Enthusiastic Brights (Page 1)
Daniel Dennett
Daniel C. Dennett is the author of Freedom Evolves, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. He is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. As a philosopher, he is primarily concerned with providing a philosophy of mind which is grounded in and fruitful to empirical research. He is an avid sailor. Read his New York Times article "The Bright Stuff", visit his home page, and/or see his video ("The Appeal of the Brights Movement") now.
Margaret Downey
After more than twenty years as a First Amendment Activist in the United States, she was recently elected president of the Atheist Alliance International. In assuming this role, Margaret said her goal is to build a strong coalition of freethought organizations into an effective voice for an inclusive society. She is founder and president of the Anti-Discrimination Support Network, a watchdog committee that works to protect liberty of conscience; the Thomas Paine Foundation, and the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia. Visit her website.
James 'The Amazing' Randi
He is author of The Truth About Uri Geller, The Faith Healers, Flim-Flam!, and An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. He is the director of the James Randi Foundation, which offers a $1,000,000 prize to anyone able to demonstrate paranormal phenomena under scientifically controlled conditions. Visit his website.
Steven Pinker
After teaching at MIT for 21 years, he is now the Johnstone Professor of Psychology. Pinker's experimental research on cognition and language won the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences and two prizes from the American Psychological Association. He has also received several honorary doctorates and numerous awards for graduate and undergraduate teaching, general achievement, and his critically acclaimed books The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Slate. Pinker has also appeared in many television documentaries and writes frequently in the popular press, including in the The New York Times, Time, and Slate. Books
Richard Dawkins
He is an internationally known evolutionary biologist and the recently retired Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He has written several books, among them The Selfish Gene, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, The Ancestor's Tale, and, most recently, The God Delusion. Read his Guardian article: "The Future Looks Bright", or visit his web page.
The Kagins of Camp Quest
Helen Kagin, M.D. and Edwin Kagin, Esq. founded Camp Quest (Kentucky), the first summer camp for children of secular parents, now in its 10th year. This "Camp Beyond Belief" welcomes and serves children from any family rearing youngsters with a naturalistic outlook--brights of all types, by whatever self-identity labels or affiliations. One message that a Camp Quest imparts to youngsters: "It is okay to be an atheist." The Kagins have retired from running Camp Quest Classic, but their endeavor continues on (Ohio) and has spawned other similar camps in the United States and Canada. You can contact any of the available camps through the Camp Quest Classic Web site at www.Camp-Quest.com. Edwin serves American Atheists as its national legal director and as its Kentucky state director.
Richard Roberts
He is a Nobel Laureate and presently Research Director at New England Biolabs, Beverly, MA. Educated in England, with doctoral work at the University of Sheffield in Organic Chemistry and postdoctoral research at Harvard, he worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory under Dr. J.D. Watson.Subsequent research has involved studying restriction enzymes, developing computer methods of protein and nucleic acid sequence analysis, and conducting varied genetic studies. For their independent discoveries in 1977 that genes could be discontinuous, he is, along with Philip Sharp, a 1993 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine.
Mel Lipman
Mel is president of the American Humanist Association. He is an attorney and teaches Constitutional law at two Las Vegas Universities. Mel is a mediator and arbitrator. He is former president of the Humanist Association of Las Vegas and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Las Vegas. A Humanist celebrant, Mel is an active member of the Las Vegas Interfaith Council. Many of his articles and letters to the editor appear on the website of the Las Vegas Humanist chapter.
Bobbie Kirkhart
Bobbie is formerly an independent study teacher of 38 subjects in the adult division of the Los Angeles Unified School District (and once upon a time a Sunday school teacher whose first national article appeared in Christianity Today). She served as president of the Atheist Alliance International from 2002 to 2006. Now, as AAI's representative to the Secular Coalition for America, she carries forward to that body the AAI's advocacy of "A Positive Voice for Atheism." Bobbie also travels abroad often and participates in programs to strengthen its international network.
Herb Silverman
This secular humanist, having ‘fought his way to the top’ to reach the 'all-powerful position' of a notary public in his state, is known among freethought organizations as a humorous speaker. Herb even ran for governor in South Carolina as the candidate without a prayer. He now coordinates the Secular Coalition for America. Its mission is "to increase the visibility and respectability of nontheistic viewpoints within the larger culture and to protect and strengthen secular government as the best guarantee of freedom for all."