Sam Harris

Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American author, philosopher, and neuroscientist. His first book, The End of Faith (2004), is a critique of organized religion. In The Moral Landscape (2010), Harris argues that science can help answer moral problems and aid human well-being. He published a long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014 and, with British activist Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015.

Harris is a critic of religion and proponent of the liberty to criticize it. Harris is also a proponent of secular meditation practices adopted from Buddhism (especially Vipassana), having devoted two years of his life to silent practice in India. He has also praised Advaita Vedanta and Dzogchen, as "they contain empirical insights about the nature of consciousness that do not depend upon faith." He is the co-founder and chief executive of Project Reason, a non-profit organization that promotes science and secularism, and host of the Waking Up podcast. He is considered a member of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism", alongside Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens.

Harris has written articles for The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsweek, and the scientific journal Nature. His articles discuss topics including religion, morality, neuroscience, free will, terrorism, and self-defense. He regularly gives talks around the United States and the United Kingdom, including two speeches at TED, where he has outlined arguments made in his book The Moral Landscape and, more recently, his thoughts concerning the potential dangers of superintelligent AI. Harris has made numerous television appearances, and has appeared in the documentary films The God Who Wasn't There (2005) and The Unbelievers (2013).