Michael Egnor

Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics, State University of New York, Stony Brook

Michael R. Egnor, MD, is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, has served as the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and is an award-winning brain surgeon. He was named one of New York’s best doctors by the New York Magazine in 2005. His book, The Immortal Mind: A neurosurgeon’s case for the existence of the soul, co-authored by Denyse O’Leary, was published by Worthy on June 3, 2025.

He received his medical education at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His research on hydrocephalus has been published in journals including Journal of Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, and Cerebrospinal Fluid Research. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hydrocephalus Association in the United States and has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

Archives

How Changing Your Mind Can Physically Alter Your Brain

Dr. Lee Warren
May 6, 2026
Is it possible to personally alter the physical structure of your brain? Today’s episode of ID The Future comes to us from our sister podcast Mind Matters News. Host Dr. Michael Egnor sits down with fellow neurosurgeon and author Dr. Lee Warren to discuss his book The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery. Dr. Warren shares how his medical training and Christian faith collided after the tragic loss of his son. The experience helped him realize that the mind is more than just brain activity. Dr. Warren unpacks the main thrust of his book, describing self-brain surgery as the intentional practice of choosing different thoughts to physically change the brain’s structure and improve overall health. Dr. Warren has observed the effects of such self-driven change in real-time brain scans, which deliver positive results like reducing the body’s stress response and promoting healing.

Science, God, and Truth: Michael Shermer and Michael Egnor

Michael Egnor
April 1, 2026
On this episode of the Mind Matters News podcast, host and neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor welcomes Michael Shermer, historian of science and founder of Skeptic magazine, to discuss Shermer’s new book Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters. The conversation quickly evolves into a deep philosophical debate between Egnor and Shermer over whether truths about morality and the universe are created by humans or discovered as objective features of reality.

Egnor vs. Shermer: God, Science, and the Search for Truth

Michael Shermer
April 1, 2026
ID The Future listeners now get to enjoy two episode a month from our sister podcast Mind Matters News, a production of the Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. The Mind Matters News podcast features interviews from experts in computing, engineering, science, and philosophy who bring sanity to the conversation about natural and artificial intelligence. And although the Mind Matters News podcast will not often explicitly discuss intelligent design, it regularly explores the nature of intelligence, the origin of information, and the things that make us uniquely human, concepts that are central to the theory of intelligent design. On this episode of Mind Matters News, host and neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor welcomes Michael Shermer, historian of science and founder of Skeptic magazine, to discuss Shermer's new book Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters. The conversation quickly evolves into a deep philosophical debate between Egnor and Shermer over whether truths about morality and the universe are created by humans or discovered as objective features of reality.

Mind and Soul at the Threshold of Death

Michael Egnor, Alexander Batthyany
February 4, 2026
Does the brain explain the mind completely? And what can phenomena like terminal lucidity and near-death experiences reveal about the relationship between mind and brain? On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid concludes his two-part conversation exploring those questions with neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor, co-author with Denyse O’Leary of the recent book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul, and Alexander Batthyany, a leading researcher on terminal lucidity and author of Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border Between Life and Death. In the first half of the conversation, we defined terminal lucidity and explored why it’s so puzzling. Today, we look at how it relates to near-death experiences, and we ask a deeper question: what does this phenomenon suggest about the nature of the human mind? This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation.

Terminal Lucidity: When the Mind Outlasts the Brain

Michael Egnor, Alexander Batthyany
February 2, 2026
Why would the human mind sometimes appear strongest when the brain is weakest? On today's ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes to the show neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor, co-author with Denyse O’Leary of the recent book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul, and Alexander Batthyany, a leading researcher on terminal lucidity and author of Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border Between Life and Death. The trio begins a two-part conversation discussing the phenomenon of terminal lucidity: what it is, what the evidence shows, and how it relates to debates about consciousness, mind, and human identity. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation.

Exploring the Immaterial Mind: Insights from Neuroscience and Thomistic Philosophy

Pat Flynn and Michael Egnor
December 25, 2025
Debate continues on the nature of the mind. Are our minds purely material and comprised only of our physical brains? Does idealism ring true with its views of physical experiences arising solely from a non-physical mind? Or is a dualist position with aspects of both an accurate view? Joining us today to talk about this and his contribution to the book, Minding the Brain, is neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor. As Dr. Egnor argues, the neuroscience evidence appears to favor a dualist view of mind and brain, rather than a purely materialist account. And the Thomistic philosophical framework, with its distinction between intellect/will and sensitive faculties, seems to provide a promising way to integrate these empirical findings. Additional Resources Minding the Brain: Models of the …

Recognizing the Divine in Others: More with Dr. Stephen Post

Michael Egnor
October 23, 2025
If many of us began to practice honoring others in our interactions with them, what change would we see in society? Is it possible to recognize the divine in everyone we meet? On this episode, host Dr. Michael Egnor concludes his conversation with Dr. Stephen Post, author of the new book Pure Unlimited Love: Science and the Seven Paths to Inner Peace. In this segment, Dr. Post discusses the relationship between science, spirituality, and inner peace, referring to insights from his book. Post emphasizes the importance of recognizing the divine presence in every person as a path to practicing compassion and kindness. The conversation also touches on the role of Christianity and religion in providing a framework for moral and spiritual development, as well as the need to move beyond …

