scientism

Scientism is a relatively newly coined word that refers to certain epistemologies based on science. The word has several different meanings:

• Scientism is a belief that scientific knowledge is the foundation of all wisdom and that, consequently, scientific argument should always be weighted more heavily than other forms of wisdom, particularly those which are not yet well described or justified from within the rational framework, or whose description fails to present itself in the course of a debate against a scientific argument. When used in a critique of science, it is dismissed by some scientists who maintain that all fields of inquiry should be subject to (and can ultimately be understood by) standard scientific methods of investigation.[1].

It can be contrasted by doctrines like historicism which hold that there are certain "unknowable" truths. (Source for definition: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000)

This viewpoint is typified by comments such as "Scientific research has demonstrated that substance x causes cancer in human"

• As a form of dogma: "In essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth." [2]

• Scientism can mean the values of humanism and Enlightenment informed by science. In this context, scientism is "a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life appropriate for an Age of Science". (Source: Michael Shermer, The Shamans of Scientism, Scientific American, 2002)

• Scientism may also refer to the way in which Karl Marx appropriated science as a justification for his theories, and how science replaced religion in Marxist communism.

• Scientism can be used as a pejorative term, typically to reject the assertion that the application of scientific understanding to all phenomena produces the predicted results and is, therefore, a reliable guide to policy. It implies a reliance on science unbalanced by, and therefore susceptible to, unconscious influence by other life factors such as experiences, emotions, values, dogmas, beliefs, and motive. These influences, and, necessarily, the resulting science, are unscientific to the extent that they are unexamined in connection with the development of the science. In particular, in any area where where secrets are known to be held, trust in science breaks down because influential facts are not being revealed, so no rational judgment can be fully trusted.

Scientism is sometimes seen, when used in its pejorative sense, as being a term deployed from an anti-science standpoint, despite the fact that some of those who have used it in this way claim to be supporters of science who are merely proposing a less reductionist view of science. "Reductionism" is intended by such as a critique of that scientific categorization which reduces individual variation into categories without regard for the consequences of such categorization, in particular upon those at the margins of such classification. In other words, scientism would be scientific analysis of populations which honors only prevalence and ignores outlyers, tending to create undesirable norms.

'Scientism' may be used to imply an ignorance (or denial) of a relationship/disjunction between metaphysical and natural phenomena. This sense of the term comes close to Hannah Arendt's use of it in The Origins of Totalitarianism; in her view, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had made the human condition a matter of scientific exactitude, and thus otherwise impossible moral or ethical questions (such as, "Can a man be worthless? And if so, can we euthanize him?") are easily resolved within the internally-consistent "scientific" methods of the state. In other words, the inhuman aspects of such totalitarian states cannot be said to be entirely unrelated to their adherence to science as the ultimate arbiter of value.

See also

• panglossianism
• pathological skepticism
• philosophy of science
• scientific method
• scientistic materialism
• scientistic

References

• "Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism", Susan Haack, Skeptical Inquier Magazine, 1997.
• Sandra Harding, "Who Knows? Identities and Feminist Epistemology", in Joan E. Hartman and Ellen Messer-Davidow, eds., (En)gendering Knowledge, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1991, p. 109.
• F.A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1952.

External links

• "Is Science Killing the soul?" Time Out New York (Edge Foundation, Inc.). 1999.
  • A discussion between Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins
• Dawkins, Richard, "Is Science a Religion?" The Humanist. January/February 1997.
• Newman, Nathan, "Big Pharma, Bad Science". The Nation. July 25, 2002.
• "The Shamans of Scientism" by Michael Shermer, Scientific American, June, 2002

This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article Scientism on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article

WP