An article in the recent issue of Skeptic magazine researching public reaction to the cringe-inducing, gauche and generally unnecessary “The Brights” campaign. The article (by Skeptic founder/director Michael Shermer) doesn’t come to any conclusions (beyond “hey, skeptic is a good name already”), but the evidence is clearly negative.
Disappointingly both Dawkins and Daniel Dennett (a personal hero of mine) have used their media-wonk status to give this campaign a PR nudge towards the tipping point. But this is one meme that is not going to take off. Chris Mooney at http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/brights/ puts it best with
“… though Dawkins and Dennett may know a lot about evolutionary biology, the packaging and marketing of ideas … might not be their strongest suit.”