[Gormo]

I'm not saying that at all - I'm just responding to the comparison involving some new scientific concept having potentially controversial implications.

TED conferences are discussions of ideas, and ideas are often engender controversy; some of them might influence people toward one political position or another, but that doesn't mean that the ideas don't have some relevance or value outside of politics.

In this case, though, I can't blame the TED organizers for eschewing the discussion of ideas that are entirely political, and which are ultimately only about engaging the controversy itself.

[daenz]

> ideas that are entirely political, and which are ultimately only about engaging the controversy itself.

If you read the same article I did, that's not the reason they claimed, so I don't know where you're getting that from. Here's the relevant portion:

> And we try to steer clear of talks that are bound to descend into the same dismal partisan head-butting people can find every day elsewhere in the media.

It says nothing about the talk being only about engaging controversy, nor about the idea being entirely political. The reason was that it had potential to rile people up. You are confusing an idea that will unavoidably rile people up with an idea that is intended to rile people up. They are not the same.