[yyqux]

The biggest problem with TED is that people leave the talks thinking they understand more about a topic than they actually do. There's a big difference between having a general sense of the problems a field is dealing with, and actually understanding it well enough to apply it to anything.

I think the first is great when it comes to public understand of science, if you can do it well. The second is a bit problematic when people are left with a misleading impression of what they know.

[sebastialonso]

First thing. That is people's problem, not directly TED's.

And TED's talks are not focus on science divulgation. All TED talks can basically be stored in either the 'Look what I'm doing' bag or 'This is what happened to me' bag.

I have yet to see a talk where the main focus was to teach a concept rather than explaining it very superficially in order to introduce an idea based on that concept.