Stephen J. Iacoboni

Stephen J. Iacoboni, MD, is an award-winning cancer researcher and has been a practitioner of medical oncology for forty years. In his personal memoir, The Undying Soul, he chronicled his spiritual journey and return to faith. In his latest book, Telos: The Scientific Basis for a Life of Purpose, he offers a unique reconciliation between faith and science. Please feel free to visit him at stepheniacoboni.com.

Archives

Is Natural Law Irreducible?

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
April 2, 2024}

Perhaps the most fundamental distinction between naturalism and intelligent design is where each metaphysical framework draws the line at irreducibility.

From Jacques Monod, a Grim Message for Humanity

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
March 12, 2024}

Biology was becoming a "real" science, melded with chemistry into the new discipline of biochemistry. At last life was reducible to molecular interactions.

A Darwinian Dilemma: The Paradox of Reproduction

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
February 8, 2024}

Astonishingly, there is one unique organ system that actually detracts from the chances of survival of even the fittest individuals.

“All Things Are Ordered to Their End”

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
January 15, 2024}

In that one simple phrase, St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest Christian theologian of all time, echoed the fundamental teaching of Aristotle.

To Understand Nature’s Intentionality, We Must Go Back to the Future

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
December 21, 2023}

It required the truly inimitable intellect of Aquinas to Christianize and modernize what Aristotle had said 1,600 years before him.

How to Overcome Scientism

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
December 4, 2023}

Descartes is one of the founding fathers of Western science. And the conversion from medieval scholasticism to Cartesian dualism propelled science dramatically.

Understanding the Limits of Scientism

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
November 1, 2023}

The great impasse in empirical science was reached early in the 20th century when quantum mechanics was first being developed.

Life Without Purpose — The Fundamental Flaw

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
September 28, 2023}

The fundamental flaw in the conventional approach to understanding life is that we think we can fully understand the whole by looking at the individual parts.

Emergence by Design

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
August 30, 2023}

The originators of the concept were two 19th-century British philosopher-scientists, John Stuart Mill and George Henry Lewes.

Something Is Missing from the Materialist Framework

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
July 17, 2023}

Scientists have learned over the centuries that when a fundamental theoretical impasse is encountered, we do not blame nature.

Replacing Chemistry with Purpose

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
June 20, 2023}

The core argument of neo-Darwinism is, simply, that evolution, and life on Earth, are the result of random, aka, purposeless chemical reactions.

Natural Selection Subtracts, It Doesn’t Add — And That Matters

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
May 16, 2023}

In the wild, all organisms must live within their niche. There are no wild polar bears in Arizona, and no iguanas in Alaska.

A New Look at Natural Selection

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
April 18, 2023}

If you are a pine tree, you need to have antifreeze in your needles if you are rooted beyond certain latitudes or elevations.

The DNA Code Takes My Breath Away; Here’s Why

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
February 23, 2023}

These examples may seem trivial, as if they were just "the way things are," not proving anything. But this is not so.

The Elephant in the Science Lab

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
January 24, 2023}

I have been seeking to describe the science of purpose. Now it is worth getting down to the basics of what science actually is and how it works.

“Why Life?”: A Question Atheist Scientists Never Ask

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
December 21, 2022}

Even something as catastrophic as the eruption of Mount St. Helens was, in the end, a life-giving event.

A Closer Look at the Science of Purpose

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
November 2, 2022}

You cannot see what you are not looking for. You cannot find Br'er Rabbit until you look into the briar patch.

Defining the “Science of Purpose”

_{Stephen J. Iacoboni
September 16, 2022}

The "science of purpose" is new to the analytic framework, and is thus obliged to make the case for its claim to validity.