List of secular humanists

This is a partial list of notable secular humanists.

A

Grayling
Skinner
Szilárd

B

C

  • Mary Calderone: American physician and a public health advocate for sexual education. She served as president and co-founder of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) from 1954 to 1982. Selected as one of the Humanists of the Year in 1974 by the American Humanist Association.[16]
  • Helen Caldicott: Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, war and military action in general. Named Humanist of the Year in 1982 by the American Humanist Association.[16]
  • Anton J. Carlson: a signer of the original Humanist Manifesto,[19] and was named Humanist of the Year in 1953 by the American Humanist Association.
  • Owen Chamberlain: American physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics. Was one of 21 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.[6]
  • Charlie Chaplin: stated in his autobiography that he was a humanist and used this as his argument in his defence of J. Edgar Hoover's insistence that Chaplin was a communist.
  • Noam Chomsky: American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, and activist.[20]
  • Arthur C. Clarke: Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism.[2]
  • Auguste Comte: French philosopher. He was a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism.
  • Aaron Copland:[21] American composer
  • Andrew Copson: Chief Executive of Humanists UK and President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.[22]
  • Brian Cox: British particle physicist, Royal Society University Research Fellow and television personality.[23]
  • Francis Crick: Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism,[2] and received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Humanist Association in 1986.[24]
  • Paul J. Crutzen: Dutch Nobel Prize–winning atmospheric chemist. Was one of 21 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.[6]

D

E

F

G

H

J

  • Albert Jacquard: French geneticist and essayist.
  • Penn Jillette: American illusionist, comedian, musician, and best-selling author known for his work with fellow magician Teller in the team Penn & Teller, and advocacy of atheism, scientific skepticism, libertarianism and free market capitalism.

K

L

Mann, Nicholas. The Origins Of Humanism. In Renaissance Humanism, 1-20. Jill Kraye, 11th ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

  • George Takei: American actor and activist. Presented with the LGBT Humanist Pride Award by the American Humanist Association in 2012.[89]
  • Henry Taube: Canadian-born American chemist and Nobel laureate in Chemistry. Was one of 21 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.[6]
  • E. Donnall Thomas: American physician and Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. Was one of 21 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.[6]
  • Sandra Birgitte (Sandi) Toksvig, OBE; born 3 May 1958) is a British-Danish writer, broadcaster, actor and producer on British radio, stage, and television. She is also a political activist, having co-founded the Women's Equality Party in 2015.
  • Carolyn Tomei: state representative from Oregon, formerly the Mayor of Milwaukie, Oregon.[90]
  • Valentin Turchin: Soviet and American cybernetician and computer scientist. He developed the Refal programming language, the theory of metasystem transitions and the notion of supercompilation. As such he can be seen as a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence and one of the visionaries at the basis of the Global brain idea. One of the signers of "A Secular Humanist Declaration".[91]
  • Ted Turner: American entrepreneur. Named Humanist of the Year in 1990 by the American Humanist Association.[92]
  • Mark Twain: American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.[93]
  • Neil DeGrasse Tyson: American astrophysicist and science communicator. Presented with the Isaac Asimov Science Award in 2009 by the American Humanist Association.[94]
  • Nikola Tesla: Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electrical supply system.[95][96][97][98]

U

V

  • Gore Vidal: American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist.[102] Vidal was Honorary President of the American Humanist Association from April 2009 until his death in 2012,[103] and was presented with the organization's Humanist Arts Award in 1984.
  • Kurt Vonnegut: American author and satirist. Vonnegut was Honorary President of the American Humanist Association from 1992 until his death in 2007, and was named Humanist of the Year in 1992.[104] He was a Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism.[2]
  • Ramswaroop Verma (1923–1998): founded the humanist organisation Arjak Sangh.

W

Y

  • Thom Yorke: English musician and singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the rock band Radiohead.

