All posts tagged: Beings

Are human beings getting better? What is ‘feet of clay’? – OpentheWord.org

Are human beings getting better? What is ‘feet of clay’? – OpentheWord.org

Published by Sam Flores

Credit: wellcomeimages.org, Wikipeida, CC BY 4.0 Are you civilized? Do you feel like the human race is making progress, mostly in the right direction? Are you positive about the future of human civilization?  Here is a pessimistic, negative opinion about human progress: The news can be depressing. Right now there is at least one war in the Middle East, but that’s no surprise. There always seems to be something to fight about in that part of the world. So, where you live; are things getting better? Is society moving on to better things? There is a large amount of pessimism in most places. If we believe in human evolution, we should be progressing to greater and better things. Even if we make mistakes, in Darwinian thinking, we have a system called the survival of the fittest, which means that we can learn from our mistakes and do better things, next time. The people who can’t keep up, and can’t get it right, will probably become extinct, according to that theory. I have friends and neighbors …

Are Human Beings Machines? Surgeon and Historian Go Head-to-Head

Are Human Beings Machines? Surgeon and Historian Go Head-to-Head

Published by Jenni Sidey

During the Wednesday, November 19, plated dinner at COSM 2025, Dr. Michael Egnor and historian of science Michael Shermer participated in a panel moderated by Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jay W. Richards. Egnor and Shermer take opposite views on whether an immortal soul exists and whether human beings are machines. Michael Egnor Dr. Egnor, a Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, an award-winning brain surgeon, and first author of The Immortal Mind (2025) told the audience that he began his career as an atheist. He was informed by his textbooks that consciousness is a product of the brain; it arises from the brain. What he started to witness in his neurosurgery practice did not support that view. Consciousness, at some points, did not seem to arise from the brain. For instance, as he illustrated with a slide, “Cindy” was a girl born without most of her brain. But she remained fully conscious. If consciousness comes wholly from the brain, how is this possible? Reason, free will, and neuroscience …