Michael Egnor

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Michael Egnor
OccupationNeurosurgeon

Michael Egnor is an American pediatric neurosurgeon, advocate of the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design and blogger at the Discovery Institute. He is a professor at the Department of Neurological Surgery at Stony Brook University, a position held since 1991. [1] He has defended mind-body dualism. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Education

Egnor completed medical school at Columbia University. [5]

Intelligent design

Egnor rejected evolutionary theory after reading Michael Denton's book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and said "claims of evolutionary biologists go wildly beyond the evidence." [6] In 2007 he joined the Discovery Institute's Evolution News & Views blog. [7]

Biologist Jerry Coyne responded to Egnor's article by saying that Egnor accepted widely discredited claims (claims recanted by Denton himself in a later book) and "Egnor is decades out of date and shows no sign of knowing anything at all about evolutionary biology in the 21st century." [8] Egnor later published a series of comprehensive articles on Discovery Institute responding to Coyne's remarks. Egnor is a signatory to the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaign A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism and Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism .

In March 2007, when the Alliance for Science sponsored an essay contest for high school students on the topic "Why I would want my doctor to have studied evolution," Egnor responded by posting an essay on the Discovery Institute's intelligent design blog claiming that evolution was irrelevant to medicine. [9] Burt Humburg criticized him on the blog Panda's Thumb citing the benefits of evolution to medicine and, contrary to Egnor's claim, that doctors do study evolution. [10]

Egnor appeared in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed . In the film, Ben Stein describes this as "Darwinists were quick to try and exterminate this new threat," and Egnor says he was shocked by the "viciousness" and "baseness" of the response. The website Expelled Exposed, created by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), responded by saying that Egnor must never have been on the Internet before. [11]

In September 2021 Egnor debated Matt Dillahunty. [12]

Aristotelean dualism

Egnor has defended Aristotelean dualism. [3] [4] He rejects both Cartesian dualism and materialism. He argues that observations during brain surgery, studies of brain seizures, split-brain surgery patients and accounts of near-death experiences support the dualism of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, a type of dualism that is distinct from that of René Descartes. [4] Clinical neurologist Steven Novella who has debated Egnor has criticized his arguments for dualism as a God of the gaps fallacy and has suggested that Egnor "uses his writings to confuse and misdirect, and to undermine the public understanding of science". [2]

Medical work

In 2005 Egnor operated on a young boy whose head was crushed by his father's SUV. The case was reported in Newsday , Good Morning America and New York magazine. [13] [14]

Personal life

Egnor has four children and resides in Stony Brook, New York with his wife. Egnor is a Catholic. [15]

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. ↑ "Michael Egnor, MD". Stony Brook University. 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-20.
  2. 1 2 Novella, Steven (2008). "More Sloppy Thinking from Michael Egnor on Neuroscience". theness.com. Archived from the original on September 22, 2024.
  3. 1 2 Stoke, David (2017). "Review of the 2017 Annual Meeting". The Christian Scientific Society. Archived from the original on September 22, 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 "Science Beyond Materialism: Cosmology, Astrobiology, Consciousness". Thomas H. Olbricht Christian Scholars Conference. 2021. Archived from the original on September 22, 2024.
  5. ↑ "Michael Egnor, MD". Stony Brook University. 2019.
  6. ↑ Egnor, Michael (2009-02-05). "A Neurosurgeon, Not A Darwinist". Forbes magazine . Retrieved 2009-06-20.
  7. ↑ "Michael Egnor, M.D., joins the ENV Team". Evolutionnews.org from Discovery Institute. March 2007. Retrieved 2008-06-20.
  8. ↑ Coyne, Jerry (2009-02-12). "Why Evolution Is True: Creationists don't deserve credence--especially from Forbes". Forbes magazine . Retrieved 2009-06-20.
  9. ↑ "Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution?". Evolutionnews.org from Discovery Institute. March 2007. Retrieved 2008-06-20.
  10. ↑ Humburg, Burt (9 March 2007). "Egnorance: The Egotistical Combination of Ignorance and Arrogance". panda'sthumb.org. Retrieved 2011-03-28.
  11. ↑ "Expelled Exposed > Michael Egnor". National Center for Science Education. 2008. Archived from the original on 2015-03-10. Retrieved 2008-04-20.
  12. ↑ Debate: Does God Exist? | Matt Dillahunty vs Michael Egnor , retrieved 2022-02-16
  13. ↑ "Saving Bobby". Newsday.com. Feb 8, 2007. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  14. ↑ "'One Lucky Unlucky Boy- Dr. Michael Egnor Removes the Skull of a Two-Year-Old". New York . 3 June 2005. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  15. ↑ Egnor, Michael (2009-02-05). "A Neurosurgeon, Not A Darwinist". Forbes magazine . Retrieved 2009-03-23.
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