My Best of TED Recommendations

So, I've been enamored lately with the TED YouTube channel. TED, standing for Technology, Entertainment, Design is a yearly conference held since 1984 that invites some interesting thinkers and/or celebrity scientists to give eighteen minute lectures on their subjects of concern. Making an honest appraisal requires that I describe these as infotainment, although certainly not in a pejorative sense (Quite the opposite). Infornography, perhaps in my case. These talks necessarily fall on the superficial side of said subject given the duration restriction, and as such they constitute a kind of intellectual candy rather than a functional academic meal. Well, a granola bar is a better metaphor methinks. That said, there's some incredible stuff in there, and it has me pretty fired up about the next thirty years.

I promised to share some of the ones I've found to be standouts, and I figured I might as well do it in blog format and cast a droplet into the blogosphere bucket, marginally inflate some worthy PageRanks, and spare myself some redundant email compositing. Most of these fall into the categories of computational science, neuroscience or cognition, nutrition, education, and futurist speculation; where most of my own interests lie. I'm just going to write a blurb on each one and move through linking them quickly.

Ray Kurzweil - Lines are blurring between humans and machines
My favorite author presents a dense account of the evidence he's gathered on diverse technological development trends that lead him to believe we can expect to see human-level machine intelligence emerge by the mid-century mark.

Vilayanur Ramachandran - A journey to the center of your mind
The Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition serves up a series of research anecdotes that provide some insight into the brain's functions. I applaud him on shooting down some Freudian mythology as well.

Ken Robinson - Do schools today kill creativity?
I've developed a vehemently critical attitude towards public "education" which is further reinforced by this consistently humorous yet dire lecture from Mr. Robinson, in which he argues that our system is educating entire generations out of their creative capacities. We have a schooling system designed to support an industrial society, and it no longer works.

Richard Dawkins - The strangeness of science
The famous evolutionary biologist and science proponent discusses the boundaries of human conceptual capacities as a function of the middle-world environment we've developed from.

Malcolm Gladwell - no title... uhhh.. how about 'human variability in food science'
The consummate TEDster, insofar as he proves to be an adept entertainer and presenter who delivers a reasonably intelligent investigation of some intriguing and amusing phenomenon at work in society at large. He has capitalized on this niche in his article writings for The New Yorker, and further expounded upon it to become a successful author. This particular speech tells the story of a food scientist that revolutionized the methodologies of the industry throughout the seventies.

Aubrey de Grey - A roadmap for ending biological aging
A British biogerontologist examines the reasons we should work to end human biological aging, and presents a roadmap for achieving "longevity escape velocity".

Robert Full: How engineers learn from evolution
I went to engineering school so this shift in perspective towards orienting some our contemplative energies externally to the engineering of the biological world is quite refreshing. Professor Full energetically relates some graduate student projects and an incredible investigation of a gecko's climbing mechanisms.

Neil Gershenfeld: Life after the digital revolution
Professor Gershenfeld offers a hint of the future Kurzweil propounds; the beginnings of true personal fabrication. This is mindblowing stuff this is utterly underneath the radar of society. But not for long. I love the glimpse of an engineering paradigm which harnesses a human swarm intelligence algorithm for harvesting design plans that exceed the capacity of small groups of expert academics in evaluating a physical solution space.

William McDonough: The wisdom of designing Cradle to Cradle
Not sure I can abstract the summary of this one any more than it already is... McDonough, an architect and designer, presents his answer to the question of what would design look like if we asked the question "How do we love all the children of all species for all time?" Bear with the beginning half of this one as it's a bit obtuse, but all in all this one is worth several listens.

Jeff Hawkins: Brain science is about to fundamentally change
A fast paced lecture from the founder of Palm Computing, Jeff Hawkins, on the state of affairs in brain science, and how he thinks there will be rapid development in general theories of cognitive function.

Dan Dennett: Ants, terrorism, and the awesome power of meme
This favorite TED invitee submits the memetic perspective on terrorism and worldwide social and idealogical strife.

Steven Pinker: A brief history of violence
A Harvard psychologist takes on the social perception that we live in an era of unprecedented violence, repositioning it in the context of some historical empiricism beyond the hazy nostalgia that suffices for typical discussion.

Craig Venter: On the verge of creating synthetic life
Venter presents a vision of engineering synthetic biological life, and some of the potential applications and consequences, from the perspective of his work in sequencing the human genome.

Thomas Barnett: The Pentagon's new map for war and peace
Love it or hate it, the role of American military intervention as a worldwide policing action calls for discussion, and Dr. Barnett delivers a bizarrely funny outline for it.

Richard Dawkins: An atheist's call to arms
A thesis thoroughly encapsulated with a direct quote: "If I'm right, this means that high office, in the greatest country in the world, is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it; the intelligentsia, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly, American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest."

Mark Bittman: What's wrong with what we eat
Short answer: A lot. Bittman provides a mildly sarcastic overview of the average American diet for the last century or so.

And that's that. All of these are also linked in a TED Recommendations playlist that I set up on my YouTube account, as well as several more that I didn't include here for the sake of brevity, and any future TEDster talks I encounter that bear recommending.