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Disclaimer on TEDx Talk by Graham Hancock

TED Can Hold a Grudge: New Graham Hancock TEDx Talk Pasted with Disclaimer About ‘Counterfactual Assertions’

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Just over three years ago, TED took the extraordinary step of removing videos of TEDx presentations by ‘alternative history researcher’ Graham Hancock and ‘maverick biologist’ Rupert Sheldrake. This move met with a mountain of opposition, as TED seemed to be censoring certain ideas that challenged the orthodox worldview – and they only inflamed the situation further when they offered bogus reasoning for doing so.

This view – that TED was censoring ideas that challenged the current scientific and historical paradigm – only seemed more likely when, just a month later, they removed the licence of TEDxWestHollywood, with a theme named “Brother can you spare a paradigm”, just a couple of weeks before the event was scheduled to take place.

Fast forward to 2016, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. A video posted to YouTube of Graham Hancock giving a talk at TEDxReading (in March this year) – titled “Is the house of history built on foundations of sand?” – has been pasted with the annotation seen above across the centre of the screen: “This talk, which was filmed at an independent TEDx event, falls outside TEDx’s curatorial guidelines. Read more below.”

And here’s what the ‘read more below’ is:

NOTE from TED: Please be aware that this talk contains outdated and counterfactual assertions, and should not be understood as a representation of modern scholarship on ancient civilizations.

If ancient civilizations interest you, TEDx Talks contain many fascinating and well-researched talks such as:

Sarah Parcak’s talk on space arachaeology at TEDxYale:

Leslie van Gelder’s talk on cave art at TEDxQueenstown:

Sarah Kenderdine’s talk on museums of the future at TEDxGateway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXhtw…

Here’s the video for those interested in watching. Happily, the silly placard over the video can be removed rather simply by clicking on the settings button, and turning off ‘annotations’:

Graham Hancock has responded on his Facebook page to this latest TED controversy, noting his surprise at what has happened, as he had taken great care this time not to provide TED with any ammunition for another video deletion:

I was very careful with this talk. Indeed I did something I’ve never done before which was to read it to make sure no slip of the tongue, or over-running of the extremely limited time allocated, could be used by TED to delete it from Youtube as they did with my last one.

I don’t like reading talks from a carefully pre-prepared script, but having done so in this single case I am quite certain that the ideas I present are NOT “outdated and counter-factual” as TED allege and I challenge them to provide evidence to support this smear.

Hancock says this latest move has solidified the idea to him that “TED is a tool of the dominator society that seeks to keep us all asleep, and that believes itself to be the fount and guardian of all legitimate knowledge”.

Graham Hancock’s most recent book is Magicians of the Gods, and it is available from Amazon US and Amazon UK.

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Editor
  1. Ted should reconsider
    Mr. Hancock is an extremely erudite synchromystic. The man has a wealth of knowledge and Gnosis. TED can do what they please. To negate a pre historical outlook and synchrodellic importance is to negate our roots on this blue sphere. I am sure many Grailers are of same mind. Shine forth brave souls. Dennis

  2. TED
    Why did they let him through the front door…

    [quote=]NOTE from TED: Please be aware that this talk contains outdated and counterfactual assertions, and should not be understood as a representation of modern scholarship on ancient civilizations.[/quote]

    …if they were just going to slam him with it on he way out?

  3. From what I’ve read, the TedX
    From what I’ve read, the TedX are independently set up, so likely the producer of the event supports Graham, but the Ted organization hierarchy does not…

    I bought the new book, read it and think he’s got sound arguments based on sound evidence. Graham’s awesome and like so many trailblazers before him, will likely only be validated long after his death.

  4. The presentation was sound
    The presentation was sound and full of facts, citations etc. The hypothesis that Atlantis could have existed based on them is not out of the bounds possibility.

    Ted seems to have a problem with Graham outside of his thoughts on this topic.

  5. Business as usual …
    Of course many (most) people who give TED talks play by the tacit (unspelled-out) rules of the game in these hypermaterialistic times. They can’t afford/stand to be associated with people who won’t play (and probably resent their freedom).

    Present-day mainstream scientific orthodoxy has begun to reach the levels of Church orthodoxy scientists had to fight four centuries ago. You can see that quite clearly in Wikipedia where, behind the scenes, a self-appointed team of scrubbers makes sure that nothing ‘woo woo’ remains anywhere in this highly-orthodox resource … except in articles with carefully-chosen titles which barely conceal disdain, and with copious qualifiers added throughout in case anyone needs more reminding.

    Modern cosmology is a writhing disaster, full of contradictions and many concealed
    embarassments. The aura of surety has to be maintained, elsewise too many would question the order of the day. In NA, it took decades to break free of the Clovis-first crowd, half-a-century to break the stranglehold on Wegener’s plate tectonics. The scientific evidence that Hancock carefully lays out here will have its day in upcoming times where the failures of orthodoxy can no longer remain whitewashed.

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