Ig Nobel winner Chopra issues quantum complaint about TED talks

Deepak Chopra — winner of the 1998 Ig Nobel physics prize “for his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness” — wrote an open letter complaining about the TED Talks. Dr. Chopra complains that the TED talks “practice semi-censorship” on people who are as tremendously inventive as Dr. Chopra is. [One of Dr. Chopra’s many inventive books is pictured here, at right.]

Chris Anderson, organizer of the TED Talks, wrote an open letter of reply, under the headline “TED, Censorship, Consciousness, Militant Atheists, and Pseudo Science!”

Several Ig Nobel Prize winners have been invited to give TED Talks and TEDx talks. Those talks were generally highly publicized. Click on the links here to see talks by Kees Moeliker (shown here, below), Dan Ariely, Phil Zimbardo, Bart Knols, and Magnus Wahlberg.

Dr. Chopra himself has not given a TED Talk, but was once part of a discussion that happened at a spur TED event.

BONUS: I (the organizer of the Ig Nobel Prizes) myself will be giving a talk at TEDx CERN, on May 3 of this year.

Here is Kees Moeliker’s recent TED talk: