Here's a list of The 25 Most Influential Living Atheists. How many do you recognize? Are they good people or are they all morally degenerate because they're not scared of God?Why isn't Hemant Mehta on the list?
Here's a better list 'cause it includes some people who are much more interesting than Daniel Dennett [The 50 Most Brilliant Atheists of All Time].
Jennifer Hecht?
ReplyDeleteShe was the 'moderator' on that god-awful Point of Inquiry debate between PZ Myers and Chris Mooney. I haven't read her books but her views on that show makes me wonder how she could possibly be listed as an influencial atheist.
Agreed. John Searle at least should have been on the new list.
ReplyDeleteMark Zuckerberg is an atheist?! Yeccchhh! I will have to seriously find religion. I can't bear to have anything in common with that guy and his Godawful/damn business!
ReplyDeleteTruti
Why isn't Jen McCreight on the list? Boobquake made national headlines.
ReplyDeletethis may sound naive but, whats wrong with dennett?
ReplyDeleteare any objections to his persona grounded on his understanding of biology-evolution or his stance respect atheism?
I like this one: "Jennifer Michael Hecht is providing the theoretical underpinnings for the new atheism."
ReplyDeleteThe theoretical underpinnings for not believing in something?
@Sigmund -
ReplyDeleteI have read her books and she is a very entertaining writer, with a great deal to say about religious faith and doubt. That being said, I would not include her because she will not call herself an atheist because of the stereotype that atheists are not nice people. She was on Krista Tippet's "On Faith" show when she told us this.
I lost my respect for Jennifer Michael Hecht at that point.
Jacob asks,
ReplyDeletethis may sound naive but, whats wrong with dennett?
He's the very worst of the modern adaptationists. His understanding of evolution is so naive that he would probably flunk a university course on the subject.
Darwin's Dangerous Idea was mostly a vehicle for attacking Stephen Jay Gould and that attack was entirely misguided and wrong.
I was also really annoyed at Dennet when he gave a talk in Montreal a few months ago. He tried to make the audience sway and chant to atheist gospel music. He likes that kind of music and thinks it's a shame that eliminating religion might have the unfortunate consequence of doing away with such singing. So he is promoting atheist versions of gospel music.
His personal taste in music has nothing to do with atheism. I don't share his taste and neither did many other members of that largely Canadian audience containing a significant number of people from Quebec.
How can one make a list of influential atheists and not include Ayaan Hirsi Ali?
ReplyDeleteI mean, she used to be a Dutch member of parliament for crying out loud, and helped change the whole discourse (for better or worse) about Islam in the EU.
And what about Ariane Sherine, who started the atheist bus campaign?
Edward O. Wilson should be disqualified, since he identifies himself as a "provisional deist."
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't Bill Gates on the list? He's been influential in two fields, computers and large scale philanthropy.
Generally all old white people- Am I the only one who sees lists like this as counterproductive.
ReplyDeleteAAAS PROMOTES "Spiritualism": Not Only Good For Fund Raising, But - Unbelievable - It Is Inherent In Its Worldview!
ReplyDeleteHope For Science?
It's Not The Mechanism. It's The Culture.
In the USA-world economy it's not financial mechanisms that led to collapse. It's the greed-cancer in lieu of selected real valuable economic attributes. It's the greed culture.
In science it's not peer-review or another social mechanism that elected technology and meaningless verbiage over science. It's the century old corrupt science trade union culture.
Hope For Science?
A. "Tradition, innovation and hope in new year for science"
E Marincola Jan 1 2011
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/67726/title/Tradition%2C_innovation_and_hope_in_new_year_for_science
and
"Four in 10 Americans Believe in Strict Creationism"
http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creationism.aspx
B. Purpose of "peer review"
http://www.ehow.com/about_4695651_purpose-peer-review.html
"A demanding process to either get money to study a new scientific idea or to get an idea published in an academic journal. The reason is peer review--the principal instrument an academic profession uses to keep up its standards. There are few processes, either in science or the larger world of the academy, that are considered legitimate if peer review isn't involved in them somewhere."
C. Nature of "peer review"
The principal instrument an academic profession uses to keep up its standards.
D. Nature of 2010 academic profession standards
La Ilaha Illa Allah Muhammad Rassul Allah.
Academic is Science/Technology and AAAS is its exclusive apostle-prophet-delegate-agent on Earth.
D. Nature of AAAS
American Association Against Science, a trade-union-guild-establishment, the instrument for acquiring/exploiting public and industry funds for the promotion, maintenance and benefit of its management-administration-members.
E. There are many expositions in the Emedium about "peer review", including comments on its antisubversion-decadent-corrupt applications by the expansive omnipresent AAAS. One sample:
"For A Scientism Culture"
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/300/122.page#5943
Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
03.2010 Updated Life Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page#5065
Cosmic Evolution Simplified
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427
Gravity Is The Monotheism Of The Cosmos
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/260/122.page#4887
Evolution, Natural Selection, Derive From Cosmic Expansion
http://darwiniana.com/2010/09/05/the-question-reductionists-fear/
Who Suppresses Science Creativity?
ReplyDeleteAcademia Suppresses Creativity?
Again and again, ad absurdum:
Since the 1920s Science is suppressed by a Technology Culture, tightly supervised by a religious old style trade union , AAAS…
USA Science? Re-Comprehend Origins And Essence
Higgs Particle? Dark Energy/Matter? Epigenetics? All YOK!
Earth-life is just another, self-replicating, mass format.
All mass formats follow natural selection, i.e. intake of energy or their energy taken in by other mass formats.
Evolution Is The Quantum Mechanics Of Natural Selection.
Quantum mechanics are mechanisms, possible or probable or actual mechanisms of natural selection.
Life’s Evolution is the quantum mechanics of biology.
Every evolution, of all disciplines, is the quantum mechanics of the discipline’s natural selection.
See:
Update Concepts-Comprehension…
http://universe-life.com/2011/12/13/21st-century-science-whence-and-whither/
Earth life genesis from aromaticity-H bonding
http://universe-life.com/2011/09/30/earthlife-genesis-from-aromaticityh-bonding/
Universe-Energy-Mass-Life Compilation
http://universe-life.com/2012/02/03/universe-energy-mass-life-compilation/
Seed of human-chimp genome diversity
http://universe-life.com/2011/07/10/seed-of-human-chimp-genomes-diversity/
Dov Henis
(comments from 22nd century)