FSA Supplemental Materials

(Sourced from TED.com - before you start)

A suite of short, carefully prepared talks, demonstrations and performances that are idea-focused and cover a wide range of subjects to foster learning, inspiration and wonder – and provoke conversations that matter.

All TEDx events present multiple issues and a diversity of voices from many disciplines. After all, what’s the fun without a little variety?

A TEDx event is organized by volunteers from the local community, and just like TED events, it lacks any commercial, religious or political agenda. Its goal is to spark conversation, connection and community.

What a TEDx event is not:

• A TEDx event isn’t an industry or marketing conference. It isn’t limited to one topic or field. It isn’t used to sell something.
• A TEDx event is not organized by or for special-interest political, religious or commercial groups.
• A TEDx event cannot be used to raise money, not even for a charity.
• A TEDx event cannot partner with another conference or event.
• A TEDx event can’t be co-branded with an institution except under specific license types – available to a college or university, or for internal events (for the employees of an organization).
• A TEDx event is not a platform for professional or circuit speakers, such as motivational speakers and professional life coaches. Its purpose is to give a platform to those who often do not have one.
• A TEDx event is not focused solely on entrepreneurship, business or technology. Diversity of topics is key!

(Sourced from TED.com)

It all starts here. Open minds infused by curiosity give birth to catalytic questions. Exploration of those questions can open up a world of wonder and create a desire to learn. Thus begins a journey of discovery, bringing together dreamers, thinkers and doers. Curiosity is the spark that ignites every powerful idea.

Ideas must be grounded in truth. But how? The truth is notoriously elusive. Our best tool for pursuing it is reason, that enlightened method of persuasion which shuns personal bias in favor of facts, logic and evidence. This is our path to reliable knowledge and deepened understanding. Reason is also the foundation on which science is built. TED is committed to good science and its mindset of exploration and evidence-based explanation. We ask speakers to provide sources, citations and footnotes, and we review all talks for accuracy. If claims made in a TED Talk are subsequently discredited, we seek to provide clear updates.

Humans are capable of repatterning the world. We celebrate this astonishing ability with many names: imagination, invention, innovation, vision, design, creativity. In each case, ideas are generated that can literally reshape our future. They may do this by providing solutions to challenging problems. Or by conjuring previously undreamed of possibility that people are then inspired to make real.

Ideas are for everyone. They can't be fenced off by borders, whether of geography, religion, politics or culture. And no single origin, race, gender, identity or class can claim preferential ownership over them. TED is committed to a global mindset. We seek to source ideas from everywhere and to make them widely and freely accessible. Powerful ideas, expressed and distributed with care, can bring different groups together and create a shared vision of a future worth pursuing.

Generosity underpins our operating strategy - not just because it is good, but because it is infectious. The two most important decisions in our organization's history were posting our talks online, and allowing local event organizers to use our brand, leading to astonishingly generous responses from countless individuals around the world. Generosity is empowerment. Our best work is not what we do, but what we empower others to do, as evidenced every day by the extraordinary work of our speakers, translators, TEDx organizers, business partners, educators, animators, fellows and donors.

Our content isn't the final word on anything. Skeptics are welcome, and may play a key role in improving an idea or revealing its flaws. Others may find that conversation after a talk is the best path to clarity or figuring out what to do with it. We strive to provide a neutral, open space for vigorous discussion and debate both online and face to face. The tone should, of course, stay respectful. Bigotry and hate speech have no place on our platform. But constructive conversations can be a powerful antidote to division.

All of the above is in pursuit of a better world for humanity, present and future, and for our fellow creatures on planet Earth. We firmly believe in the power of ideas to help create that world. But it doesn't happen automatically. Ideas need to be crafted with care, communicated in a way that persuades and inspires, spread to millions of minds - and then, crucially, turned into action by catalytic individuals and communities. We seek to enable every step on that journey.

Don't book speakers who attempt to prove or persuade the correctness of a single religion, deity or other belief system (such as atheism or agnosticism), whether through rhetoric or "scientific proof." Be wary of speakers promoting new age beliefs, including concepts such as quantum consciousness, Gaia theory, archaeoastronomy, and drug-induced spiritual epiphanies. Speakers can be honest about their beliefs, but should not use the stage to promote them or to denigrate those who don’t share them.

TED offers scientists and other experts a platform to provide scientific information directly to millions of people around the world. Learn more about TED’s Science Standards.

Science is a big part of the TED universe, and it’s important that TEDx organizers sustain our reputation as a credible forum for sharing ideas that matter. It’s not always easy to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. And the more willing a speaker is to abandon scientific underpinning, the easier it is for them to make attention-grabbing claims. This is especially true for talks that call on science for support but do not come directly from the scientists themselves.

Claims made using scientific language should:

• Be testable experimentally
• Have been published in a peer-reviewed, respected journal
• Be based on theories that are also considered credible by experts in the field
• Be backed up by experiments that have generated enough data to convince other experts of its legitimacy
• Have proponents who are secure enough to acknowledge areas of doubt and need for further investigation
• Not fly in the face of the broad existing body of scientific knowledge
• Be presented by a speaker who has the right scientific qualifications
• Show clear respect for the scientific method and scientific thinking generally.

Claims made using scientific language should not:

• Be so obscure or mysterious as to be untestable.
• Be considered ridiculous by credible scientists in the field.
• Be based on experiments that can not be reproduced by others.
• Be based on data that do not convincingly corroborate the experimenter’s theoretical claims.
• Come from overconfident advocates.
• Use over-simplified interpretations of legitimate studies.
• Include imprecise vocabulary. (Phrases like “quantum consciousness", ”personal energy fields,”
• “crystal healing”, and the like, should be considered major red flags.)
• Abandon evidence-based thinking or be dismissive of the scientific method.