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SCIENTISM
September 27, 2019
October 18, 2019
The time has come for me to make a stand on
whether I want to use the phrase "scientism" That's "the attention
as sneer or cheer. conservation" notice,
jack. Don't say I didn't.
I've been tempted to use the phrase "scientism"
to mean something like "pseudo-science": the
impulse to dress-up in the trappings of science
(white lab coat and all) without necessarily
having much to do with actual science.
There's an alternate usage though, which
involves putting science near the center of Perhaps something like the
your world view and trying to work outward two-cultures cross-over
from there... maneuver I always want to
play with:
Cribbing a few quotes
from uncle wikipedia, BIBLES
first on the "pro" side:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
To innovate in the young sciences it is necessary
to adopt scientism. This is the methodological
thesis that the best way of exploring reality is
to adopt the scientific method, which may be
boiled down to the rule "Check your guesses." A pretty good
Scientism has been explicitly opposed by summary, really.
dogmatists and obscurantists of all stripes, such (I tend to go
as the neoliberal ideologist Friedrich von Hayek with "check what
and the "critical theorist" Jürgen Habermas, a can be checked".)
ponderous writer who managed to amalgamate Hegel,
Marx, and Freud, and decreed that "science is the In any case the
ideology of late capitalism." fact that some
turgid, ponderous
Mario Bunge, Evaluating Philosophies (2012) fools have attacked
science doesn't
obviate the fact
that many use it's
It is defensible to claim that scientific, trappings in a bid
philosophical, and humanistic forms of for unjustified
knowledge are continuous, and that a respect.
broadly naturalistic description of our
world centered on natural science is
correct ... At the very least, such views
are legitimate-- they may be mistaken, but
not because of an elementary error, a
confusion of science with ideology, or an
offhand dismissal of the humanities. Those
of us who argue for such a view are
entitled to have two cheers for an Okay, but then if it's
ambitious conception of science; and if *not* "scientism" then
that is scientism, so be it. so be it.
Taner Edis, "Two Cheers You can defend the
for Scientism" (2017) scientific view without
adopting the name it's
critics prefer.
And on the "anti" side:
"Philosopher Paul Feyerabend ... came
to characterize science as 'an essentially
anarchic enterprise' ... "
Well sure, but that's not necessarily
a bad thing.
Feyerabend "... argued emphatically that science
merits no exclusive monopoly over 'dealing in
knowledge'"
It would be weird to claim that science deserves
a "monopoly". To claim that science deserves
respect and should play a central role, that
would seem completely uncontroversial.
"... and that scientists have never operated
within a distinct and narrowly self-defined tradition."
Feyerabend is no doubt objecting the the 50s/early 60s
dogmatism about "the scientific method" which is
admittedly fairly weak-- but you can dump that
particular bathwater without going with infanticide.
"In his essay Against Method he depicted the process
of contemporary scientific education as a mild form
of indoctrination, aimed at 'making the history of
science duller, simpler, more uniform, more
"objective" and more easily accessible to treatment
by strict and unchanging rules.'"
Fair enough-- when I was an undergrad, I felt
like I was too rushed to really examine the
case for the material presented. You were
supposed to learn to apply it without really
thinking about where it came from.
Feyerabend seems worried about science becoming
a religion, which is indeed something the phrase
"scientism" would suggest:
"Science can stand on its own feet and does not need any
help from rationalists, secular humanists, Marxists and
similar religious movements; and ... non-scientific
cultures, procedures and assumptions can also stand on
their own feet and should be allowed to do so ... Science
must be protected from ideologies; and societies,
especially democratic societies, must be protected from
science ... In a democracy scientific institutions,
research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be
subjected to public control, there must be a separation of
state and science just as there is a separation between
state and religious institutions, and science should be
taught as one view among many and not as the one and only
road to truth and reality."
Paul Feyerabend, "Against Method"
So my tentative conclusion on the usage
of "scientism" is to go with it as a
valid sneer.
Accusing someone of scientism is a
weaker accusation that accusing them
of pseudo-science. Perhaps: "Adopting CULT_OF_REASON
the trappings of science in a bid for
respect."
Myself, I probably wouldn't use it to mean
"denying the validity of anything except
science"-- I very rarely encounter anything
like that.
CONSILIENCE_PRIZE
If you want to defend "science"
and/or being "scientific" you can
just use those words.
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