Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deception

Michael Shermer says the human tendency to believe strange things -- from alien abductions to dowsing rods -- boils down to two of the brain's most basic, hard-wired survival skills. He explains what they are, and how they get us into trouble. (...)

Michael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television (now ABC Family) series Exploring the Unknown. Since April 2004, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column.

Paul Romer's radical idea: Charter cities

How can a struggling country break out of poverty if it's trapped in a system of bad rules? Economist Paul Romer unveils a bold idea: "charter cities," city-scale administrative zones governed by a coalition of nations. (Could Guantánamo Bay become the next Hong Kong?)

Steven Pinker: The stuff of thought

In an exclusive preview of his new book, The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker looks at language, and the way it expresses the workings of our minds. By analyzing common sentences and words, he shows us how, in what we say and how we say it, we're communicating much more than we realize. (...)

Steven Pinker is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author of popular science. Pinker is known for his wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.

Steven Pinker: A brief history of violence

In a preview of his next book, Steven Pinker takes on violence. We live in violent times, an era of heightened warfare, genocide and senseless crime. Or so we've come to believe. Pinker charts a history of violence from Biblical times through the present, and says modern society has a little less to feel guilty about.

Steven Pinker is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and popular science writer known for his spirited and wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.

Debunking myths about the "Third World"

You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world" using extraordinary animation software developed by his Gapminder Foundation. The Trendalyzer software (recently acquired by Google) turns complex global trends into lively animations, making decades of data pop. Asian countries, as colorful bubbles, float across the grid -- toward better national health and wealth. Animated bell curves representing national income distribution squish and flatten. In Rosling's hands, global trends -- life expectancy, child mortality, poverty rates -- become clear, intuitive and even playful.

James Watson: The double helix and today's DNA mysteries

Nobel laureate James Watson opens TED2005 with the frank and funny story of how he and his partner, Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA. The tale is full of colorful details: How Watson had planned to be an ornithologist until Schroedinger's book What Is Life? transformed him into a geneticist. The painful rejections he suffered along the way, first from Caltech and then from a certain girl. And finally, how the basic DNA model ultimately came together in just a few hours. Watson finishes with one of the topics currently making him tick: the search for genetic bases for major illnesses.

Craig Venter: A voyage of DNA, genes and the sea

Genomics pioneer Craig Venter takes a break from his epic round-the-world expedition to talk about the millions of genes his team has discovered so far, in their quest to map the ocean's hidden biodiversity. (Quite a task, when you consider that there are tens of millions of microbes in a single drop of sea water.) He updates the TED audience on his discoveries, from the 2,000 photoreceptor genes found in the Sargasso Sea to the thrill of being under house arrest in French waters. After touching on the potential of environmental genomics to monitor the safety of air, water and offshore drilling, Venter ends with his vision for engineered species that can replace the petrochemical industry by creating clean energy.

Queerer Than We Suppose: The strangeness of science - Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is Oxford University's "Professor for the Public Understanding of Science." Author of the landmark 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, he's a brilliant (and trenchant) evangelist for Darwin's ideas. In this talk, titled, "Queerer Than We Suppose: The strangeness of science," he suggests that the true nature of the universe eludes us, because the human mind evolved only to understand the "middle-sized" world we can observe.

How juries get fooled by statistics - Peter Donnelly

Statistician Peter Donnelly explores the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics, and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials. Donnelly is a statistics professor at Oxford University who collaborates with biologists, applying statistical models to genetics, with the hope of shedding more light on evolutionary history and the structure of the human genome.

Why People Believe Weird Things - Michael Shermer

Skeptic Magazine founder Michael Shermer takes us on a hilarious romp through the strange claims we humans put forth as truth - from alien encounters to Virgin Mary sightings on pizza pies, to hidden messages revealed while playing "Stairway to Heaven" backwards - and explains the evolutionary and cognitive basis for these lapses in reason. Don't miss the one-minute challenge testing your own observational skills... Shermer is the founder/publisher of Skeptic Magazine, and author of several books, including Why People Believe Weird Things.

Vision of free online education - Richard Baraniuk

Richard Baraniuk is a Rice University professor with a giant vision: to create a free, global online education system. In this presentation, he introduces Connexions, the open-access publishing system that's changing the landscape of education by providing free coursework and educational materials to everyone in the world.

Wikipedia's collaborative system - Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales explains how Wikipedia's collaborative system works, and why it succeeds. Wales is founder of Wikipedia, the self-organizing, self-correcting, ever-expanding, and thoroughly addictive encyclopedia of the future.

Our species' survival - David Deutsch

Legendary physicist David Deutsch is author of The Fabric of Reality and the leading proponent of the multiverse intrepretation of quantum theory - the astounding idea that our universe is constantly spawning countless numbers of parallel worlds. In this rare (and delightfully engaging) public appearance, he weaves a complex and captivating argument placing the study of physics at the center of our species' survival.

Do schools today kill creativity? - Ken Robinson

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than ... all » undermining it. Robinson is author of "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative", and a leading expert on innovation and human resources.

Global warming is not a priority - Bjørn Lomborg

Economist Bjorn Lomborg makes a persuasive case for prioritizing the world's biggest problems, asking "If we had $50 billion to spend over the next four years to do good in the world, where should we spend it?" His recommendations - based on the findings of the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus - controversially place global warming at the bottom of the list (and AIDS prevention at the top). Lomborg was named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine after the publication of his controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist which challenged widely-held beliefs that the environment is getting worse. Now the Danish economist is taking on the world's biggest problems with his Copenhagen Consensus.