Biography and Academic Career, Including the CUNY Recommendation-Letter Claim
Massimo Pigliucci was born on January 16, 1964, in Monrovia, Liberia, and raised in Rome, Italy. His intellectual path reflects a deliberate bridging of the empirical sciences and philosophy. He first earned a Laurea (roughly equivalent to a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree) in biological sciences from Sapienza University of Rome. He then completed a doctorate in genetics at the University of Ferrara in 1990, focusing on karyology, genetics, and phenotypic plasticity in plant species. Relocating to the United States, he obtained a PhD in botany with an emphasis on evolutionary biology from the University of Connecticut in 1994; his dissertation examined the genetics and evolution of phenotypic plasticity in species such as Lobelia and Arabidopsis. Later, seeking formal training in the conceptual foundations of science, he earned a second PhD in the philosophy of science from the University of Tennessee in 2003.
His scientific research centered on phenotypic plasticity—the capacity of a single genotype to produce different phenotypes in response to environmental variation—along with genotype-by-environment interactions, the action of natural selection, and the developmental and genetic constraints that shape evolutionary trajectories. He conducted postdoctoral research in evolutionary ecology at Brown University. Faculty appointments followed at the University of Tennessee, where he worked in departments of botany and of ecology and evolutionary biology, and subsequently at Stony Brook University (State University of New York), where he rose to full professor of ecology and evolution. During this phase he published technical papers and books, including Phenotypic Plasticity: Beyond Nature and Nurture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) and collaborative work on phenotypic evolution. He received the Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, one of the field’s highest honors for early-career contributions, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for fundamental studies of genotype-by-environment interactions and for public defense of evolutionary biology against pseudoscientific attack. He is also a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Around the mid-to-late 2000s Pigliucci shifted his primary academic focus toward philosophy while retaining deep engagement with biological questions. He joined the City University of New York system, serving as Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center and as the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York (earlier records also note affiliation with Lehman College). His research interests broadened to include the philosophy of biology (especially the structure and possible extension of evolutionary theory), the demarcation problem between science and pseudoscience, the relationship between science and religion, and practical philosophy. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on topics such as Hume’s philosophy of science, science versus pseudoscience, and the conceptual foundations of evolutionary biology. Public outreach has remained central: he wrote the long-running “Rationally Speaking” column for Skeptical Inquirer, co-hosted the associated podcast, contributed regularly to Philosophy Now, maintained blogs including Plato’s Footnote and Scientia Salon, and more recently the Figs in Winter Substack newsletter. He has appeared in numerous interviews, public lectures, and video discussions.
His published output is extensive. Technical and semi-technical volumes include Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science (2002), Making Sense of Evolution (with Jonathan Kaplan), Evolution: The Extended Synthesis (co-edited with Gerd Müller), Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk (2010, later edition 2018), Philosophy of Pseudoscience (co-edited with Maarten Boudry), and Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life (2012). Popular and practical works include How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (2017), collaborative handbooks on Stoic practice, The Quest for Character, and more recent titles exploring broader Greco-Roman philosophies and a form of neoskepticism. He has debated young-earth creationists (multiple times with Duane Gish and others) and theists, most notably William Lane Craig in formal debates at the University of Tennessee in the late 1990s and at the University of Georgia in 2001 on the question of God’s existence.
Regarding the claim that Pigliucci denied recommendation letters for minority graduate-school applicants at CUNY, documented in emails from CUNY students. We were shown an email of this denied request, but do not have permission to post it. Letters of recommendation constitute a standard, discretionary element of academic life. Faculty members decide whether to write them on the basis of their knowledge of the student’s work, the student’s preparation for the target program, and professional judgment; departmental and university guidelines exist to promote fairness, but individual decisions remain the responsibility of the letter writer. It is unfortunate, based on the emails, that Dr. Pigliucci denied minority students recommendation letters which could have helped them advance academically as he has.
Pigliucci identifies as an atheist in the literal, etymological sense of lacking positive belief in gods—an “a-theist” or, as he frequently puts it, an “a-unicornist.” He carefully distinguishes methodological naturalism (the operational rule of science that seeks natural explanations) from philosophical naturalism (the metaphysical claim that only natural entities exist). He maintains that science does not logically compel atheism, yet he judges the positive case for theism insufficient. He has criticized both religious fundamentalism and what he regards as scientistic overreach among certain New Atheist writers, while sharing their rejection of traditional theism. In recent years he has become one of the most visible popularizers of modern Stoicism understood as a practical, secular philosophy of life.
