Rebecca Watson (born October 18, 1980) is a blogger and independent podcast host. She is the founder of Skepchick who also co-hosts The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast with Steven Novella, Bob Novella, Jay Novella and Evan Bernstein (earlier with Perry DeAngelis, who died on 19th August 2007). She also previously co-hosted the Little Atoms podcast.

Watson founded Skepchick in 2005, describing it as "an organization dedicated to promoting skepticism and critical thinking among women around the world." Originally the site consisted of a forum and a monthly online magazine, Skepchick Magazine, which was launched January 15, 2006.

In 2006, Watson released The Skepchick Calendar, a pin-up calendar featuring pictures of skeptical women for every month. Proceeds provided the attendance fee for several female applicants to attend the James Randi Educational Foundation's The Amaz!ng Meeting.^{[not in citation given]} New calendars have been made in subsequent years, including Skepdude Calendars since 2007.

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers (born March 9, 1957) is an American scientist and biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM) and the author of the Pharyngula science blog, hosted on both the Science Blogs and Freethought Blogs blog networks. He is currently an associate professor of biology at UMM, works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), and also cultivates an interest in cephalopods. He has published numerous research papers in Nature and other notable scientific journals.

He is a public critic of intelligent design (ID) and of the creationist movement in general and is an activist in the American creation–evolution controversy. He is widely regarded as a confrontationalist.

In 2006, the journal Nature listed his blog, Pharyngula, as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist. Additionally, PZ Myers was the recipient of the Humanist of the Year award in 2009, and the International Humanist Award in 2011.

Asteroid 153298 Paulmyers is named in his honor.