Humanist profile - Brief Article

Humanist, Jan-Feb, 2003

American Humanist Association
1777 T Street NW
Washington, DC 20009-7125
800-837-3792
fax 202-238-9003
www.AmericanHumanist.org
AHA@AmericanHumanist.org

1979 Humanist Distinguished Service Awardee

Vern L. Bullough is a medical historian who specializes in the history of sex, sexual practices and taboos, and the diverse groups of sex workers. His expertise encompasses several fields, including community health and public policy, contraception, and population issues. He has lectured in most of the United States and at least twenty foreign countries including China, Russia, Greece, Egypt, and Ghana. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, and a distinguished professor emeritus at the State University at Northridge. He is a past president of the Society for the scientific Study of Sex and one of the founders of the American Association for the History of Nursing. Among his many awards is the Alfred Kinsey Award for the distinguished sex research. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of nearly fifty books and has contributed chapters or introductions or more than seventy others. He has also published 150 refereed journals. A long time humanist, he received the American Humanist Association's Humanist Distinguished Service award in 1979. He served on the board of the AHA and was a trustee of its endowment fund, was one of the founders of the Council for Secular Humanist and Ethical Union, and served as copresident and later vice president.

Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports the maximization of individual liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. It advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice. Free of supernaturalism, it recognizes human beings as a part of nature and holds that values--be they religious, ethical, social, or political--have their source in human nature, experience, and culture. Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny.