Scientism
Scientism is the belief that science is the best means to understand truth, criticized for its dogmatic application to all inquiries, including ethics and spirituality, raising questions about knowledge boundaries.
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Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only means to understand truth about the world. Initially, it referred to the methods typical of natural scientists, but it has evolved into a pejorative term used to criticize an exaggerated trust in scientific methods applied to all areas of inquiry, including philosophy and the humanities. Scholars like Francis Bacon have been viewed as early proponents, although he emphasized a connection between philosophy and religion. Critiques of scientism often focus on its dogmatic endorsement of scientific methods and the reduction of knowledge to what can be empirically measured. This perspective can lead to the improper application of scientific claims in areas where they may not be relevant, such as ethics or spirituality.
The term is often divided into strong and weak scientism, with strong scientism asserting that only scientific knowledge is valid, while weak scientism acknowledges scientific knowledge as the most authoritative. The concept has been linked to debates about science and religion, with some scholars arguing that figures associated with New Atheism exhibit a form of scientism by claiming that science alone provides complete knowledge of reality. Critics argue that this view is self-refuting and overlooks the complexities of human experience. Overall, scientism raises important questions about the boundaries of scientific inquiry and the role of other forms of knowledge in understanding human existence.
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6 commentsWhile the odds are not on my favor trying to argue against a wikipedia definition, I would say that is a different concept from what I refer to as scientism (and a lot of other people, I imagine).
Scientism is taking arguments made by science or by scientists and believing in them as if they were an unquestionable set of precepts that govern life and other affairs, "because science".
This, in the same way as other -isms work, hence the addition of the suffix, to poke fun at the concept.
"Because science said so" being the modern equivalent of "because god said so", with all its downstream effects pretty much unmodified.
I don't think the so-called scientific method is a method or algorithm. If I'm working on an experiment and I'm stuck and something good occurs to me in my dream, this is not scientific method but it may help to further the experiment.
I am not particularly creative, but I struggle thinking of a way to establish something as true (with the exception of mathematics) without having some sort of experiment or observation, coupled with reasoning and a model embodied in the real universe.
I want to be open minded and not reject about universal discovery, but I work from the assumption that the universe exists, is rational, objective, and ultimately, all methods to discover truth require some level of experiment/observation and models.
It's probably nothing more than a corollary, since it's not like the average Joe is reading arXiv papers with all the focus and knowledge necessary to extract a usable "truth".
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