On a new episode of ID the Future, I welcome Dr. Stephen Iacoboni, an award-winning cancer researcher and medical oncologist with 40 years of experience, to discuss the undeniable element of purpose in all living things. Our conversation dives deep into the question of whether this purpose can be explained purely by the physical world, or if it points to a source beyond nature and science.
Dr. Iacoboni, who regularly contributes at Evolution News, shares his unique reconciliation between faith and science, as explored in his latest book, Telos: The Scientific Basis for a Life of Purpose. He recounts his personal journey and profound divergence from the “mechanistic consensus” prevalent during his medical school years in the 1960s and ’70s, which viewed organisms, including humans, as “biologic machines without souls, products of an unguided process.”
Iacoboni highlights the difference between the science of medicine and the art of medicine, emphasizing how his extensive experience as a clinician, caring for sick patients, led him to break free from a materialistic paradigm. Iacoboni reveals how the “mythology” of the mechanistic view finally broke down for him after years of taking care of living people.
The conversation also explores teleology (purpose) in modern science. Dr. Iacoboni explains how the pervasive influence of scientific atheism once dismissed purpose, but new insights, such as the purposeful actions of molecules within cells, have challenged this view. He argues that this “intentionality” at the molecular level, exemplified by phenomena like mobile genetic elements acting purposefully, requires a mind and is irreducible. He contrasts his view, rooted in Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy, with that of renowned theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman, who acknowledges intrinsic purpose but still attributes it to random processes within physical law, rather than a pre-designed intentionality.
Ultimately, Dr. Iacoboni aims to help his fellow physicians escape the “suffocating boundaries of mechanism and materialism.” He encourages them to embrace the inherent purpose and complexity of life, arguing that acknowledging the “heart and soul” of patients, rather than treating them as mere machines, leads to a more joyful and fulfilling practice of medicine. Download the podcast or listen to it here.