Maynard Shipley (December 1, 1872 – June 18, 1934) was an American

freethinker Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods ...

and

science writer Science journalism conveys reporting about science to the public. The field typically involves interactions between scientists, journalists, and the public. Origins Modern science journalism dates back to ''Digdarshan'' (means showing the di ...

Biography

Shipley was born in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

and was educated at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, California. He lectured on science and founded the Academy of Science in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, 1898. He defended

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

and campaigned against

creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

and religious fundamentalism. He founded the Science League of America in 1924 of which he was President. The League was known for its advocacy of

separation of church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...

and protecting the freedom of science education. Shipley was married to

Miriam Allen deFord Miriam Allen deFord (August 21, 1888 – February 22, 1975) was an American writer best known for her mysteries and science fiction. During the 1920s, she wrote for a number of left-wing magazines including ''The Masses'', '' The Liberator'', a ...

. He was an active member of the

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...

but resigned in 1922. He was a member of the

Rationalist Press Association The Rationalist Association, originally the Rationalist Press Association, is an organization in the United Kingdom, founded in 1885 by a group of freethinkers who were unhappy with the increasingly political and decreasingly intellectual tenor ...

and contributed articles to the ''

Truth Seeker ''The Truth Seeker'' is an American periodical published since 1873. It was considered the most influential Freethought publication during the period following the Civil War into the first decades of the 20th century, known as the Golden Age ...

''.Maynard Shipley
''

The Humanist ''The Humanist'' is an American bi-monthly magazine published in Washington, DC. It was founded in 1941 by American Humanist Association. It covers topics in science, religion, media, technology, politics and popular culture and provides ethical ...

'', 1955. He wrote 33 titles for the

Little Blue Books Little Blue Books are a series of small staple-bound books published from 1919 through 1978 by the Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company of Girard, Kansas. They were extremely popular, and achieved a total of 300-500 million booklets sold over the se ...

series. He was an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

. Shipley was a signer of

Humanist Manifesto I ''A Humanist Manifesto'', also known as ''Humanist Manifesto I'' to distinguish it from later ''Humanist Manifestos'' in the series, was written in 1933 primarily by Raymond Bragg and published with 34 signers. Unlike the later manifestos, this fi ...

. He died in

San Rafael, California San Rafael ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Raphael (archangel), St. Raphael", ) is a city and the county seat of Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), ...

.Rundles, R. Wayne; Papez, James W. (1937)
''Connections Between the Striatum and the Substantia Nigra in a Human Brain''
''Arch NeurPsych'' 38 (3): 550-563.

Selected publications

''Hypnotism Made Plain''
(1924)
''Principles of Electricity''
(1924) *''The Intelligence of Vertebrate Animals'' (1924) *''Sources of Bible Myths and Legends'' (1925) *''Sex and the Garden of Eden Myth: A Collection of Essays on Christianity'' (1927) *''The War on Modern Science: A Short History of the Fundamentalist Attacks on Evolution and'' Modernism (1927) *''The Real Aims of Catholicism'' (1928) *''The Key to Evolution'' (1930)

Electoral record

References

External links

Welcome to the Science League of America
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shipley, Maynard 1872 births 1934 deaths American atheists American humanists American science writers American skeptics American socialists American critics of Christianity Critics of creationism Freethought writers Stanford University alumni Writers from Baltimore

Biography

Selected publications

Electoral record

References

Further reading

External links