14May 2020 by Post

COVID-19, Random Mutations, and Aristotle’s Matrix of Design

Andrew McDiarmid, Aristotle, bodies, coronavirus, COVID-19, Evolution News, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Medicine, Michael Egnor, mutations, neurosurgeon, philosophy, Podcast, purpose, random events, viruses
On a new episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid speaks with neurosurgeon Michael Egnor about Dr. Egnor’s recent Evolution News article, “The Coronavirus Demonstrates How Evolution Presupposes Intelligent Design.” Download the podcast or listen to it here. Egnor notes that the coronavirus and other viruses are not, strictly speaking, considered living things, even if they depend on living hosts for their continued existence. Egnor also discusses the role of random mutations in viruses and draws upon Aristotle to argue that these and other random events only occur, and have their meaning, against a backdrop of purpose and design — in this case, the designed systems, the bodies, that viruses invade.  Image: Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez (1811) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. The post COVID-19, Random Mutations, and Aristotle’s Matrix of Design…
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11Jan 2020 by Post

In Canada, Euthanasia as “Boon” to Organ Donation

assisted suicide, Belgium, bioethics, bodies, Canada, disabled, donations, euthanasia, MAiD, medically assisted deaths, Medicine, mentally ill, Netherlands, Ontario, organ donation, Ottawa Citizen, patients, Ronnie Gavsie, Trillium Gift of Life Network
My very first anti-euthanasia column, published in Newsweek, warned that societal acceptance of assisted suicide/euthanasia would eventually include organ harvesting “as a plum to society.” I was called an alarmist and a fear-monger, but alas, I was right. In Belgium and the Netherlands, mentally ill and disabled people are killed in hospitals at their request, and then, their bodies are harvested — with the success of the procedures written up with all due respect in organ-transplant medical journals. Our Cousins to the North Our closest cultural cousins in Canada are enthusiastically following the same utilitarian path, not only allowing organ harvesting to be conjoined with euthanasia, but “medically assisted death” is being boosted increasingly as “a boon.” Note the celebratory lede in this Ottawa Citizen story: Ontarians who opt for…
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