The Pantheon of Skeptics
The Pantheon of Skeptics—a roster honoring late distinguished fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP)—has been established, and twenty-seven outstanding scientists, scholars, writers, and investigators have been named to it.
The CSI(COP) executive council has long discussed how to keep before the public the names of the great, now-deceased skeptics who made extraordinary contributions to the causes of science and skepticism in the modern era. Some were already well established when CSICOP (the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) was created in 1976 and became founding fellows; others were elected as fellows later.
The desire is to continue honoring these skeptics’ contributions and to provide a sense of history about the modern skeptical movement.
The Pantheon of Skeptics was created and the names chosen for it selected at a meeting of the CSI executive council in Denver, April 1–2, 2011. They will be listed permanently at CSI’s headquarters in Amherst, New York, and on its website at www.csicop.org. (Current fellows are also listed on the website and on the inside front cover of every issue of SI.)
Here are those chosen for the Pantheon of Skeptics:
George O. Abell
astronomer
Steve Allen
entertainer, author, critic
Jerry Andrus
magician and inventor
Isaac Asimov
biochemist and science writer
Robert Baker
psychologist
T.X. Barber
psychologist
Barry Beyerstein
biopsychologist
Bart J. Bok
astronomer
Milbourne Christopher
magician and writer
Francis H. Crick
Nobel laureate biophysicist
L. Sprague Decamp
author and engineer
Martin Gardner
author and critic
Stephen Jay Gould
biologist and writer
D.O. Hebb
psychologist
Sidney Hook
philosopher
Leon Jaroff
senior science editor, Time magazine / founder, Discover magazine
Philip J. Klass
aerospace writer and engineer
Paul Kurtz
founder, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry & Skeptical Inquirer magazine / founder, Prometheus Books, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Center for Inquiry
Paul Maccready
scientist, engineer, inventor
John Maddox
science editor
William V. Mayer
biologist
Walter Mccrone
microscopist
Ernest Nagel
philosopher
H. Narasimhaiah
physicist
W.V. Quine
philosopher
Carl Sagan
astronomer and writer
Glenn T. Seaborg
Nobel laureate chemist
B.F. Skinner
psychologist
Stephen Toulmin
philosopher