Scientism is an ideology that promotes science
as the purportedly objective means by which
society should determine normative and epistemological
values. The term scientism is generally used
critically, pointing to the cosmetic application
of science in unwarranted situations not amenable
to application of the scientific method or
similar scientific standards.
In philosophy of science, the term scientism
frequently implies a critique of the more
extreme expressions of logical positivism
and has been used by social scientists such
as Friedrich Hayek, philosophers of science
such as Karl Popper, and philosophers such
as Hilary Putnam and Tzvetan Todorov to describe
(for example) the dogmatic endorsement of
scientific methodology and the reduction of
all knowledge to only that which is measured
or confirmatory.More generally, scientism
is often interpreted as science applied "in
excess". The term scientism has two senses:
The improper usage of science or scientific
claims. This usage applies equally in contexts
where science might not apply, such as when
the topic is perceived as beyond the scope
of scientific inquiry, and in contexts where
there is insufficient empirical evidence to
justify a scientific conclusion. It includes
an excessive deference to the claims of scientists
or an uncritical eagerness to accept any result
described as scientific. This can be a counterargument
to appeals to scientific authority. It can
also address the attempt to apply "hard science"
methodology and claims of certainty to the
social sciences, which Friedrich Hayek described
in The Counter-Revolution of Science (1952)
as being impossible, because that methodology
involves attempting to eliminate the "human
factor", while social sciences (including
his own field of economics) center almost
purely on human action.
"The belief that the methods of natural science,
or the categories and things recognized in
natural science, form the only proper elements
in any philosophical or other inquiry", or
that "science, and only science, describes
the world as it is in itself, independent
of perspective" with a concomitant "elimination
of the psychological [and spiritual] dimensions
of experience". Tom Sorell provides this definition:
"Scientism is a matter of putting too high
a value on natural science in comparison with
other branches of learning or culture." Philosophers
such as Alexander Rosenberg have also adopted
"scientism" as a name for the view that science
is the only reliable source of knowledge.It
is also sometimes used to describe universal
applicability of the scientific method and
approach, and the view that empirical science
constitutes the most authoritative worldview
or the most valuable part of human learning—to
the complete exclusion of other viewpoints,
such as historical, philosophical, economic
or cultural worldviews. It has been defined
as "the view that the characteristic inductive
methods of the natural sciences are the only
source of genuine factual knowledge and, in
particular, that they alone can yield true
knowledge about man and society". The term
scientism is also used by historians, philosophers,
and cultural critics to highlight the possible
dangers of lapses towards excessive reductionism
in all fields of human knowledge.For social
theorists in the tradition of Max Weber, such
as Jürgen Habermas and Max Horkheimer, the
concept of scientism relates significantly
to the philosophy of positivism, but also
to the cultural rationalization for modern
Western civilization. British novelist Sara
Maitland has called scientism a "myth as pernicious
as any sort of fundamentalism."
== 
Definitions ==
Reviewing the references to scientism in the
works of contemporary scholars, Gregory R.
Peterson detects two main broad themes:
It is used to criticize a totalizing view
of science as if it were capable of describing
all reality and knowledge, or as if it were
the only true way to acquire knowledge about
reality and the nature of things;
It is used, often pejoratively, to denote
a border-crossing violation in which the theories
and methods of one (scientific) discipline
are inappropriately applied to another (scientific
or non-scientific) discipline and its domain.
An example of this second usage is to label
as scientism any attempt to claim science
as the only or primary source of human values
(a traditional domain of ethics) or as the
source of meaning and purpose (a traditional
domain of religion and related worldviews).The
term scientism was popularized by the Nobel
Prize winner F.A. Hayek, who defined it as
the "slavish imitation of the method and language
of Science". Karl Popper defines scientism
as "the aping of what is widely mistaken for
the method of science".Mikael Stenmark proposes
the expression scientific expansionism as
a synonym of scientism. In the Encyclopedia
of science and religion, he writes that, while
the doctrines that are described as scientism
have many possible forms and varying degrees
of ambition, they share the idea that the
boundaries of science (that is, typically
the natural sciences) could and should be
expanded so that something that has not been
previously considered as a subject pertinent
to science can now be understood as part of
science (usually with science becoming the
sole or the main arbiter regarding this area
or dimension).According to Stenmark, the strongest
form of scientism states that science has
no boundaries and that all human problems
and all aspects of human endeavor, with due
time, will be dealt with and solved by science
alone. This idea has also been called the
Myth of Progress.E. F. Schumacher, in his
A Guide for the Perplexed, criticized scientism
as an impoverished world view confined solely
to what can be counted, measured and weighed.