Z

  • Frank Zappa: American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works.[93]
  • Howard Zinn: American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist.[109]
gollark: Trademark he, she, it.
gollark: Trademark Chorus City too!
gollark: Trademark this.
gollark: Trademark you, and, and that.
gollark: Every sentence you'll just be bombarded with trademark violations.

See also

Notes and references

  1. Clark Adams: 1969–2007 Archived 2008-09-27 at the Wayback Machine, American Humanist Association News Flash, May 24, 2007. Retrieved 14 April 2008.
  2. The International Academy of Humanism at the website of the Council for Secular Humanism. Retrieved 18 October 2007. Some of this information is also at the International Humanist and Ethical Union Archived 2012-04-18 at the Wayback Machine website
  3. A Tribute to Steve Allen Archived 2009-08-13 at the Wayback Machine, by Paul Kurtz, Skeptical Inquirer magazine, January/February 2001. Retrieved 18 October 2007.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-09-27. Retrieved 2013-09-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. Ralph A. Alpher. "Cosmology and Humanism" (PDF). Humanism Today. p. 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2013. This leads inevitably to my identifying philosophically as an agnostic and a humanist, and explains my temerity in sharing my views with you.
  6. "Humanism and Its Aspirations - Notable Signers". American Humanist Association. Archived from the original on 5 October 2012. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  7. "African Americans For Humanism (AAH) Advisory Board". Council for Secular Humanism. Retrieved 27 May 2013. James Andrews (Professor of Mathematics, Florida State University)
  8. Asimov, Isaac (1994). I. Asimov: A Memoir. New York: Doubleday. p. 500. ISBN 0-385-41701-2.
  9. Asimov, Isaac (1986-02-21). "Humanist: Making Bigger Circles" (Video). American Humanist Association. AME Inc. Retrieved 2015-01-19.
  10. "Distinguished mathematician and supporter of Humanism."Professor Sir Michael Atiyah OM FRS Archived 2012-03-24 at the Wayback Machine
  11. had a "humanist funeral service." A quiet goodbye for TV's Ronnie Barker, Telegraph.co.uk, 14 October 2005. Retrieved 29 March 2008.
  12. Warren Allen Smith (2005). Gossip From Across The Pond. chelCpress. p. 28. ISBN 9781583969168. Leonard Bernstein (who once accepted an American Humanist Association award)
  13. "Construction in the Third and Fourth Dimension". Princeton University. Retrieved 4 October 2012. The Putnam Collection Pevsner, with its handsome black granite pedestal designed by the sculptor, serves additionally as a memorial to the Danish scientist and humanist Niels Bohr (1885–1962), who had longstanding personal and professional ties with colleagues in the Department of Physics at Princeton. A quotation from Bohr's 1950 letter to the United Nations, enunciating the policy of Open World, flanks the paving stones at the base of the sculpture.
  14. Jan Swafford (2012). Johannes Brahms: A Biography. Random House Digital, Inc. p. 327. ISBN 9780307809896. He continued, in high theological mode. Brahms was not about to put up with that sort of thing. He was a humanist and an agnostic. and his requiem was going to express that, Reinthaler or no.
  15. "Jacob Bronowski was a humanist, polymath and all round Renaissance man."
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  21. To all appearances, and by all accounts, he was what many might call a secular humanist." Professor Leon Botstein writes: "He emerged as an adult without an ongoing connection to religion."
  22. "Senior Staff". Humanism.org. BHA. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
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  33. "Fourier, Joseph". Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia: The Ultimate Desk Reference. Merriam-Webster. 2000. p. 599. ISBN 9780877790174. As a scientist and a humanist, he epitomized the spirit of French intellectualism of the revolutionary era.
  34. "Does goodness require God? Do we need eternity for meaningful lives? Should we believe in God without evidence? Peter Cave’s new book, Humanism, is a welcome guide, with very human answers, to these questions and many more. With historical adherents as various as Mark Twain, Einstein, Freud, Philip Pullman, and Frank Zappa, humanism’s central quest is to live with meaning with no need for the supernatural."Peter Cave - Humanism Archived 2014-07-28 at the Wayback Machine
