Michael Egnor

On today’s ID the Future, Your Designed Body co-author and systems engineer Steve Laufmann continues his conversation with host and neurosurgeon Michael Egnor. In this episode, Laufmann reviews four causal factors involved in Darwin’s theory of evolution, and explains why they lack the power to generate life’s great variety of forms. To dive deeper into his argument, check out Laufmann’s new book co-authored with physician Howard Glicksman.

Today’s ID the Future continues the conversation between neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and neurotheologian Andrew Newberg. In this second and concluding part of their discussion, they further explore what experiments using brain scans reveal about how the brain is affected by meditation and mystical experiences, including near-death experiences. Also, what parts of the brain light up, and what parts go dormant, when someone is “speaking in tongues,” and how does someone who has this experience describe it, and does that description mesh with or clash with what turns up on the brain scans? Tune in to hear Newberg’s answer to this and other issues related to the mind-brain problem and the mystical. This interview is posted here by permission of Mind Read More ›

It’s hard to know where the brain ends and the mind begins. How can studying our brains give us insight into our minds? On this ID the Future, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and neurosurgeon Michael Egnor sit down for a chat about all things brain related including neurotheology, methods of studying the brain, and research on how various forms of religious and non-religious meditation actually change the wiring of the brain, including in particular a study Newberg did on Franciscan nuns and what they refer to as “centering prayer.” This interview is borrowed, with permission, from Mind Matters, a podcast of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

On this ID the Future host Casey Luskin interviews science journalist Denyse O’Leary about her recent essay, “Is Evolutionary Psychology a Legitimate Way to Understand Our Humanity,” which appears in the new Harvest House anthology co-edited by Luskin, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith. O’Leary, a science journalist and co-author of The Spiritual Brain, offers a withering critique of evolutionary psychology and traces its roots, beginning with The Descent of Man (1871), where Charles Darwin attributed various human behaviors to natural and sexual selection. That fed into what became known as social Darwinism, which fell out of favor after World War II thanks to Hitler and the Nazis’ application of social Darwinist ideas to defend Nordic superiority and genocide. Read More ›

On this episode of ID the Future we hear a neurosurgeon’s view on materialistic bias afflicting the entire field of neuroscience. It’s a bias, he argues, that leads some scientists to misunderstand the meaning of their experiments. Darwinists “allergic to teleology” ignore clear evidence that purpose is essential to the mind. This talk is bonus material accompanying the action-filled and thought provoking series of short videos on science and materialism at scienceuprising.com.

On this episode of ID The Future, neurosurgery professor Michael Egnor explores the case of Tatiana and Krista, the “Craniopagus Twins.” Their condition, he says, provides evidence against strict materialism.  Tatiana and Krista are connected at the thalamus (which controls such things as wakefulness, motor function and vision) through a structure called a thalamic bridge. This bridge enables them to see through each other’s eyes to and control each other’s limbs. Egnor explains how their separate personalities and thoughts nevertheless show that there is something about the mind not reducible to the brain. Egnor also goes through the mind-brain research of Roger Sperry, Benjamin Libet and Wilder Penfield.

On this episode of ID The Future, host Ray Bohlin talks with Michael Egnor, a pediatric neurosurgeon and professor of neurosurgery at State University of New York Stony Brook about ways modern science validates the idea that the mind is not reducible to the brain. They delve into oddities of neuroscience that indicate that there is more going on in the brain than mere chemistry, and, in particular, walk through the seminal work of Adrian Owen on MRIs and what it reveals.