"Can we reasonably say the origin of man and life can only be explained by material causes?" he asked. "Can matter create intelligence? That is a question we can't answer scientifically, because the scientific method cannot grasp it."
"Can we reasonably say the origin of man and life can only be explained by material causes?" he asked. "Can matter create intelligence? That is a question we can't answer scientifically, because the scientific method cannot grasp it."It's more like there's no reason matter cannot create intelligence, there's no evidence of some kind of separate supernatural organ called a "soul" that somehow produces a mind apart from the brain, there's a ton of evidence that thoughts are always accompanied by electrochemical changes in the brain, and there's a lot of clinical evidence that damage to the material brain causes many (usually damaging) effects to the nonmaterial mind.
Does that make it a "proven" case in a strictly deductive sense? No. But it's quite compelling, and it does put the onus on the believers in the existence of a "soul" thingy or some other non-material cause to put some positive evidence on the table.