Scientism

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==External links==
 
==External links==
*[http://carbon.ucdenver.edu/~mryder/scientism_este.html Scientism], Martin Ryder, University of Colorado, Denver
 
 
*[http://www.skepdic.com/scientism.html Entry in the Skeptic's Dictionary]
 
*[http://www.skepdic.com/scientism.html Entry in the Skeptic's Dictionary]
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*[http://carbon.ucdenver.edu/~mryder/scientism_este.html Scientism], Martin Ryder, University of Colorado, Denver
 
*[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-shamans-of-scientism The Shamans of Scientism], [[Michael Shermer]]
 
*[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-shamans-of-scientism The Shamans of Scientism], [[Michael Shermer]]
 
*[http://ahotcupofjoe.net/2006/02/does-scientism-exist/ Does Scientism Exist?] A Hot Cup of Joe
 
*[http://ahotcupofjoe.net/2006/02/does-scientism-exist/ Does Scientism Exist?] A Hot Cup of Joe
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*[http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/what-is-scientism-a-guest-post/ What is “scientism”?] - Dr. William Widdowson
 
*[http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/what-is-scientism-a-guest-post/ What is “scientism”?] - Dr. William Widdowson
 
*[http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/12/scientism-as-scientistic-belief.html Scientism as Scientistic Belief], Paul M. Paolini, Rationally Speaking
 
*[http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/12/scientism-as-scientistic-belief.html Scientism as Scientistic Belief], Paul M. Paolini, Rationally Speaking
*[http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPSASV&Volume=0&Issue=0&TOC=TRUE Science as Salvation], Mary Midgley, Gifford Lectures
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*[http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPSASV&Volume=0&Issue=0&TOC=TRUE Science as Salvation], Mary Midgley, Gifford Lectures 1989-1990
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*Susan Haack. [http://www.csicop.org/si/show/science_scientism_and_anti-science_in_the_age_of_preposterism/ Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism.] ''Skeptical Inquirer'', Volume 21.6, November / December 1997
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==Footnotes==
 
==Footnotes==
 
<references/>
 
<references/>

Revision as of 00:10, 30 March 2012

Science
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Philosophy of science

Scientism is the view that only scientific claims are meaningful. It is often widely abused as a term to refer to science and attitudes associated with science, and its primary use these days is a pejorative.[1]

The non-pejorative, and therefore boring, sense of the term denotes the "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist."[2][3] This meaning is rarely seen in the wild.

The pejorative sense, in which it is a general-purpose snarl word, is the one you will see in action.

Contents

Sensible usage

The idea that the concepts of truth, falsity, explanation, and even understanding are all concepts which belong exclusively to science seems to me to be a perversion...
—Hilary Putnam[4]

Scientism is a topic of major contention in the philosophy of science, philosophy in general, and social theory.[3] While often used as a term of abuse, it is also used in a descriptive sense to refer to any philosophy that treats science as the only means of acquiring knowledge (for various definitions of "knowledge"). For this reason, scientism is often associated with logical positivism, which attempted to do away with metaphysics entirely.[5] The role of scientism in modernity is also a point of debate in social theory.[6] Postmodernism in particular sought to critique scientism.

Scientism or implicit scientistic attitudes are often characterized by a conflation of moral and scientific progress, an overzealous application of simplistic reductionist methodology and, especially in the social sciences, the logical fallacy of reification, in which an abstract metric is treated as "real." It also tends to be accompanied by loads of sciencey technobabble. Here are some examples:

Unfortunately it gets mixed into the crank usage when someone is told their favourite thing is actually full of shit.

Usage by cranks

It's an all-purpose, wild-card smear...It's the last refuge of the sceptic. When someone puts forward a scientific theory that they really don't like, they just try to discredit it as 'scientism'.
Daniel Dennett[8]

While the refusal to acknowledge the real limitations of the scientific method is a legitimate concern, the term is frequently bandied about by cranks of all stripes in order to hand-wave any scientific evidence that might go against their ideology. In this sense, it seems to translate to, (a), believing science works, (b), that this is bad, (c), because the speaker's personal ox has been gored. Here are some examples from creationists:

Scientism assumes that science is the controlling reality about life, so anything that can be validated scientifically ought to be done. Other things are subjective fantasy—like love, beauty, good, evil, conscience, ethics.
[9]
The scientism practiced by devotees of Darwinian evolution, however, is not science, but simply a secular religious worship masquerading as science. In Darwinian scientism no free inquiry, no examination of evidence will be permitted. The gods of secularism have revealed the dogma of social justice, which necessitates moral relativism based on the secular theory of Darwinian evolution, and anyone revealing inconvenient, contradictory facts must be destroyed.
[10]
One way to reject scientism is to combine scientific reality checks with faith. When we build and maintain a Christian worldview — a view of the world, used for living in the world — based on the Bible, we believe that reality includes what we see and also what we don't see. For example, a coroner might say, "During my 45 years of experience, I have observed that dead people always remain dead, they are never resurrected back to life, so (based on this scientific reality check) if you want to be scientific then you should reject Biblical claims for the resurrection of Jesus." But this observation is not evidence against divine action, if God's common actions are not obvious and His obvious actions are not common. During the history recorded in the Bible, many millions of people died, but only seven were brought back to life: two in the Old Testament (by Elijah & Elisha) and five in the New Testament (two by Jesus, one of Jesus, and by Peter & Paul). Even though God's actions are occasionally miraculous, usually God chooses to act in ways that are natural, not miraculous
[11]

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy by Simon Blackburn notes that it is presently a term of abuse.
  2. Merriam-Webster - Scientism
  3. 3.0 3.1 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosopy - The Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge
  4. Wisdom from Putnam on Science and Scientism, Maverick Philosopher
  5. C. Hakfoort. Science deified: Wilhelm Osstwald's energeticist world-view and the history of scientism. Annals of Science, Volume 49, Issue 6, 1992
  6. Huston Smith. Scientism: The Bedrock of the Modern Worldview, in Science and the Myth of Progress, ed. Mehrdad M. Zarandi
  7. See Annie Murphy Paul's Cult of Personality for numerous examples.
  8. When it comes to facts and explanations of facts, science is the only game in town, New Statesman
  9. http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/BibleStudyAndTheology/perspectives/Colson_Proper_Science.aspx
  10. http://www.thomasbrewton.com/index.php/weblog/weblog_printerFriendly/225/
  11. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/science/faith-science.htm
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