My favorite hosts get a great award

(Note that I said hosts, not host. My favorite single host is and shall remain Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs).)

For a few years now, the Harvard Secular Society, on behalf of the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and the American Humanist Association, have been giving out the self-evident “Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism” to those members and icons in our pop culture who best promote “cultural humanism” (which probably means whatever you want it to mean, to be honest).

In 2007, the winner was Salman Rushdie, the British novelist known for dealing with death threats following a fatwa being issued against him by Muslims who took offense at one of his books. In ’08, Greg Graffin, lead singer of punk rock band Bad Religion and a member at the UCLA Faculty of Biology, took the prize home. And last year, the award went to writer/director/producer Joss Whedon, the guy behind shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse.

And now, this year’s winner(s) have been selected. Who can it be, you ask? Well (I say), if this doesn’t reveal the answer … you just don’t deserve a television set, or (possibly) an Internet connection.

Yeah, baby! [pic from Friendly Atheist]

Now in its fourth year, the HSS Cultural Humanism committee has chosen the recipients for the award, the MythBusters, based on what they feel is an outstanding contribution to Humanism in culture. The MythBusters – special-effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman – take on the task of separating truth from urban legend on their television show with the same name. In true Humanist style, the pair takes on three myths per episode and uses modern-day science to demonstrate, through scientific trials, whether or not some things we take for granted really hold any ground. The award ceremony (April 16 8:00pm Memorial Church. Click here to buy tickets.) will feature a talk and demonstrations by the pair.

What a wonderful honor to award to a hosting duo who really couldn’t possibly deserve it more. MythBusters isn’t just about entertainment and big booms every episode (though that does seem to be a large part of it); it’s all about teaching people to think critically and skeptically, to learn how to separate fact from myth, and to use their heads, common sense – along with the scientific method – to figure things out in their everyday lives. (But then, xkcd already told you that.)

(I hope they give other starlets, crazy Tory, geeky Grant and prainy^[1] Kari an honorable mention at the least. The show wouldn’t be what it is without them, of course.)

(via Friendly Atheist)

^[1] Prainy = pretty + brainy. My type of girl. =P