. But better yet, watch the video:
Is this really beyond the pale?
twv
Wirkman Comment 