"The architects of the modern worldview, notably
Galileo and Descartes, assumed that those
things that could be weighed, measured, and
counted were more true than those that could
not be quantified. If it couldn't be counted,
in other words, it didn't count."Intellectual
historian T.J. Jackson Lears argues there
has been a recent reemergence of "nineteenth-century
positivist faith that a reified 'science'
has discovered (or is about to discover) all
the important truths about human life. Precise
measurement and rigorous calculation, in this
view, are the basis for finally settling enduring
metaphysical and moral controversies." Lears
specifically identifies Harvard psychologist
Steven Pinker's work as falling in this category.
Philosophers John N. Gray and Thomas Nagel
have leveled similar criticisms against popular
works by moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt,
neuroscientist Sam Harris, and writer Malcolm
Gladwell.Genetic biologist Austin L. Hughes
wrote in conservative journal The New Atlantis
that scientism has much in common with superstition:
"the stubborn insistence that something...has
powers which no evidence supports."
== 
Relevance to debates about science and religion
==
Several scholars use the term to describe
the work of vocal critics of religion-as-such.
Individuals associated with New Atheism have
garnered this label from both religious and
non-religious scholars. Theologian John Haught
argues that Daniel Dennett and other new atheists
subscribe to a belief system of scientific
naturalism, which holds the central dogma
that "only nature, including humans and our
creations, is real: that God does not exist;
and that science alone can give us complete
and reliable knowledge of reality." Haught
argues that this belief system is self-refuting
since it requires its adherents to assent
to beliefs that violate its own stated requirements
for knowledge. Christian Philosopher Peter
Williams argues that it is only by conflating
science with scientism that new atheists feel
qualified to "pontificate on metaphysical
issues." Philosopher Daniel Dennett responded
to religious criticism of his book Breaking
the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
by saying that accusations of scientism "[are]
an all-purpose, wild-card smear... When someone
puts forward a scientific theory that [religious
critics] really don't like, they just try
to discredit it as 'scientism'. But when it
comes to facts, and explanations of facts,
science is the only game in town".Non-religious
scholars have also linked New Atheist thought
with scientism. Atheist philosopher Thomas
Nagel argues that neuroscientist Sam Harris
conflates all empirical knowledge with that
of scientific knowledge. Marxist literary
critic Terry Eagleton argues that Christopher
Hitchens possesses an "old-fashioned scientistic
notion of what counts as evidence" that reduces
knowledge to what can and cannot be proven
by scientific procedure. Agnostic philosopher
Anthony Kenny has also criticized New Atheist
philosopher Alexander Rosenberg's The Atheist's
Guide to Reality for resurrecting a self-refuting
epistemology of logical positivism and reducing
all knowledge of the universe to the discipline
of physics.Michael Shermer, founder of The
Skeptics Society, draws a parallel between
scientism and traditional religious movements,
pointing to the cult of personality that develops
around some scientists in the public eye.
He defines scientism as a worldview that encompasses
natural explanations, eschews supernatural
and paranormal speculations, and embraces
empiricism and reason.The Iranian scholar
Seyyed Hossein Nasr has stated that in the
Western world, many will accept the ideology
of modern science, not as "simple ordinary
science", but as a replacement for religion.Gregory
R. Peterson writes that "for many theologians
and philosophers, scientism is among the greatest
of intellectual sins".
== Philosophy of science ==
In his essay Against Method, Paul Feyerabend
characterizes science as "an essentially anarchic
enterprise" and argues emphatically that science
merits no exclusive monopoly over "dealing
in knowledge" and that scientists have never
operated within a distinct and narrowly self-defined
tradition. He depicts 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."
