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Richard Dawkins Award
The Richard Dawkins Award is an annual prize awarded by the Center for Inquiry (CFI). It was established in 2003 and was initially awarded by the Atheist Alliance of America coordinating with Richard Dawkins and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. In 2019, the award was formally moved to CFI. CFI is a US nonprofit organization that variously claims on its website to promote reason, science, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values, or science, reason, and secular values. The award was initially presented by the Atheist Alliance of America to honor an "outstanding atheist", who taught or advocated scientific knowledge and acceptance of nontheism, and raised public awareness. The award is currently presented by the Center for Inquiry to an individual associated with science, scholarship, education, or entertainment, and who "publicly proclaims the values of secularism and rationalism, upholding scientific truth wherever it may lead." They state that the recipient ...
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Lawrence Krauss
Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who previously taught at Arizona State University, Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project, now called ASU Interplanetary Initiative, to investigate fundamental questions about the universe and served as the project's director. Krauss is an advocate for public understanding of science, public policy based on sound empirical data, scientific skepticism, and science education. An anti-theist, Krauss seeks to reduce the influence of what he regards as superstition and religious dogma in popular culture. Krauss is the author of several bestselling books, including ''The Physics of Star Trek'' (1995) and ''A Universe from Nothing'' (2012), and chaired the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' Board of Sponsors. Upon investigating allegations about sexual misconduct by Krauss, ASU determined that Krauss had violated university policy and di ...
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Penn & Teller
Penn & Teller, Penn Jillette and Teller, are American magicians, entertainers, and scientific skeptics who have performed together since the late 1970s. They are noted for their ongoing act that combines elements of comedy with magic. The duo has been featured in numerous stage and television shows such as '' Penn & Teller: Fool Us'' and currently perform in Las Vegas at The Rio, the longest running headliners to play at the same hotel in Las Vegas history. Penn Jillette serves as the act's orator and raconteur. Teller generally does not speak while performing, and instead communicates through mime and nonverbals, though his voice can occasionally be heard during their live shows and television appearances. Besides magic, the pair has become associated with the advocacy of scientific skepticism and libertarianism, particularly through their television show '' Penn & Teller: Bullshit!''. Career Penn and Teller were introduced to each other by Wier Chrisemer, and performed the ...
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Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist." The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word ''agnostic'' in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe." Earlier thinkers, however, had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife;Bhaskar (1972). and Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher who expressed agnosticism about the existence of "the gods". Defining agnosticism Being a scientist, above all else, Huxley presented agnos ...
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Ann Druyan 1
Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in the Netherlands, particularly in the Frisian speaking part (for example, author Anne de Vries). In this incarnation, it is related to Germanic arn-names and means 'eagle'.See entry on "Anne" in th''Behind the Name'' databaseand th"Anne"an"Ane"entries (in Dutch) in the Nederlandse Voornamenbank (Dutch First Names Database) of the Meertens Instituut (23 October 2018). It has also been used for males in France (Anne de Montmorency) and Scotland (Lord Anne Hamilton). Anne is a common name and the following lists represent a small selection. For a comprehensive list, see instead: . As a feminine name Anne * Saint Anne, Mother of the Virgin Mary * Anne, Queen of Great Britain (1665–1714), Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1702–07) and ...
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MacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 individuals, working in any field, who have shown "extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction" and are citizens or residents of the United States. According to the foundation's website, "the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential," but it also says such potential is "based on a track record of significant accomplishments." The current prize is $800,000 paid over five years in quarterly installments. Previously it was $625,000. This figure was increased from $500,000 in 2013 with the release of a review of the MacArthur Fellows Program. Since 1981, 1,111 people have been named MacArthur Fello ...
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Fortune-telling
Fortune telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination. The difference is that divination is the term used for predictions considered part of a religious ritual, invoking deities or spirits, while the term fortune telling implies a less serious or formal setting, even one of popular culture, where belief in occult workings behind the prediction is less prominent than the concept of suggestion, spiritual or practical advisory or affirmation. Historically, Pliny the Elder describes use of the crystal ball in the 1st century CE by soothsayers (''"crystallum orbis"'', later written in Medieval Latin by scribes as ''orbuculum''). Contemporary Western images of fortune telling grow out of folkloristic reception of Renaissance magic, specifically associated with R ...
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Mentalism
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics. Mentalists perform a theatrical act that includes special effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces but that are actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities (i.e. reading body language, refined intuition, subliminal communication, emotional intelligence), and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences. Mentalism is commonly classified as a subcategory of magic and, when performed by a stage magician, may also be referred to as ''mental magic''. However, many professional mentalists today may generally distinguish themselves from magicians, insistin ...
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Preferred Official Head-shot From James Randi Educational Foundation
Preferred may refer to: *Chase Sapphire Preferred, a credit card *Preferred frame, in physics, a special hypothetical frame of reference *Preferred number, standard guidelines for choosing exact product dimensions within a given set of constraints *Preferred stock, a class of stock See also *Preference In psychology, economics and philosophy, preference is a technical term usually used in relation to choosing between alternatives. For example, someone prefers A over B if they would rather choose A than B. Preferences are central to decision theo ...
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson ( or ; born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. From 1991 to 1994, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. In 1996, he became director of the planetarium and oversaw its $210 million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000. Since 1996, he has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003. From 1995 to 2005, Tyson wrote monthly essays in the "Universe" column for '' Natural History'' magazine, some of which were ...
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The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the second most circulated English-language newspaper in India, after '' The Times of India''. , ''The Hindu'' is published from 21 locations across 11 states of India. ''The Hindu'' has been a family-owned newspaper since 1905, when it was purchased by S. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar from the original founders. It is now jointly owned by Iyengar's descendants, referred to as the "Kasturi family", who serve as the directors of the holding company. The current chairperson of the group is Malini Parthasarathy, a great-granddaughter of Iyengar. Except for a period of about two years, when S. Varadarajan held the editorship of the newspaper, the editorial positions of the paper were always held by members of the family or held under their direction. Histo ...
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Javed Akhtar
Javed Akhtar (born 17 January 1945) is an Indian poet, lyricist, screenwriter and political activist. Known for his work in Hindi cinema, he has won five National Film Awards, and received the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2007, two of India's highest civilian honours. Akhtar came to recognition in the duo Salim–Javed, and earned his breakthrough as a screenwriter with 1973's ''Zanjeer''. He went on to write the films ''Deewar'' and ''Sholay'', both released in 1975; they earned a cult following, and had a significant impact in popular culture. He later earned praise for his work as a lyricist, winning the National Film Award for Best Lyrics five times and the Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist eight times. Akhtar notably campaigned for the Communist Party of India (CPI) and their candidate in the 2019 Indian general election, and was a member of parliament in Rajya Sabha. For his work, he received the Richard Dawkins Award in 2020. Early life Javed Akh ...
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