Oh wait, that’s not the name of this list; it’s actually called The 25 Most Influential Living Atheists. But when you skim through, my title seems a bit more accurate.
The only influential female atheists you could think of were Jennifer Michael Hecht, Barbara Forest, and Susan Blackmore? Really? I mean, they’re excellent, and I’m happy they made the list – but only three women?
It’s especially annoying when about 8 of the men on the list aren’t even known for being outspoken atheist activists – they’re just scientists who’s research may help convince people that the world is a bit more godless, or may take a dig at theism every once in a while. If that’s how you want to define influential, fine. But the list explicitly says that it’s looking for people who “actively encourage others to disbelieve in God.” That ranks them ahead of people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Susan Jacoby, Valerie Tarico, Debbie Goddard, etc…?
Not to mention I haven’t even heard of a couple men on the list. Yep, definitely influential if someone very active in the atheist movement has never heard of you.
And no non-white people? I already mentioned Ali and Goddard, but how do you forget Hemant Mehta? He’s certainly influential.
At least this is on some random website. If this list appeared within the atheist community after all of the discussion we’ve been having over the last couple years, I may just give up hope of people getting it.
Yeah! They weren’t even really trying, were they?Plus, Jennifer Michael Hecht influences me to puke on my shoes…
Leaving out Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a crime.
I’d like to recommend at least one atheist of color: Neil deGrasse Tyson. As long as we’re just including scientists, he at least has written some things challenging the notion of religious explanations.
Neil doesn’t like to be referred to as an atheist.
I would like to comment on one thing, if there is a list of 25 most influential atheists, keep in mind this does not mean they should strive to be inclusive of every single minority, or have an equal number of men and women. It merely means that they are ranking atheists in terms of their influence. Off the top of my head, I could maybe think of 15 men to 10 women, and there have been people of all colors of the rainbow who have been influential. But they need to be ranked by how influential they are, not just for the sake of inclusiveness.
I was under the impression Sam Harris had backed off of the hard line atheist point of view and was now more agnostic. Apparently I’ve missed something.I agree, this list should be a little more balanced, at the barest minimum Ayaan Hirsi Ali should have been included.I was also a little irked that Zuckerberg was mentioned in the opening paragraphs, who cares? Then I realized we should talk about Zuckerberg’s personal life as often and as publicly as possible. It would serve the anti-privacy jackass right.
Sam Harris still calls himself an atheist.
A big atheist AMEN, Jen!
Harris is still a “hard line atheist.” He just doesn’t like the marginalizing effect of the term “atheist,” and he calls himself “spiritual” without explaining that he means it in the non-supernatural, “in awe of the natural world” sense. I think.
I don’t think the list needs to be perfectly equal. I just think it’s incredibly wrong – the women I listed are certainly more influential than some of the men on the list, using the list’s own standards. It’s a shame they were ignored when they were deserving, yet again.
Anne, Harris stopped using the word spiritual, because he got so much slack for it. He know uses the word contemplative.
now* rather.
Of course any such list is entirely subjective. Certainly you’ve got to include the 4 horseman, but anyone else is just a matter of opinion. These types of lists, whether of influential atheists or of great film directors, for example, are always going to leave out people who should have been included by many people’s criteria and also to include people of dubious merit. Given this necessary subjectivity, claims that they shouldn’t strive for inclusivity are pointless. They aren’t going to include every possible minority, but they ought to strive to include SOME minorities.
Is it just me, or did they pick the scariest picture of Sam Harris they could find?
So you’re saying that 22 of the top 25 Most Influential Atheists JUST HAPPEN to be white men? Ooookay.It’s rather like thinking that the nine best judges in the country must all be white men. No one is arguing that atheists should be included on the list “for the sake of inclusiveness.” We’re arguing that systematic biases cause women and people of color to be overlooked in a favor of white men without consideration of their actual merit.
I did not know that, but noticed in his writings that, in spite of evidently leaving no real place for god, he doesn’t quite come out and say he doesn’t believe. But I wonder if everyone on this list is an avowed atheist?
Debbie Goddard did a splendid talk on the need for greater diversity in the atheist movement at the recent Skepticon 3.
This is what the critera where according to the site:To make it on SuperScholar’s list of influential living atheists, an atheist can’t merely disbelieve in God but also must actively encourage others to disbelieve in God. But even that isn’t enough to make our list. Bill Maher and Penn & Teller, for instance, use their prominence as entertainers to promote atheism. But they do so mainly as popularists, not as scholars attempting to make a considered case against theism and for atheism.Thus, to make it on our list, an atheist needs not only to be actively promoting atheism but also to do so as scholars in scholarly forums – this is, after all, SuperScholar! All the names below fit that bill. They are notable scholars in their own right and they use their scholarship to promote atheism explicitly or to promote forms of thought that make belief in God untenable. In your frank estimation, how many of the women you cite fit the “scholarly” portion of the bill? IMO Ali doesn’t. Her books are personal narratives and her career has been in politics and now advocacy for AEI. I don’t know all of the women on your list so I can’t authoritatively say that the site is somehow not following the parameters they set.The problem of disproportionate representation of middle aged white men is systemic in academia and universities, so it’s not surprising that it manifests on a list of atheist university academics. This is not as it should be, don’t get me wrong.
