Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [23]
The Reaction to “Brights”
The feedback from audience members was difficult to read, but immediately following the presentation, myself, the Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the magician and skeptic James Randi, and many others all formally signed up to be brights. In the months following the conference Dawkins penned an opinion editorial for the June 21 issue of The Guardian in London, and the Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett announced in the New York Times on July 12 that he too was a bright. At a June conference in Seattle for gifted high school students at which both Dennett and I spoke about being nonbelievers and brights, there was an enthusiastic reception that generated a buzz among both students and speakers the rest of the weekend. It seems that lots of teenagers, and even many adult professionals from all walks of life, are nonbelievers but have been reluctant to come out as such for fear of retribution.
In his commentary, Dawkins opined that “as with gays, the more brights come out, the easier it will be for yet more brights to do so. People reluctant to use the word atheist might be happy to come out as a bright.” Dawkins admitted that the phrase “I am bright” rings with arrogance, so he hopes that “I am a bright” will solicit inquiry. “It invites the question, ‘What on earth is a bright?’ And then you’re away: ‘A bright is a person whose worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements. The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic worldview.’” Dennett, in turn, announced, “The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet” and admit publicly that we “don’t believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny—or God.” He too averred: “Don’t confuse the noun with the adjective: I’m a bright’ is not a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive worldview.”
Where Dawkins observed that “brights constitute 60% of American scientists, and a stunning 93% of those scientists good enough to be elected to the elite National Academy of Sciences” (referring to a study conducted in 1996 by Edward Larson), Dennett added that brights are “all around you: we’re doctors, nurses, police officers, schoolteachers, crossing guards and men and women serving in the military. We are your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters. Our colleges and universities teem with brights. Wanting to preserve and transmit a great culture, we even teach Sunday school and Hebrew classes. Many of the nation’s clergy members are closet brights, I suspect. We are, in fact, the moral backbone of the nation: brights take their civic duties seriously precisely because they don’t trust God to save humanity from its follies.”’
How many brights are there? Officially there are several thousand from seventy-nine nations. Unofficially, Dennett cited a 2002 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which concluded that twenty-seven million Americans are atheists, agnostics, or claim no religious preference. “That figure may well be too low,” Dennett suggested optimistically, “since many nonbelievers are reluctant to admit that their religious observance is more a civic or social duty than a religious one—more a matter of protective coloration than conviction.”
Reactions from public intellectuals came swiftly. A number of people reported that they heard Rush Limbaugh comment on his syndicated radio show heard by tens of millions of people that brights think they are “brighter than those who believe in God.” In The Times of London Ben Mclntyre confessed on July 19, 2002, “I shall not be coming out as a Bright just yet. For a start, the term ‘secular humanist’ may be old-fashioned but it is still serviceable, and mercifully doesn’t sound like something dreamed up as an advertising gimmick.” He noted, with classic British humor, “It has the added advantage that the Religious Right in America already loathes it, so it must be just fine.” More seriously, Mclntyre observed, “The term ‘Bright’ seems too all-embracing for so many shades of