Scientism

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 as a pejorative.The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy by Simon Blackburn notes that it is presently a term of abuse.
The non-pejorative, and therefore boring, sense of the term denotes the "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist."Merriam-Webster — ScientismStanford Encyclopedia of Philosopy - The Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge 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.Although it is adopted as a "badge of honor" in the rare case, such as in Alex Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to Reality. This usage seems to date to Friedrich von Hayek's 1943 essay "Scientism and the Study of Society."Friedrich von Hayek. Scientism and the Study of Society. Economica, Vol. 9, No. 35 (Aug., 1943), pp. 267-291 Because the mad scientists are prowling the streets!
==Sensible usage==
Scientism is a topic of major contention in the philosophy of science, and philosophy in general. 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.C. Hakfoort. Science deified: Wilhelm Osstwald's energeticist world-view and the history of scientism. Annals of Science, Volume 49, Issue 6, 1992 The role of scientism in modernity is also a point of debate in social theory.Huston Smith. Scientism: The Bedrock of the Modern Worldview, in Science and the Myth of Progress, ed. Mehrdad M. Zarandi 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 something "real". It also tends to be accompanied by loads of sciencey technobabble.Rushkoff, Douglas. Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. New York: W.W. Norton, 2022. pp. 58-63. Here are some examples:
* Theories rooted in some form of social Darwinism, such as eugenics and "scientific" racism. And we know what the end result of that was.
* "Scientific Socialism"
* Taylorism, or "Scientific Management".
* Widespread use of questionable personality tests in businesses and schools.See Annie Murphy Paul's Cult of Personality for numerous examples.
* Most pop evolutionary psychology attempting to characterize "human nature".
* Economics: supply-demand, homo economicus, perfectly competitive markets, the free market myth, etc.
Unfortunately, it gets mixed into the crank usage when someone is told their favorite thing is actually full of shit. Rationally speaking, one should realize that science (in its proper meaning) deals with analyzing empirical evidence logically and deducing objective facts: It does not take an active role in determining what one should do or how they must act (that would be Hume's law in action), nor does it deal with subjective thought systems (ranging from arts to moral codes) or ideologies in general.
==="Six signs of scientism"===
Analytic philosopher Susan Haack lists what she considers six signs of scientism:Six Signs of Scientism, Susan Haack
Douglas Rushkoff, professor of media theory, calls scientism "the refusal to consider anything without evidence" and compares it to a religious belief, "something more like faith in an empiricist universe" and elaborates: "It's an assumption. It's part of a system of meaning, developed by a community of people over time. It just happens to be a meaning system that ignores meaning itself."Rushkoff, Douglas. Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. New York: W.W. Norton, 2022. pp. 56-57. Rushkoff goes even further in calling scientism "a sociopathic perspective that makes science valuable to the billionaire class because it helps justify their most shameful behaviors."Rushkoff, Douglas. Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires. New York: W.W. Norton, 2022. p. 63.
==Science as religion==
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 handwave 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, and (c) because the speaker's personal ox has been gored.
===Problems===
To the extent that this claim is true at all, it is true only if one accepts an overly-expansive definition of "religion", under which any number of unrelated things (all of science, being a devoted sports fan, etc.) would count as "religions" as well. But according to any definition of "religion" which does not regard Monday Night Football as a 'sacrament' of whatever kind, evolution is not a "religion".
Science can only be viewed as a religion insofar as the assertion that the universe is internally consistent is axiomatic. If it isn't internally consistent, it is not necessarily possible to demonstrate that it isn't. If this axiom of science and logical reasoning is wrong, it follows that any and every belief system is a religion, making the above argument disingenuous.
Science does not accept "revealed truth" as evidence. Because God, Allah, Moses, Buddha, Darwin, or (Ernst) Mayr says so does not make it so. They may all propose hypotheses, but then they and others must do the hard work to support or disprove them.
The argumentation used to support the claim of evolution being a religion is not in question; however, the use of the term "religion" is confused with what would be more agreeably called a "worldview". Any system of thought or perspective will inherently be value-laden and supported by various underlying assumptions of metaphysics. Thus while both modern science and Christianity are approaches to explain, interpret, and view existence, they differ in the supports and values on which they rest. While no perfect definition of religion, or science for that matter, is agreed upon, a clear demarcation of the underlying differences between the two generalized approaches can be seen in the questions that are asked. The questions of religion such as: 'Where do we go when we die?', 'What exists outside of existence?', and 'Who is God?' are not so much unanswerable by science as they are more inapplicable, as the religion's underlying metaphysical conceptions inherent in such questions are not shared by the scientific perspective. (That is, science doesn't think of humans, reality, and the purpose of inquiry in the same way as religion.)
===Crank quotes===
Here are some examples:
Or consider this usage by a proponent of alternative medicine:Beware scientism’s onward march! by Lionel Milgrom (2009) Alliance for Natural Health (archived from May 17, 2010).
==See also==
*Anti-science
*Frankenstein
*Physics envy
*Post-normal science
*Pseudoskepticism, a word used similarly by the same people
*Secular religions
==External links==
*Scientism, entry in the Skeptic's Dictionary
*Scientism, Martin Ryder, University of Colorado, Denver
*The Shamans of Scientism, Michael Shermer
*Does Scientism Exist?, A Hot Cup of Joe
*Daniel Dennett smacks down John Haught (video)
*What is “scientism”?, Dr. William Widdowson
*Scientism as Scientistic Belief, Paul M. Paolini, Rationally Speaking
*The Trouble with Scientism, Philip Kitcher, The New Republic
*Science as Salvation, Mary Midgley, Gifford Lectures 1989-1990
*Susan Haack. Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism. Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 21.6, November / December 1997
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Neologisms
Category:Science
Category:Philosophy of science