TED organizers help sniff out bad science for TEDx

Flickr user: inhyuksong

The organization behind the TED talks took what might have been an embarrassing bit of publicity and turned it into an opportunity to define what constitutes decent scientific information. Although TED is most famous for organizing two sets of talks each year, it has branched out into licensing local affiliates that host smaller events. Many of these pick up on the main program's themes of tracking developments in science, technology, and medicine.

Unfortunately, the TEDx events don't always have access to the same competencies TED proper does. This has sporadically resulted in problems with speakers too far outside the mainstream. Take a case in Valencia, Spain for example, where things like crystal therapy and homeopathy ended up being promoted by speakers. That, in turn, led to a Reddit thread highlighting the problem.

Rather than pretending it never happened, TED's editorial staff got together and put down some guidelines for TEDx organizers. The new guidelines don't draw a sharp line between science and everything else (partly because there's no consensus on how to do so), but they do highlight a lot of the warning signs to determine if a potential speaker's focus might not be on solid ground.