No. 40 in America · Week of November 9, 2026
Physicist, Johns Hopkins; host of Mindscape
Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins who works on quantum mechanics, cosmology and the philosophy of science.
Photo: Cmichel67, CC BY-SA 4.0
Score breakdown
Nine parts, measured fresh each week. This is where Sean Carroll's points came from, and the evidence behind each one.
Debate record
Debates the questions where physics meets philosophy, most famously against William Lane Craig on God and cosmology.
Carroll is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and was formerly a research professor at Caltech.
He hosts the podcast Mindscape.
On the record
2014
February 2014
Formal debate
Against William Lane Craig · Greer-Heard Forum, New Orleans
Carroll argued that contemporary cosmology does not make God's existence more probable, before a crowd of more than 900.
2014
May 7, 2014
Formal debateWon the audience vote
Against Eben Alexander and Raymond Moody · Intelligence Squared U.S., New York
Carroll and neurologist Steven Novella argued that near-death experiences are not evidence of an afterlife. Their side won the audience vote, 46 percent to 42.
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