In March 2007, when the Alliance for Science sponsored an essay contest for high school students on the topic "Why I would want my doctor to have studied evolution," Egnor responded by posting an essay on the Discovery Institute's intelligent design blog claiming that evolution was irrelevant to medicine.[12] Burt Humburg criticized him on the blog Panda's Thumb citing the benefits of evolution to medicine and, contrary to Egnor's claim, that doctors do study evolution.[13]
Egnor appeared in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. In the film, Ben Stein describes this as "Darwinists were quick to try and exterminate this new threat," and Egnor says he was shocked by the "viciousness" and "baseness" of the response. The website Expelled Exposed, created by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), responded by saying that Egnor must never have been on the Internet before.[14]
Egnor has defended Aristotelean dualism.[3][4] He rejects both Cartesian dualism and materialism. He argues that observations during brain surgery, studies of brain seizures, split-brain surgery patients and accounts of near-death experiences support the dualism of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, a type of dualism that is distinct from that of René Descartes.[4] Clinical neurologist Steven Novella who has debated Egnor has criticized his arguments for dualism as a God of the gaps fallacy and has suggested that Egnor "uses his writings to confuse and misdirect, and to undermine the public understanding of science".[2]
Personal life
Egnor has four children and resides in Stony Brook, New York with his wife. Egnor is a Catholic.[16]