From Celia Farber, at “The Truth Barrier”:
“Now TED has made a very bad mistake, gone too far, as the arrogant always do.
This has caused a revolutionary fervor to seize the comments section at the marginalized Bad Children’s corner they have assigned the Sheldrake and Hancock video clips to on their site, as TED founder Chris Anderson tries to excuse himself to a distant destination where he can’t respond to Hancock’s clear questions, while holding up a Wikipedia page as an attempted shield.
What is being fought here? Who are the opponents? What do they stand for?
I’ve been immersed in this war for a long time–it spans so many fields of science, from AIDS to Vaccines to Global Warming to Nutrition, Health, to Paranormal studies, parapsychology, Quantum Physics and beyond. The bullies, calling themselves “skeptics,” have had one singular weapon which has been impossible to counter, as it is designed not to be answerable, namely pure relentless mockery. Reputation destruction. Wikipedia bullying. Charges of “pseudo-science,” and “woo,” to anything at all that doesn’t conform exactly to a fiercely reductionist, materialist, market driven and frankly misogynist approach to “Science.” Anything that slows booming global bio-tech and pharmacological progressivism is “denialism” and “woo,” and any scientist who steps out of line, no matter how esteemed, how decorated or respected, is thrown into the garbage compactor.
Debate is the very thing that was removed, from the outset, to be replaced by crude censorship, proud of itself, always claiming its unquestioned right to protect the public from “bad” science, “wrong” science, “debunked” science and “irresponsible” science. The bullies found successful tactics and used them without shame: Primarily, the Denunciation: Denounce the aberrant scientist from behind closed doors, and delete, expunge, remove, their article, website, good name, presentation, job, or TED talk, under the guise of protecting their audience from erroneous and bad science. The soul of science–innocence and inquiry–were overtaken by contemptuous persecution, abuse, the all-permating Maoist sense that nobody was safe.
Rupert Sheldrake was always one of the names that could trigger the outbreak of war, as his science revolved around that which requires minds to imagine the possibility that there are worlds of meaning, occult you might call them (occult means unseen,) that transcend the known laws of physics. Telepathy, for example.
The bullies despise anything they can’t control. They are quick to label anything mysterious “crazy,” and as such, they are reminiscent of the 15th century Dutch clergymen who lived in perpetual fear of women as witches. Undiagnosed misogyny ripples through the whole drama; Real men don’t believe in woo. Real men crush woo. Real men serve industry, reason, capitalism, markets, and “real science.”
You know them by their uniformly mocking tones, always the same deadly consistency, never letting up, never allowing neutral tones in, which might suggest that the accused, bullied and mocked are human and reasonable. No, they must be demonized, abjected, and punished like children. And the public must be protected.
Their condescension is also their downfall.
Their time has come and gone–they are obsolete as the dodo. No interesting or serious minds think like they do–only businessmen and corporate shills–seeking to rape and possess the soul of “science,” which is a spirit that has never visited them, and never will. They will never invent, never find, never discover–their only roles in the big drama are mockery and disdain, and as we know, this is the sign of weak minds, disintegrating, from the subconscious knowledge that they are being overpowered and stripped of their self-claimed authority, as I write….”
The Bovine 