Type
post
Date
October 31, 2008
Tagged
, __edited , __repeat , Materialism
The Real Frankenstein: Giovanni Aldini
John G. West
October 31, 2008
Uncategorized
Guest(s) John G. West
Duration 00:04:10 Download Audio File (7.7 mb)
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On this episode of ID the Future , John West shares the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .
In his book, Darwin Day in America , West examines the experiments Italian scientist Giovanni Aldini conducted on human corpses. His gruesome work provided the inspiration for Frankenstein and foreshadowed the rise of a virulent strain of materialism that attempted to use science to reduce human beings to mere matter in motion.
Photo by Chris Morgan, © Discovery Institute Senior Fellow , Managing Director , and Vice President of Discovery InstituteDr. John G. West is Vice President of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and Managing Director of the Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Formerly the Chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University, West is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker who has written or edited 12 books, including Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science , The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society , and Walt Disney and Live Action: The Disney Studio’s Live-Action Features of the 1950s and 60s . His documentary films include Fire-Maker , Revolutionary , The War on Humans , and (most recently) Human Zoos . West holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University, and he has been interviewed by media outlets such as CNN, Fox News, Reuters, Time magazine, The New York Times , USA Today , and The Washington Post .