Dijkstra, who valued rigor, was apparently greatly irritated by loose talk of computers as thinking machines and the use of teleological language in discussing

Dijkstra, who valued rigor, was apparently greatly irritated by loose talk of computers as thinking machines and the use of teleological language in discussing them (in the sense of attributing purposes to programs, rather than their creators), so this quote could just be a reaction to that. If, on the other hand, it was offered in the spirit of "(artificial) machines could not possibly think, because thinking is something only (human) animals can do", that would just be a way of avoiding the question.