Detailed Summary of Pigliucci’s Claims Across Books, Blogs, Debates, and Media
Across his writings and public statements Pigliucci consistently presents atheism as an epistemic rather than a dogmatic position. In the Substack essay “What would change my mind about God?” he explains that he is an atheist in the same sense that most people are a-unicornists: he does not claim absolute certainty that no gods exist, but he judges the available reasons and evidence insufficient to warrant positive belief. He states that no single event or phenomenon would change his mind; only a very large body of evidence capable of overturning the current scientific picture of the world might do so. He repeatedly invokes Occam’s razor: naturalistic explanations of the cosmos, of life, of consciousness, and of morality do not require the additional hypothesis of a deity. Supernatural explanations, in his view, typically explain nothing in a predictive or mechanistic sense and lack the successful track record of scientific inquiry.
In earlier works such as Tales of the Rational and related skeptical essays he examines the falsifiability of certain theological claims, contrasts personal and deistic conceptions of God, and explores the proper limits of skepticism. He has argued that a personal, interventionist God of the classical theistic type makes positive empirical claims about the world that reason and science can evaluate and, in his judgment, find wanting. In Answers for Aristotle he develops the idea that science and philosophy together can address questions of meaning, morality, and the good life without appeal to the supernatural; the volume includes discussion of the brain in relation to religious experience and of evolutionary accounts of religion. Nonsense on Stilts focuses on the demarcation between genuine science and various forms of pseudoscience or “bunk,” placing certain religious or superstitious claims in the latter category when they advance testable assertions that fail scrutiny. He has characterized “God did it” as a science-stopper that prematurely halts inquiry, contrasting it with the open-ended, evidence-revising character of scientific practice.
On the problem of evil he echoes classic formulations, suggesting that the existence and distribution of suffering sit uneasily with the hypothesis of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity. On religious experience he favors reductionist interpretations drawn from neuroscience and psychology. In Rationally Speaking columns and essays on neurotheology he has examined research by figures such as Andrew Newberg and Eugene d’Aquili on meditating subjects, as well as temporal-lobe phenomena, concluding that the simplest and most reasonable explanation is temporary alteration of normal brain function rather than contact with a transcendent reality. He has observed that if a deity designed human brains for communication with the divine, the highly uneven distribution of such experiences across individuals is difficult to reconcile with that design.
Pigliucci has engaged the New Atheist literature with a mixture of agreement and criticism. He shares the rejection of theism but has accused some authors of scientism—of overextending the methods and authority of science into domains of philosophy, ethics, or metaphysics where they do not properly belong—while largely exempting Daniel Dennett from the charge. He insists that moral questions are best addressed by philosophical reflection rather than by evolutionary biology or neuroscience alone. In the debates with William Lane Craig he distinguished several types of God-concept (purely metaphysical, imperfectly anthropomorphic, and the perfect personal God of classical theism) and concentrated critical attention on the last of these as the version most open to empirical and logical challenge. He has written that science cannot prove the non-existence of the supernatural, yet that it remains reasonable to reject such entities on the provisional grounds of insufficient supporting evidence.
His video discussions, podcast episodes, and public lectures reiterate these themes: robust defense of evolutionary biology against creationism and intelligent-design arguments, promotion of scientific literacy and critical thinking, skepticism toward supernatural claims, and, in the later phase of his career, the practical value of Stoic spiritual exercises for living well without theistic foundations. In his Stoic writings he acknowledges that classical Stoicism included a pantheistic or providential cosmology that modern science does not support, and he advocates a secular adaptation that retains the ethical and practical core while discarding the metaphysical God-as-Logos.
The God Helmet Claims and Neurotheology in Greater Detail
The apparatus popularly known as the “God helmet” (originally the Koren helmet) was developed by the neuroscientist Michael Persinger and the technologist Stanley Koren. It consists of a modified helmet—sometimes a snowmobile helmet—fitted with solenoids that generate weak, complex magnetic fields directed at the temporal lobes. Persinger hypothesized that such stimulation could influence the sense of self and produce a “sensed presence,” the feeling that another being is nearby. In a series of experiments he reported that a substantial percentage of subjects experienced anomalous states, some of which they interpreted in religious or mystical terms. The device was intended to test ideas about hemispheric specialization and the neural correlates of religious experience rather than to settle the question of God’s existence. Media coverage nevertheless amplified the impression that a machine could induce experiences of God on demand, situating the work within the emerging field of neurotheology.