[S]cience 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.
== Rhetoric of science ==
Thomas M. Lessl argues that religious themes
persist in what he calls scientism, the public
rhetoric of science. There are two methodologies
that illustrate this idea of scientism. One
is the epistemological approach, the assumption
that the scientific method trumps other ways
of knowing and the ontological approach, that
the rational mind reflects the world and both
operate in knowable ways. According to Lessl,
the ontological approach is an attempt to
"resolve the conflict between rationalism
and skepticism". Lessl also argues that without
scientism, there would not be a scientific
culture.
== Religion and philosophy ==
Philosopher of religion Keith Ward has said
scientism is philosophically inconsistent
or even self-refuting, as the truth of the
statements "no statements are true unless
they can be proven scientifically (or logically)"
or "no statements are true unless they can
be shown empirically to be true" cannot themselves
be proven scientifically, logically, or empirically.
== Rationalization and modernity ==
In the introduction to his collected oeuvre
on the sociology of religion, Max Weber asks
why "the scientific, the artistic, the political,
or the economic development [elsewhere]…
did not enter upon that path of rationalization
which is peculiar to the Occident?" According
to the distinguished German social theorist,
Jürgen Habermas, "For Weber, the intrinsic
(that is, not merely contingent) relationship
between modernity and what he called 'Occidental
rationalism' was still self-evident." Weber
described a process of rationalisation, disenchantment
and the "disintegration of religious world
views" that resulted in modern secular societies
and capitalism.
"Modernization" was introduced as a technical
term only in the 1950s. It is the mark of
a theoretical approach that takes up Weber's
problem but elaborates it with the tools of
social-scientific functionalism… The theory
of modernization performs two abstractions
on Weber's concept of "modernity". It dissociates
"modernity" from its modern European origins
and stylizes it into a spatio-temporally neutral
model for processes of social development
in general. Furthermore, it breaks the internal
connections between modernity and the historical
context of Western rationalism, so that processes
of modernization… [are] no longer burdened
with the idea of a completion of modernity,
that is to say, of a goal state after which
"postmodern" developments would have to set
in. …Indeed it is precisely modernization
research that has contributed to the currency
of the expression "postmodern" even among
social scientists.
Habermas is critical of pure instrumental
rationality, arguing that the "Social Life–World"
is better suited to literary expression, the
former being "intersubjectively accessible
experiences" that can be generalized in a
formal language, while the latter "must generate
an intersubjectivity of mutual understanding
in each concrete case":
The world with which literature deals is the
world in which human beings are born and live
and finally die; the world in which they love
and hate, in which they experience triumph
and humiliation, hope and despair; the world
of sufferings and enjoyments, of madness and
common sense, of silliness, cunning and wisdom;
the world of social pressures and individual
impulses, of reason against passion, of instincts
and conventions, of shared language and unsharable
feelings and sensations…
== Media references ==
As a form of dogma: "In essence, scientism
sees science as the absolute and only justifiable
access to the truth."
== 
See also ==
== 
References ==
== Bibliography ==
Feyerabend, P (1993) [First published 1975],
Against Method (3rd ed.), Verso, ISBN 978-0-86091-646-8.
Peterson, Gregory R (2003), "Demarcation and
the Scientistic Fallacy", Zygon: Journal of
Religion and Science, 38 (4): 751–61, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.2003.00536.x,
the best way to understand the charge of scientism
is as a kind of logical fallacy involving
improper usage of science or scientific claims.
Webster (1983), "Scientism", New Collegiate
Dictionary (Ninth ed.).
== External links ==
CS Lewis: Science and Scientism, Lewis society.
Burnett, "What is Scientism?", Community dialogue,
American Association for the Advancement of
Science, archived from the original on 2012-07-02.
"Science and Scientism", Monopolizing knowledge
(World Wide Web log), The Biologos Foundation.
Martin, Eric C. "Science and Ideology § Science
as Ideology: Scientism". Internet Encyclopedia
of Philosophy.
