Background
On January 12th, 2013, Rupert Sheldrake gave a talk entitled The Science Delusion at TEDxWhitechapel. The theme for the night was Visions for Transition: Challenging existing paradigms and redefining values (for a more beautiful world).
In response to protests from two militant materialist bloggers in the US, the talk was later taken down by TED and placed in a special corner of their website. Before being removed it had 35,000 views. Since then, its clones on YouTube and elsewhere have been watched 8.5 million times (as of Jan 2025) and it’s been translated into 28 languages.
TED “Bans” the Science Delusion | sheldrake.org
The “charges” and Rupert’s response
Open for discussion: Graham Hancock, Rupert Sheldrake, TEDxWhitechapel | TED Blog
A good summary of the controversy
TED’s Spectacular Fail: Ideas Worth SuppressingIn total, the comments for Sheldrake and Hancock have exceeded those for any other TED Talk, or any other topic on the TED website for that matter. Sheldrake shared his experience, and his conversation with Chris Anderson, in this interview on Skeptiko.
– Sebastian Penraeth
Here’s the original video, if you’d prefer to see Uncle Rupe instead.
Sheldrake’s Substack - latest essays, research videos & dialogues
His home page: www.sheldrake.org