Climate Crisis, the Happiness Conundrum & the Evolution of Religions: TED Talks on YouTube

in Psychology, TED Talks, Video - Arts & Culture | May 15th, 2007 10 Comments

Once upon a time we told you about TED Talks, the annual conference that brings together the world’s “thought-leaders, movers and shakers.” These talks have been available on iTunes in both audio (iTunes – Feed) and video (iTunes – Feed). And now you can apparently find some on YouTube. Below we highlight a few.

First up, Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor who recently wrote Stumbling On Happiness, a book that uses psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy and behavioral economics to show how our imagination — our unique ability to predict the future — usually interferes with our basic ability to be happy. Here you get some kernels of thought from the bestselling book, and some insights into why a paraplegic is often as happy as a lottery winner. Good stuff here.

Next, we give you Al Gore doing a little stand-up comedy (no kidding) and speaking on global warming, much as he does in An Inconvenient Truth. No other introduction is needed.

Lastly, we give you Dan Dennett, Director
of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University and the author
of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. With this clip, Dennett takes on Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, and makes the clever argument that while the theory of intelligent design may hold no water, religions have themselves been intelligently designed. More on that here:

by Dan Colman | Permalink | Comments (10) |

Comments (10)
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  1. Christopher Penn, Financial Aid Podcast says . . . | March 2, 2007 / 7:38 am

    Be sure to add in the Financial Aid Podcast, too.

    http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com

  2. Feedback Secrets says . . . | March 2, 2007 / 9:41 am

    Cool idea!!! I’m curious if you have podcasts about eBay and the feedback system?

  3. Geek Speak says . . . | March 2, 2007 / 11:47 am

    Technology podcast distributed by NPR and produced in Santa Cruz, CA.

    http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510168

  4. East says . . . | March 2, 2007 / 7:39 pm

    Aren’t all these podcast listed in iTunes? So what is the point of relisting them in this post?

  5. Japper says . . . | March 2, 2007 / 7:59 pm

    Go to iTunes and see how long it would take you to find these podcasts on your own. You would have to know that they exist in the first place to find them.

  6. Gary Peters says . . . | March 3, 2007 / 6:39 am

    The feed listed for the Darden School under University Podcasts-Business Schools is only one series of our podcasts (Darden Speaker Series). The main page of our entire podcast collection is located at http://www.darden.virginia.edu/podcasts.

  7. Sandeep says . . . | March 16, 2007 / 2:54 am

    This is one of the most useful sites I’ve come across. :)
    thanks for the same..

  8. Patricia says . . . | April 5, 2007 / 8:51 pm

    Dear Dan,

    OK – I’m the one millionth and one person to log on. This is really exciting, inspiring, and impressive.
    What I mean to say is “WOW”

    Thanks,

    P

  9. Torsten says . . . | May 1, 2007 / 12:21 am

    Maybe a separate section on travel podcasts? Huge selection on iTunes available.

  10. TEDTalks: Dan Gilbert (2005) « Babyplaz says . . . | April 4, 2008 / 5:26 pm

    [...] 4, 2008 · No Comments from http://www.youtube.com posted with [...]

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