01/20/2014: We need to talk about TED

 
Carl Sagan (1934-1996), a Cornell University astronomy and space science professor known for his science popularization books and the “Cosmos” series, wrote in Broca’s Brain: “In exchange for freedom of inquiry, scientists are obliged to explain their work. If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern — if both its delights and its social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press, and at the dinner table — we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us.”

How to best discuss ideas in science and technology? At conferences like TED, speakers are invited to deliver a speech on “the next big idea” — their personal take on what will revolutionize their field (their own research or someone else’s). To do so, they tend to convey their ideas to the audience through the best appealing techniques of storytelling. But what are the expectations that the informed public has of science communication and of the topics in general? Can storytelling appeal to our sense of drama without leaving behind the solid scientific foundation of the story it wants to promote?

 
Benjamin Bratton seems to imply that when we present a potential technical solution, there are many other facets to it that can’t possibly be presented in a single talk. Moreover, the underlying question behind this controversy is: are we as engineers overselling the power of technology? Take the case of scientific papers. It is widely recognized among the scientific community that a paper’s abstract tends to oversell the research that it is supposed to simply expose in neutral ways. The ever more pressing need for funding in any field of innovation is a reality that has pushed science to adopt the same techniques of promotion than the best advertising firms. Hence the patronizing lesson in Bratton’s article: life is more complex than an 18-minute talk. But maybe contents like TED talks can help a knowledge-addict audience to first – roughly – sort out the kind of knowledge they want to focus on, the kind of projects they would like to know more about and the kind they would like to look further into, precisely to form a well informed opinion on the matter.

In today’s attention competition where a new viral video pops-up every day on our screens, should we blame a company like TED for spreading ideas in a more appealing way than the more conventional conferences? Should one wrestle with the righteousness and the wrongness of bringing clarified, popularized ideas to a broader audience if, in the end, it reaches an audience that would have never heard about it otherwise? Or would it be more ethical if the idea was crafted in the most neutral way to be conveyed to an audience of experts, the only judges of its scientific validity and reliability?
Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, gives us more food for thought in his reply to Bratton’s article.