I was very sad to hear of the death of former talkshow host Phil Donahue, who left us today at the age of 88. I was a regular viewer of Donahue in the 1980s and 1990s because he so often tackled big issues.

And so, when I was writing my novel The Terminal Experiment — which dealt with the ramifications of a biomedical engineer discovering proof for the existence of the human soul — it seemed appropriate to have that character, Dr. Peter Hobson, appear on Donahue.

I wrote the following ...