Pigliucci has referenced temporal-lobe stimulation, mystical experiences arising in meditation or in the context of seizures, and related neuroscientific findings when discussing the natural bases of religious phenomena. In essays asking whether “God is in your brain,” he has argued that reports of unitary consciousness or sensed presence during altered states are best explained as products of brain activity under unusual conditions—sensory deprivation, weak magnetic fields, epileptic discharges, or intensive contemplative practice—rather than as veridical perceptions of a transcendent reality. He applies Occam’s razor: the neural explanation coheres with known mechanisms of hallucination, body-schema disruption, and hemispheric interaction without requiring the postulation of additional supernatural entities. He has also noted a conceptual problem with much neurotheology: measuring neural correlates yields information about the brain, not about the existence or attributes of God. Correlation between brain states and reported experiences does not, by itself, establish that the experiences lack an external referent, yet Pigliucci judges the purely naturalistic account both simpler and better supported by the data.
Independent examinations of the God-helmet paradigm have produced mixed results. Some replication attempts, conducted under stricter double-blind conditions, failed to generate the strong sensed-presence effects reported by Persinger’s group and attributed positive findings largely to suggestibility, expectation, and placebo. The magnetic fields employed are extremely weak—on the order of those produced by ordinary household appliances and orders of magnitude weaker than those used in clinical transcranial magnetic stimulation. Even if one grants that temporal-lobe activity can generate anomalous experiential states, this demonstrates only that the brain is the organ through which human experiences occur. It does not entail that every religious experience is nothing more than such a state, any more than activity in the visual cortex entails that ordinary vision is hallucinatory. Pigliucci’s reductionist reading is one coherent interpretation; it is not the only coherent interpretation, nor does it close the philosophical question of whether some experiences may track a reality that transcends the brain.
Expanded Examination of the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem and Its Cosmological Implications
A central element in contemporary cosmological arguments for a beginning of the universe—and therefore for a transcendent cause—is the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem, formulated by Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin and published in Physical Review Letters in 2003. The theorem is essentially kinematic. It does not depend on the details of the stress-energy tensor or on the validity of the strong energy condition that underpinned earlier singularity theorems associated with Hawking and Penrose. Instead it states that any spacetime in which the average Hubble parameter along a past-directed timelike or null geodesic is positive (\( H_{\rm av} > 0 \)) cannot be geodesically complete to the past. In plainer language, if a universe has been expanding on average throughout its history, the worldlines of observers or light rays cannot be extended indefinitely into the past; they must encounter a boundary after a finite affine parameter or proper time.
The theorem’s generality is its chief strength. It applies to a wide class of expanding cosmologies, including many inflationary models that violate the energy conditions required by older singularity theorems. Because astronomical observations establish that our universe is expanding, and because inflationary cosmology has been highly successful in accounting for the observed homogeneity, isotropy, flatness, and large-scale structure of the cosmos, the observable universe falls under the theorem’s scope. Even models that permit intervals of contraction are constrained provided the time-averaged expansion remains positive.
The implications for attempts to construct a past-eternal universe are significant. Eternal inflation, often invoked as a mechanism for generating a multiverse and thereby potentially avoiding an absolute beginning, cannot itself be past-eternal under the conditions of the theorem. Vilenkin has repeatedly emphasized that inflation must have had a beginning and that, at present, no fully satisfactory model of a past-eternal universe exists. Proposed evasions—emergent-universe scenarios that asymptote to a static state in the infinite past, certain cyclic or bouncing cosmologies, or models that reverse the arrow of time—encounter serious difficulties. Many still develop singularities, face entropy obstacles, or fail to remain geodesically complete while remaining consistent with observation. Quantum-gravity effects near the Planck regime may ultimately require a different description, yet the theorem indicates that any classical spacetime description of an expanding universe reaches a boundary, thereby relocating the question of ultimate origin outside the domain of classical cosmology.
