Remick wrote:
It actually states in the article that they had a bit of an issue trying to reconcile how to only poll "old white cis dudebros" since old and dudebro are mutually exclusive. Then they said "Fuck it! As long as you show up to the WWWHC(Wealthy White Women Haters Club), we care what you think!"
I didn't find commentary in the article along those lines, although there was this:
...the selectors' remit ruthlessly insisted on "influence over the past 12 months" and "significance to the year's biggest questions".
This requirement may have been a factor in the top 10 being all-male (presumably a source of frustration to the five women on the selection panel, including Prospect's editor Bronwen Maddox), with longlistees such as Hilary Mantel, Martha Nussbaum and Sheryl Sandberg not making it through to the elite of the elite, and the likes of Germaine Greer and Naomi Klein not even making it into the 65. But it may also, of course, simply reflect the gender make-up of the monthly's readership.
This seems a bit different than your take on it. The qualifications were quite narrow with that remit, being focused on recent current events. There were five women on the selection board, although the article does not mention the number of men (5, 10, 100?). There is that reference to the readership, which implies some sort of poll was taken, but no other reference is made in that regard. Were the selections made only by the Selection Board, the readers or some combination of the two? The article does not say.
The article then closes with this, which also reflects the effects of the qualifying remit:
As for Dawkins, the continuation of wars of religion and terrorist atrocities informed by it means his atheist crusade remains relevant to the year's biggest questions, despite the end of the Bible-bashing, war-mongering Bush era in which he first raised his banner – this week his 670,000 Twitter followers could find him (between musings about socks) rejoicing in France's legalisation of gay marriage, ridiculing a journalist's Muslim beliefs, and retweeting a story that the older Boston bomber "was angry that the world pictured Islam as a violent religion". On Monday, no doubt manfully resisting efforts to deify or idolise him, the world No 1 will attend the premiere in Toronto of a documentary about his roadshow (with Lawrence Krauss) promoting science and reason.
Dawkins remains very active on the forefront of the hot topics of the day and carries a very large footprint within the media, social and traditional, so given the specifics of the remit it is a given he will finish high in the standings.
Anyway, the poll aside, one of the things that really flipped me off with the influx of the SJW crowd into the atheist spaces was their attitude and intent to bury their white, male, cisgen predecessors so they could take over their hard earned positions as representatives of the modern atheist 'movement'. They actually believed they had the numbers and influence to do that (courtesy of their carefully maintained echo chambers, no doubt). When I jumped back into the fray to see what the fuss was about, and tried to point out to them what a very badly thought out strategy that was, well, you can guess how well that went! The upshot is that there is a certain satisfaction in seeing my predictions play out.