Thinkquote of the day: Cardinal Schoenborn on faith and science

It sounds to me like Christoph, Cardinal Schoenborn gets some neuroscience implciations of the conflict between materialism and nonmaterialism, in his recent First Things essay, “Reasonable Science, Reasonable Faith”:

Neurobiological research ... can uncover withexquisite detail the physical substrate of mental processes. But neuroscience cannot prove that the mind is reducible to the brain, because its methods are unable directly to grapple with immaterial realities. (In fact, good neuroscience is highly suggestive of the irreducibility of mind to brain.)

The workings of the mind, as distinct from the brain, can of course be indirectly observed, as mario Beauregard shows. We talk quite a bit about that in The Spiritual Brain in Chapter 6, “Toward a Nonmaterialist Neuroscience.”
(Note: You have to buy a subscription to view Schoenborn’s First Things article just now (a good value, I may say); it doesn’t go into free archives for a couple of weeks.)

My other blog is the Post-Darwinist, detailing events of interest in the intelligent design controversy.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), anoverview of the intelligent design controversy, and of Faith@Science. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).