Who's Who at the GAC: The Big Names

It's now less than a month to go before the Global Atheist Convention, and I thought it might be useful to go through the list of speakers and give a bit of a rundown on who's who before we all get there.

There's a good mix of presenters and it looks like it's going to be an amazing weekend (Randi not included), but looking through the list of guests, there are plenty of big names that everyone knows, as well as quite a few lesser known players.

I'm going to see how far through the list I can get at a comfortable pace, providing background info and links to interesting media etc for each of the speakers. My hope is that, by the time the GAC comes around, it may be a bit of a resource for those who want to know a bit more about the people they've paid to see.


For this first post, I'm going to breeze through the big names. These are the people that were probably the draw-cards for most of the attendees.

Richard Dawkins

I'm pretty sure that anyone reading this already has a pretty good idea who  Dicky-D is. With an early career with a strong foot in Biology, Dawkins started to gain public attention with his book The Selfish Gene. Since then, he has written no less than nine books, with a general progression from hard science (The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker), through books combining detailed and complex scientific notions with an almost poetic style, by which the most complicated of theories can fairly easily be understood by the lay-audience (Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow), to his more recent books, which focus on evolutionary theory and those who are working against evolutionary theory and science in general; most notably fundamentalist religious adherents (The God Delusion, The Greatest Show on Earth). 

Dawkins' website, richarddawkins.net, is pretty much essential reading for 'the atheist in the know'. With one of the best 'scientific atheism' forums around, as well as regular updates on what Dawkins is up to, and a news feed that seems to pretty much capture all of the most essential atheistic items across the world. If you haven't been, go and check it out. You'll find yourself with hours upon hours of articles, videos, interviews, news and much much more.

Recently, Dawkins has been producing a steady stream of documentaries (well, he's actually been doing it for quite some time, but he's been doing it much more lately), most notably the Four Horesmen round table discussion with fellow 'New Atheists' Sam harris, Christopher Hitchens and Dan Dennett; The Root of all Evil in which Dawkins takes on religious fundamentalism, The Enemies of Reason where Dawkins dives into the world of alternative medicine, psychics and psuedoscience in general; and The Genius of Charles Darwin which is Dawkins' homage to Darwin and his world changing theory of evolution.

Find out more about Richard Dawkins at richarddawkins.net

PZ Myers

Again, I'd be surprised if people reading this haven't heard of PZ Myers, but just in case...

Paul Zachary Myers is another biologist, who specialised in Evolutionary Development (Evo Devo). He is the author of one of the most popular science blogs (that was carefully worded so as not to upset Phil Plait). His blog is Pharyngula (pronounced: far-eng you-lah), on which he mixes peer reviewed science blogging with his own blend of humorous, caustic, informative and irreverent musings.

PZ is known to be able to crash any online poll by directing his blog readers (pharyngulites) there. One of my favourite PZ moments, was crackergate (see link for a detailed rundown of the full crackergate events), where PZ, in reaction to a story of catholic craziness vowed to abuse eucharist crackers to demonstrate the silliness of believing that a palestinian zombie can manifest in a small piece of bread and be eaten by followers as form of cannibalistic worship.  Lots of religious people reacted with pronounced zeal, and it all ended up rather messy, literally.

To find out more about PZ, visit his blog, Pharyngula at: scienceblogs.com/pharyngula

Peter Singer

Peter Singer is an Australian ethicist and applied philisophy professor. Well known for his book Animal Liberation, as well as the often controversial nature of his work and public appearances.

Singer is a proponent of a utilitarian system of ethics and approaches difficult ethical situations with an objective, rational and careful style, making his positions sometimes uncomfortable or confronting, but very difficult to flaw.

On a personal note, Singer has had quite a profound influence on my life. I received a copy of 'The Ethics of What we Eat' for Newtonmas in 2008 and adopted a Vegan lifestyle in mid January as a result. Since then I have continued to have a strong interest in secular systems of ethics, a subject of continuing interest for me.

You can find out more about Peter Singer by following the various links from his wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer, or checking out his homepage on the Princeton University site. (due to the diverse nature of his work, I find that the wikipedia links lead you to a greater range of his works, from early essays to a video of him cooking Dhal!

We need to call ourselves atheists

This video from the Beyond Belief (2007) series really encapsulates my feelings about the label 'Atheist'.



There are some people out there that would prefer to relabel non-belief to escape the negative connotations that are popularly associated with it, but I would much more prefer to retain the label and show, through my actions, that the popular myths are untrue. This is the basis of the Sydney Atheists 'Good Without God' slogan.

I feel that if we can show that there is nothing that the church can deliver that cannot be obtained through secular means, while also exposing the damage that religious belief can cause, we will be able to show the community that to believe in a god offers no merit and only muddies the waters. By offering the same positives as religion does, along with encouraging clear thinking, inquisitiveness and rationality, we would actually be offering people a chance to grow and improve upon themselves.

I am happy to call myself an atheist.

I am a proud atheist.

I feel so full of life and excited that through reason, evidence and rationality we can further our knowledge of the world and beyond, without needing to rely on a supernatural proposition to help make sense of it all.



You can watch the Beyond Belief videos and a bunch of other stuff at the science network.

You can go straight to the Beyond Belief programs here:

Beyond Belief (2008) Science as a candle in the dark

Beyond Belief (2007) Enlightenment 2.0

Beyond Belief (2006) Science, Reason, Religion & Survival

Ray Takes Comfort in Credulous Ideas

The creationists are at it again. Oh sorry, I mean, "Intelligent Designers". But we all know that Intelligent Design is just creationism in a really cheap tuxedo. Intelligent Design proponent Ray Comfort recently did a radio interview, which was originally intended as a debate with biologist PZ Myers.

The format was changed to two separate interviews, which allowed people to call in and challenge and ask questions. Ray does nothing more than come out with the same old tired arguments that he just cannot let go of - "a painting must have a painter", "if there is no god, we would all be sinning all over the place", "we are god's special creation and do not have common ancestors", and, one of my personal favourites, "you never see a puppy hatch from a chicken egg do you?" No Ray, we don't see puppies hatch from chicken eggs, nor do we see "crocoduck". He clearly does not understand the mechanisms of evolution, and arguments such as this demonstrate his complete ignorance to the way science and evolution work.

He also takes many opportunities to preach on with bible babble, claims he has undeniable evidence for intelligent design (we are still waiting for it) and claims the "atheists" took his banana argument out of context, which is a lie. Here is the full video:



PZ discusses the elegance and beauty of the theory of evolution, and how it explains the diversity of life on this planet. Though this does not automatically lead to atheism, it negates any need for the idea of an intelligent being creating the universe. PZ also comments on the recent "wafergate" situation, where he has received many death threats for throwing a piece of bread in the bin. It is such a shame that people care so deeply about bread products.

The biggest challenge to evolution we face? Ignorance. Nice one, PZ.

Listen to both interviews here.


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Voices of Science

If you haven't seen the new Richard Dawkins Videos, You don't know what you're missing. Voices of Science is great, we'll be ordering our copy asap.

Richard Dawkins & PZ Myers



Richard Dawkins & Lawrence Krauss



Richard Dawkins & Steven Weinberg



Oh, and it's available to purchase as a DVD too!