Restoring Love and Community in a Divided World: A Conversation with Dr. Stephen Post

Michael Egnor
October 16, 2025
Most of us would agree that in recent years, our society has grown more acrimonious, reactive, and violent. What role does technology play in this trajectory? And what can be done about it? On this episode, host Dr. Michael Egnor speaks to Dr. Stephen Post, author of the new book Pure Unlimited Love: Science and the Seven Paths to Inner Peace. Dr. Post discusses his views on the current state of society and his goal to write a book that offers a different, more loving outlook. The book explores 10 expressions of love, including compassion, an approach Dr. Post calls “carefrontation” (a mix of care and confrontation), creativity, mirth, and simple helping behaviors. He argues that we need to re-embrace values like forbearance, forgiveness, and respect in order to heal the …

Beyond Materialism: Bruce Gordon on the Compelling Case for Idealism

Michael Egnor
August 28, 2025
Over the years, multiple explanations for the nature of reality have been proposed. Physicalists will claim that the only things that exist are physical matter. However, others in the dualist camp maintain that there are non-physical aspects of reality, such as immaterial concepts like numbers, logic, or a person’s mental state. Finally, we have idealists, who hold that the fundamental nature of reality is mental, rather than physical, and that our perception of physical reality is derived from those concepts. On today’s episode, host Michael Egnor talks with Dr. Bruce Gordon, who defends the idealist position and how he believes it best fits the evidence. Gordon has contributed a couple of chapters to the recent book Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, …

Dr. Michael Egnor Reads From His New Book The Immortal Mind

Michael Egnor
July 24, 2025
On today’s episode, Dr. Michael Egnor reads the Introduction to his new book, co-authored with Denyse O’Leary, The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul, now available from Worthy Books. In this reading, Dr. Egnor shares his journey from being a medical student who believed science could explain everything, including how consciousness emerges from the brain and whether we have a soul, to a neurosurgeon who questioned the conventional materialist view. He discusses how years of operating on and examining patients with brain damage led him to wonder how large parts of the brain could be removed without affecting a person’s mind or their ability to think, reason, believe, and desire. His personal story, including a profound experience in a …

Why Do We Mourn the Deaths of Other People’s Children?

I share P. Z. Myers’s horror but the problem of innocent suffering is much deeper for the atheist than for the Christian
Michael Egnor
July 9, 2025
Whatever little contribution the theory of Darwinian evolution that Myers espouses makes to our understanding of bacteria, it tells us nothing of man.

Michael Shermer Disagrees With Me on the Ethics of IVF

He sees a contradiction between my respect for and embrace of children conceived via IVF and my ethical qualms about the process of IVF: “Another example of how religion clouds rationality”
Michael Egnor
July 8, 2025
It is quite possible to seek good ends (children) by bad means (their industrial manufacture). That’s why Christian ethics are needed.

A Neurosurgeon Weighs in On Near-Death Experiences

Robert J. Marks and Michael Egnor
June 19, 2025
On this episode of Mind Matters News, host Robert J. Marks concludes his four-part conversation with neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor about his new book The Immortal Mind. In this final segment, the evidence for the reality of near-death experiences (NDEs) is examined, including well-documented cases such as that of Pam Reynolds, whose NDE occurred during a highly-monitored neurosurgical procedure. Marks and Egnor discuss the implications of NDEs for understanding consciousness, the soul, and the afterlife. Their conclusion? That NDEs provide strong evidence for the existence of an immortal soul and the reality of an afterlife. With his new book, Dr. Egnor presents a compelling case that NDEs, along with other classes of evidence, challenge materialist explanations and point to the …

Immortality of the Soul Is a Reasonable Belief 

Some may think that immortality of the rational soul is not possible in the physical world in which we live. But they are mistaken
Michael Egnor and Denyse O'Leary
June 17, 2025
Nothing in this universe simply dissipates; it is always transformed. The immaterial world is similar.

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and the Human Industrial Revolution

To stand against IVF is not easy, because it provides infertile couples the blessed opportunity to conceive children. But it is the door into new and hellish bioethics
Michael Egnor
June 15, 2025
In a world beset by a growing chasm between the strong and the weak, IVF offers technology to manufacture men and women on scale and on special order.

Neuroscience, Free Will, and the Soul

Michael Egnor and Robert J. Marks
June 12, 2025
Join host Dr. Robert J. Marks for the third segment of his conversation with neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor about evidence he presents in his new book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul. Today’s discussion tackles three profound questions. Number one, do I have free will? Number two, can consciousness be duplicated? And number three, what separates a human from a machine? Dr. Michael Egnor brings a neurosurgeon’s precision and a philosopher’s clarity to these issues. Here, he presents four key reasons for believing in free will. The discussion also explores the relationship between free will, predestination, and the timeless nature of God. Overall, the conversation provides a comprehensive case for the reality of human free …