Victor John Stenger (; January 29, 1935 – August 25, 2014) was an American

particle physicist Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and ...

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, author, and religious skeptic. Following a career as a

research scientist A scientist is a person who researches to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophical study of nature ...

in the field of particle physics, Stenger was associated with

New Atheism New Atheism is a perspective shared by some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries, intolerant of superstition, religion, and irrationalism. New Atheists advocate the antitheist view that the v ...

and he authored

popular science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

books. He published twelve books for general audiences on

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...

, and

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...

, including the 2007 best-seller '' God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist''. His final book was ''God and the Multiverse: Humanity's Expanding View of the Cosmos'' (2014). He was a regular featured science columnist for the

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...

.Audio of interview with Stenger on the podcast "Skepticality"
released 28 August 2012 by the

Skeptics Society The Skeptics Society is a nonprofit, member-supported organization devoted to promoting scientific skepticism and resisting the spread of pseudoscience, superstition, and irrational beliefs. The Skeptics Society was co-founded by Michael Sher ...

. An advocate for removing the influence of religion from scientific research, commercial activity, and the political process, Stenger coined the quote: "Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings" (a reference to the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

Personal life

Victor J. Stenger was born on January 29, 1935, and raised in a working-class neighborhood of

Bayonne, New Jersey Bayonne ( ) is a City (New Jersey), city in Hudson County, New Jersey, Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey, in the Gateway Region on Bergen Neck, a peninsula between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill Van Kull to the south, and New York ...

. His father was a Lithuanian immigrant, and his mother was the daughter of Hungarian immigrants. He died on August 25, 2014, at the age of 79.

Career

Education and employment

Stenger attended public schools in Bayonne, New Jersey, and received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from Newark College of Engineering (now the

New Jersey Institute of Technology New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) is a Public university, public research university in Newark, New Jersey, United States, with a graduate-degree-granting satellite campus in Jersey City. Founded in 1881 with the support of local indust ...

). He then moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

on a

Hughes Aircraft Company The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of the Hughes Tool Company. The company produced the Hughes H-4 Hercules air ...

fellowship, earning a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

and

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in physics from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

. He was a member of the Department of Physics at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

until his 2000 retirement. He held visiting positions on the faculties of the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

in Germany and

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

(twice) and was a visiting researcher at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, the National Nuclear Physics Laboratory in

Frascati Frascati () is a city and in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with science, ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, and the

University of Florence The University of Florence ( Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'') (in acronym UNIFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The f ...

in Italy. He served as an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is gen ...

of philosophy at the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a Public university, public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a Federated state, state, it is the fla ...

Scientist

Stenger's first peer-reviewed work was published in 1964, and his research career continued until his retirement in 2000. His research involved work that determined properties of

gluons A gluon ( ) is a type of massless elementary particle that mediates the strong interaction between quarks, acting as the exchange particle for the interaction. Gluons are massless vector bosons, thereby having a spin of 1. Through the s ...

quarks A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. All commonly o ...

strange Strange may refer to: Fiction * Strange (comic book), a comic book limited series by Marvel Comics * Strange (Marvel Comics), one of a pair of Marvel Comics characters known as The Strangers * Adam Strange, a DC Comics superhero * The title c ...

particles, and

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that i ...

s. Stenger focused on

neutrino astronomy Neutrino astronomy is a branch of astronomy that gathers information about astronomical objects by observing and studying neutrinos emitted by them with the help of neutrino detectors in special Earth observatories. It is an emerging field in as ...

and very high-energy

gamma rays A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol ), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from high energy interactions like the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei or astronomical events like solar flares. It consists o ...

Philosopher and skeptic

Stenger was an advocate of philosophical naturalism,

skepticism Skepticism ( US) or scepticism ( UK) is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...

, and

, and wrote several books and papers about the relationship between science and religion. He was a prominent critic of

intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".#Numbers 2006, Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for it ...

and the aggressive use of the

anthropic principle In cosmology, the anthropic principle, also known as the observation selection effect, is the proposition that the range of possible observations that could be made about the universe is limited by the fact that observations are only possible in ...

. He maintained that if

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

and

free will Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choice, choose between different possible courses of Action (philosophy), action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral respon ...

do exist, they will eventually be explained in a scientific manner that invokes neither the

mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight ...

nor the

supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...

. He criticized those who invoke the perplexities of

in support of the

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute (philosophy), Absolute, but may refer to any kind of Religious ecstasy, ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or Spirituality, spiritual meani ...

, or

supernatural phenomena Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanings since the an ...

, writing several books and articles to debunk contemporary

. Stenger took part in the 2008 "Origins Conference" hosted by the

at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

and debated Hugh Ross on the topic of whether science supports belief in

existence of God The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and theology. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God (with the same or similar arguments also generally being used when talking about the exis ...

. In 1992, Uri Geller sued Stenger and

Prometheus Books Prometheus Books is a publishing company founded in August 1969 by the philosopher Paul Kurtz (who was also the founder of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). The publ ...

for $4 million, claiming

defamation Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

for questioning his "

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use powers rooted in parapsychology, such as extrasensory perception (ESP), to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance; or who performs acts that a ...

powers." The suit was dismissed and Geller was ordered to pay

court costs Court costs (also called law costs in English procedure) are the costs of handling a case, which, depending on legal rules, may or may not include the costs of the various parties in a lawsuit in addition to the costs of the court itself. In the ...

. Astronomer Luke Barnes argued in a 2012 paper that many of Stenger's claims about fine-tuning were problematic and that his arguments were fallacious. Stenger responded that Barnes misunderstood and misrepresented his positions.

Professional and community positions

* President, 1990–1994, Hawaiian Humanists * Member of Editorial Board, ''

Free Inquiry ''Free Inquiry'' is a bimonthly journal of secular humanist opinion and commentary published by the Council for Secular Humanism, a program of the Center for Inquiry. Philosopher Paul Kurtz was the editor-in-chief from its inception in 1980 un ...

'' * Member of Society of Humanist Philosophers * Fellow of the

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the U.S. non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to " ...

* Fellow of the

Center for Inquiry The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a U.S. nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal and to fight the influence of religion in government. History The Center for Inquiry was established in 1991 by ...

* President, 2002–2006, Colorado Citizens for Science

Publications by Stenger

Books for general audiences

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Peer-reviewed articles

* * * * * * *

Other essays

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Columnist

From 1998 to 2011 Stenger wrote for the column
Reality Check
" in
Skeptical Briefs
', the quarterly newsletter of the

(CSI). Since August 2010, he was also a regularly featured science columnist for the

Pantheon of skeptics

Stenger has been included in CSI's Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of

scientific skepticism Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism (also spelled scepticism), sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking scientific evidence. In practice, the term most commonly ref ...

References

External links

*
Reviews of Stenger's books.

Audio of interview with Stenger on the podcast/radio show "Freethought"
by the

Freedom From Religion Foundation The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for atheism, atheists, agnosticism, agnostics, and nontheism, nontheists. Formed in 1976, FFRF promotes the separation of church and state, and ch ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Stenger, Victor J. American skeptics American critics of alternative medicine American critics of creationism Critics of parapsychology New Jersey Institute of Technology alumni Writers from Bayonne, New Jersey American science writers American atheism activists 1935 births 2014 deaths American former Christians 21st-century American philosophers 20th-century American philosophers Atheist philosophers American people of Lithuanian descent American people of Hungarian descent Former Roman Catholics New Atheism University of California, Los Angeles alumni American particle physicists 20th-century atheists 21st-century atheists Writers about religion and science