In today’s episode, a scientist and a philosopher explore what it means to be human. Is our distinctiveness rooted in biology, consciousness, or something more? And why have humans always been curious about this question?
You’ll hear from Praveen Sethupathy, a genomics professor at Cornell, and Scott Aikin, a philosophy professor at Vanderbilt. In this conversation, they explore the question of human uniqueness and whether our desire for meaning is tragic or part of a larger story.
This forum was held at Vanderbilt in February 2025. Thank you to the student planning team for making this event possible.
Science is excellent at answering the how questions—the mechanistic exploration of phenomena. But it’s generally agnostic about the why—it neither supports nor refutes ideas like the existence of God.
An honest understanding of both the power and the limits of science, as a scientist, led me to consider that there might be another way of seeing. For me, that journey ultimately led to my conviction, as a Christian, that each and every one of us is made in the image of God.
We’re the kind of beings who have existential crises. In some ways, that makes us unique—but it also makes us tragic.
When I think about purpose and meaning, I go back to the image of God—and to how Christ embodied it more perfectly than anyone else. And what did he do? He gave himself up, serving others to the point of exhaustion—even to the point of death.
The image of God "has nothing to do with our biology—nothing to do with our appearance or whether we have two ears or one. It’s a vocation: a calling to reflect and represent God’s character and values."
Science doesn’t constrain me to science alone in my pursuit of what might be real or true. It didn’t lead me to faith, but it made space for it.
Love is one of the noblest and most remarkable feelings of the human experience.
Stoicism is a way of life that finds meaning in our connections and duties to others.