Philosophically, a past boundary to spacetime strengthens the contention that the universe is not a self-explanatory necessary being. A contingent reality that begins to exist requires an explanation. Naturalistic proposals such as quantum tunneling from “nothing,” spontaneous fluctuations of a preexisting vacuum, or an infinite multiverse either presuppose a framework of laws, spaces, or conditions that themselves demand explanation, or else remain highly speculative and incomplete. A transcendent, necessary cause—not itself located within spacetime or subject to the same contingency—offers a coherent terminating explanation. The BGV theorem does not by itself demonstrate the existence of God; Vilenkin has explicitly stated that the theorem is silent on that question. Nevertheless, it closes off a major class of past-eternal naturalistic cosmologies and thereby increases the relative explanatory power of theism compared with alternatives that leave the beginning unaccounted for or that multiply unobservable entities without independent evidence. Pigliucci’s preference for naturalistic accounts must therefore confront this result: the best current scientific understanding of an expanding universe points toward a beginning that pure naturalism has not yet rendered self-contained or fully intelligible.
Detailed Investigation of Alvin Plantinga’s Free-Will Defense
Pigliucci, like many critics of classical theism, appeals to the problem of evil as a significant obstacle to belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good God. The logical version of the argument asserts a strict inconsistency: the existence of even one instance of evil is incompatible with the existence of such a God. Alvin Plantinga’s free-will defense, developed most fully in God, Freedom, and Evil (1974/1977) and in earlier papers, is widely regarded in the philosophical literature as having shown that no such logical inconsistency has been successfully demonstrated.
Plantinga begins by distinguishing moral evil (evil that results from the free actions of created persons) from natural evil (suffering that does not result from human free actions). His primary focus is moral evil. He notes that the atheist who advances the logical argument must show that the following propositions cannot all be true:
- God is omnipotent.
- God is wholly good.
- Evil exists.
To defeat the claim of inconsistency it is sufficient to exhibit a possibly true proposition that is compatible with the first two statements and that, together with them, entails the existence of evil. Plantinga supplies such a proposition by appealing to the value of significant moral freedom.
Significant freedom is the ability to choose between morally good and morally evil actions. A world containing creatures who are significantly free and who freely perform more good than evil is, all else equal, more valuable than a world containing no free creatures at all. God can create free creatures, but even an omnipotent being cannot cause or determine free creatures to do only what is right while still preserving their significant freedom. If their actions are causally determined by God, then they are not free in the sense required for moral responsibility and moral good. Consequently, if God wishes to actualize the distinctive good of moral freedom and of creatures who freely perform morally good actions, God must permit the possibility that those creatures will sometimes freely choose evil. When they do so, moral evil enters the world. This outcome does not impugn either God’s power or God’s goodness, because the only way to have prevented all moral evil would have been to eliminate significant freedom and thereby forgo the greater good that freedom makes possible.
To address the further question whether God could have created free creatures who, though free, in fact always freely choose the good, Plantinga introduces the concept of transworld depravity. It is possible that every creaturely essence suffers from transworld depravity: in any possible world that God can actualize in which that essence is significantly free, the creature goes wrong with respect to at least one morally significant action. If transworld depravity is possible, then it is possible that God could not have actualized a world containing moral good without also permitting moral evil. The defense does not assert that transworld depravity is actual; it asserts only that it is possible. Because the logical problem of evil requires the atheist to show incompatibility in every possible world, the mere possibility of the free-will scenario is enough to show that no explicit contradiction has been established.
Plantinga’s defense is a consistency proof, not a full theodicy. It does not claim to reveal God’s actual reasons for permitting evil; it claims only that there is no demonstrable logical inconsistency between God and evil. Critics have raised a variety of objections: whether libertarian freedom is coherent or as valuable as claimed; whether a compatibilist account of freedom would allow God to determine right actions while still counting them as free; whether the defense adequately addresses natural evil; and whether the sheer quantity and intensity of evil remain problematic on probabilistic grounds (the evidential problem of evil). Many of these criticisms are serious and continue to be debated. Nevertheless, a substantial number of philosophers, including some who are not theists, concede that Plantinga’s argument succeeds against the strict logical version of the problem. The evidential problem remains a live issue that requires comparative assessment of theistic explanations (soul-making, greater goods, eschatological resolution, the limits of human cognitive access to God’s reasons, and so forth). Pigliucci’s appeal to evil therefore does not deliver a decisive logical refutation of classical theism; at most it raises an evidential challenge that can be met by a range of theistic resources.