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  43. In 1996 Hayden was recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year with the statement that "The award is made because he has shown that an avowed atheist who describes himself as a secular humanist can occupy the position of Governor-General with mounting approval." Australian Humanist, No. 41 February 1996
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  63. "J. Robert Oppenheimer, Atom Bomb Pioneer, Dies". The New York Times. February 19, 1967. Retrieved 18 August 2012. A brilliant nuclear physicist, with a comprehensive grasp of his field, Dr. Oppenheimer was also a cultivated scholar, a humanist, a linguist of eight tongues and a brooding searcher for ultimate spiritual values.
  64. Ellen Page. "Girl Power". Archived from the original on 19 September 2012. Retrieved 5 August 2012. To me, the idea is, ‘Why wouldn’t I be a feminist?’ Why wouldn’t everybody be a feminist, humanist, environmentalist? It’s so funny that environmentalism has such a stigma to it or that organic food is considered a fad. Actually, no, it’s the way we have been eating for 99.99 percent of the time human beings have been on Earth.
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  76. "There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death because we cannot forget our quarrels? Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies before you but universal death."
  77. "Said takes on the responsibility for re-launching the figure of the intellectual humanist, by identifying the scope, the purpose and the role that the latter should have in the current day and age. According to Said, two key beliefs form the essence of humanism: firstly, the historical world is made by men and women and not by God and secondly, it can be rationally understood according to the principles formulated by Vico. The humanist is called upon to use philology as a rigorous instrument with which he contributes to the only form of knowledge available, namely, knowledge which is knowing how something is made."Edward W. Said, Humanism and democratic criticism, Il Saggiatore, Milan, 2007
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  79. "Though his philosophical views evolved over the years – 'The term that best describes me now is "secular humanist,"' he explained – his characters continued to quote biblical passages, occasionally musing about the darker inconsistencies of religion. These thoughtful reflections were never heavy-handed; rather, Schulz had become the reigning master of the lighter-than-air, spiritually resonant comic-strip koan." David Templeton from the December 30, 1999 –January 5, 2000 issue of the Sonoma County Independent. Metroactive – My Lunch with Sparky, Metro Publishing Inc.
  80. "Theologically speaking, Rod was what we call a naturalistic humanist..." Reverend Ernest Pipes, speaking of Rod Serling, who was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica, California. Looking back: 'Twilight Zone' writer challenged prejudice, by Kimberly French, UU World magazine, Vol. XXI, Nol 4, Winter 2007.
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  95. Jill Jonnes (2004). Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. Random House Digital, Inc. p. 154. ISBN 9780375758843. Tesla, just thirty-one, was as much a true humanist as ever, seeking to ease the hard labor of the whole world with his spectacular induction motor and alternating current system.
  96. Judy Wearing (2009). Edison's Concrete Piano: Flying Tanks, Six-Nippled Sheep, Walk-On-Water Shoes, and 12 Other Flops From Great Inventors. ECW Press. ISBN 9781554905515. Tesla, the unselfish humanist he was, would roll over in his grave.
  97. Marc J. Seifer (1996). Wizard: the life and times of Nikola Tesla: biography of a genius. Citadel Press. p. 506. ISBN 9780806519609. Frank Jenkins, "Nikola Tesla: The Man, Engineer, Inventor, Humanist and Innovator," in Nikola Tesla: Life and Work of a Genius (Belgrade: Yugoslav Society for the Promotion of Scientific Knowledge, 1976), pp. 10–21.
  98. "I found that Swedish Humanist Association existed and what they stood for, and as a result I became a member." Ulvaeus, in an interview by Christer Sturmark, from Humanisten, Issue No. 4, December 2005. Translation to English by Marika Granerus, posted at the website of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. Retrieved 5 January 2007.
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