No, she’s saying that the list leaves out some people who are more influential than some of those who are listed and on top of that, some of those listed don’t even consider themselves to be atheists.
Perhaps I’m just ignorant, but what are Christopher Hitchens’ and James Randi’s scholarly works? I was not aware that either of them was involved in academia. So unless I’m wrong somehow, number 3 and number 15 on their list fail by thse criteria.
Hitchens is a visiting professor at the New School in NYC (but I might be mistaken). Not sure about Randi, but perhaps the JREF library counts?
I hate to be nit picky, but a lot of people are visiting professors. This does not a scholarly career make. Does he have any publications in peer reviewed scholarly journals? Or perhaps their definition of scholarly isn’t what I think it should be.
yeah guess you’re right “scholars in scholarly forums” can be stretched to mean anyone who speaks/debates at a university…
I think you mean “flack”, not “slack”.
Oh, ‘academics’. (stops caring)
I can think of a few atheists that should be up there as well, such as Eugenie Scott, Annie Laurie, and as of last year, even you. There are about 5 people whom I think should come off that list, mainly the scientists few have likely heard about starting around number 16. As for their arrangement, that is very subjective, although Hecht should be a bit higher in my own opinion. As we are all influenced by different people, lists will always show a bias. The best list would be one voted on by an inclusive group of people, although you being the scientist, might know a good way to go about that than I.
What about Julia Sweeney? She’s probably influenced more people than any of them.
Then why don’t they title it “25 most influential living atheist academics?”
I think it’s up to the atheist blogosphere to make the ladies list….again.
I only know Jennifer Michael Hecht by name – I can’t exactly place her.I think I’ve heard that Atkins is an atheist, but to me he’s ‘just’ a physical chemist with a pink Cadillac and a private tropical island.Kai Nielsen, William B. (“Will”) Provine and John Brockman ring absolutely no bells at all. (The first one isn’t my uncle.)To see Kurzweil on the list, though, makes me want to smash something.
I think Hitchens has done work with think-tank sorts of things, especially on foreign policy, and also done some well-researched biographies. So that might be why he’d be included.
Being an up and coming Historian myself, I plan to purchase Jennifer Hechts book and make a review of it. I already have such a large amount of books to pile through, I even need to finish my critique of Carrier’s work on Naturalism. (The overall promise impressed me…but much was lacking).
That’s good to hear. Not so much because I think he deserved flack from atheists, but because I’m tired of seeing articles misrepresenting his views due to his use of the word.
I think the main point is that any “Top XX” list such as this that purports to be all-encompassing in fact never is. It’s just a silly exercise in self importance by the creators–in this case SuperScholar.org. As Jen wrote, it’s on some random web site, so in my view it’s worth nothing and best ignored.
From the blog post:
That would explain the absence of some of the women Jen suggested, though it does not explain why Sam Harris, for example, did make it in.It’s probably just a list of the famous atheists that the author likes best, like most of these posts tend to be. After all, how do you objectively measure the magnitude of someone’s influence?
Why?
She’s got a weird sort of interpretation of “spirituality” and makes ugly and dishonest attacks on “New Atheism”… whenever I hear her talk about it or read what she writes, it is a combination of nails on a chalkboard and papercuts dipped in lemon juice. She’s a soft-headed proponent of “poetic atheism” which to me seems a limp and useless thing, devoid of intellectual rigor. That’s just my opinion, of course… I understand that part of what sets me off is personal preference. I’m sure under those layers of condescension and nonsense there’s a perfectly decent person who I wouldn’t have any urge to scream at, but I wouldn’t be interested in sitting down and having a long talk with her either.
A criteria which would put Ayaan Hirsi Ali right back in the mix. So this “scholarly” criteria of theirs is poorly applied and is no excuse for excluding women and anyone with so much as a tan.
Once again, Jen, our minds are working in an uncanny sort of cross-minority sync. Just today I posted a piece about how the new federal cabinet in Canada is largely old white men, and made almost the same list of points (albeit primarily from a Person of Colour perspective rather than a feminist one).We should write a book.
Objective measure of influence? Most followers on Twitter, of course!
This xover 9000. I remember reading an article where the writer said “Sam Harris Believes in God” after he *Specifically* asked her not to name the article that. (I think it was a female writer?) Nice going, media. :P
I can’t believe that Annie Laurie Gaylor didn’t make the list! She’s written several books relating to to atheism, religion, feminism and law, and she’s the popular face of so many of the in-your-face state/religion fights across the country. I haz a bemused.
It seems as though the people at SuperScholar got your point about Ayaan Hirsi Ali:http://www.superscholar.org/wh…