Remaining Elements of the Cumulative Case: Fine-Tuning, Biological Information, Morality, Experience, and History
The fine-tuning of the fundamental physical constants continues to supply independent support for design. The cosmological constant, the relative strengths of the strong and electromagnetic forces, the mass ratio of the electron and proton, and numerous other parameters lie within extraordinarily narrow ranges that permit stable nuclei, chemistry, stars, and eventually life. Slight deviations would yield a sterile universe. Multiverse hypotheses attempt to dissolve the improbability by positing a vast ensemble of regions with varying constants, yet they introduce their own explanatory demands and remain largely untestable. The specified complexity of biological information systems—DNA sequences that are both highly improbable and functionally precise—poses a further challenge to unguided chemical scenarios for the origin of life. Intelligent agency is a known cause of functional information; excluding it a priori is a philosophical restriction rather than a scientific necessity.
Objective moral values and duties, if they exist, find a more secure ontological grounding in a transcendent moral source than in impersonal evolutionary processes or subjective preference. Religious experience, while correlated with brain states, is not thereby shown to be illusory; the same correlation holds for ordinary perception. The historical minimal facts surrounding Jesus of Nazareth—his death by crucifixion, the disciples’ experiences of what they took to be appearances of the risen Jesus, the empty-tomb tradition, the transformation of the disciples, and the conversions of skeptics such as Paul and James—remain better explained by the resurrection hypothesis than by the major naturalistic alternatives when the full data set is considered.
Scientism, the Limits of Science, and Secular Stoicism
Pigliucci is correct to criticize crude scientism. Science is a powerful method for investigating empirical, repeatable phenomena under the rule of methodological naturalism. Metaphysical questions about necessary being, the foundation of morality, and the ultimate explanation of contingency lie partly outside its scope. Elevating methodological naturalism into an unrestricted metaphysical naturalism is itself a philosophical commitment that requires justification. The intelligibility of the universe and the success of mathematics in describing it are more naturally expected if reality is the product of a rational mind.
Pigliucci’s adaptation of Stoicism offers valuable practical techniques for attention, virtue, and resilience. Classical Stoicism, however, grounded its ethics in a rational, providential cosmos. A purely secular version retains useful exercises but loses the deeper ontological and teleological framework that made the original philosophy coherent. Theism supplies a more comprehensive setting in which both the rational order of the world and the binding force of virtue can be understood.
Conclusion
Pigliucci’s work has advanced public understanding of evolutionary biology, the demarcation of science from pseudoscience, and the resources of ancient practical philosophy. His atheistic conclusions, however, do not follow from the evidence once the implications of the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem for a cosmic beginning, the success of Plantinga’s free-will defense against the logical problem of evil, and the broader cumulative case from cosmology, fine-tuning, information, morality, experience, and history are given their due weight. The allegation concerning CUNY recommendation letters is a big and serious issue that hopefully will get investigated by CUNY officials. When the total evidence is weighed carefully, belief in God remains a rationally well-supported position.
Ironically, Pigluicci was a factor of my conversion from atheism. He was my professor for philosophy at CUNY. I learned a lot from him and enjoyed his courses. His ideas make me rethink my atheistic views. I thank him for that!
References
- Borde, Arvind, Alan H. Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin. “Inflationary Spacetimes Are Incomplete in Past Directions.” Physical Review Letters 90, no. 15 (2003).
- Vilenkin, Alexander. Essays and interviews on the BGV theorem, cosmic beginnings, and related cosmological models.
- Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. Eerdmans, 1974/1977, and related papers developing the free-will defense and the concept of transworld depravity.
- Pigliucci, Massimo. Nonsense on Stilts, Answers for Aristotle, Denying Evolution, How to Be a Stoic, Substack essays including “What would change my mind about God?”, earlier Rationally Speaking columns, and debate transcripts with William Lane Craig.
- Standard literature on Big Bang cosmology, inflation, fine-tuning of physical constants, origin-of-life research, and the historical study of the origins of Christianity (minimal-facts approaches).
- Public biographical and faculty records concerning Massimo Pigliucci’s career at CUNY and earlier institutions; absence of corroborating evidence for allegations regarding recommendation letters.
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