I have been asked why I have said I do not have heroes. The most  I will admit to is respect for people who have a track record of  rational analysis. I don’t care who you are, what matters to me is what you say– is it logical? is it true? Are you appealing to emotion? — I am not going to be intimidated by a name or title.

I feel skeptics should always examine propositions made no matter the source but, I have been noting a growing number of people in the atheism/skeptical movement who seem to accept as true without question, propositions made by popular figures; or their heroes.

I ran into a case of this at my very first atheist conference (Eschaton 2012). Sitting in the audience before a panel started,  a neighbouring audience member was talking about how their hero had re-tweeted which made a tweet of…