"Scientism" on Wikipedia ...

[lukethethird]

Who do you think follows Bronze Age polytheistic superstitions then rather than iron age Biblical superstitions?

Theists.

 

[Augustus]

He said, ignoring my post entirely.

I replied precisely to what you said

Nope, that is the straw man the thread author has used to create another thread to bash those who have the temerity not to share his theistic beliefs. You're just jumping on the bandwagon, and have fallen into water that is clearly out of your depth.

My post was not the op. You are barking up the wrong tree as usual

Think what? Why do theists love cryptic responses?

I've told you at least 5 times I'm an atheist. But reading ain't your forte.

Yes, no, I don't know. What is THAT?

All I said was that scientism is an excessive faith in the scope and accuracy of scientific methods.

You then fantasised that it was some theistic apologia and denied all rational people should accept there are limitations to the scope and accuracy of scientific methods.

Do you accept there are limitations to the scope and accuracy of scientific methods?

If so you have been arguing against another one of your strawmen as that's all I said. If you you don't accept that there are limitations then I can't help you.

Either read posts better or read more about the sciences.

They are your choices

 

[Augustus]

Theists.

Bronze age semitic polytheists... Can't move for them here...

 

[lukethethird]

Bronze age semitic polytheists... Can't move for them here...

We could do a comparison, get a measure of how far the apple falls from the tree.

 

[Sheldon]

Who do you think follows Bronze Age polytheistic superstitions then rather than iron age Biblical superstitions?

Why do you think I differentiate between unevidenced superstitions derived from previous unevidenced superstitions?

 

[Sheldon]

I replied precisely to what you said

You don't even seem to have understood it.

My post was not the op. You are barking up the wrong tree as usual

You quoted the thread OP on scientism verbatim, when I pointed out you were ignoring my post content, dear oh dear.

I've told you at least 5 times I'm an atheist. But reading ain't your forte.

No you haven't, at least not here, and I suspect you may be confusing me with another poster, and the hilarity of your constant ad hominem about my reading ability, is manifest in the full stop you've placed in the middle of that sentence, and the capital letter for the word but.

All I said was that scientism is an excessive faith in the scope and accuracy of scientific methods.

That is the thread OP you're parroting again, and no that is not remotely what you said, and I quoted your post verbatim when I responded. Here it is again:

Noting that there are limitations to the scope and accuracy of scientific methods has no connection to religion.

Now here is my response specifically to that assertion, that you've ignored yet again:

Or to mermaids or unicorns, but I sense you were making a different point. Yet you failed to explain the objective difference between your unevidenced assumption about the limits of science, and it's perceived inefficacy to examine or detect what does not exist, or what provides zero data to examine.

You then fantasised that it was some theistic apologia and denied all rational people should accept there are limitations to the scope and accuracy of scientific methods.

I may have assumed you were a theist, though I'm not sure I said that, but the denial was of your straw man claim, I have never denied there are limits to the scientific method, anymore than I waste time denying the existence of mermaids. You really do need to read more carefully. My post is again quoted above verbatim.

Do you accept there are limitations to the scope and accuracy of scientific methods?

Well science can't tell me which colour is best, or whether chicken tastes better than beef, if that's what you mean, but your question is too facile to be of much use. Which was the point I made in the context you offered it, but you clearly didn't understand what was being offered in response to your original, and equally facile claim.

If you you don't accept that there are limitations then I can't help you.

Help me? You can't even punctuate a sentence properly.

Either read posts better or read more about the sciences.

They are your choices

Sweet whistling Geronimo, that's funny. Please tell me this is an elaborate windup?

 

[Augustus]

We could do a comparison, get a measure of how far the apple falls from the tree.

I'd say Iron Age semitic monotheistic mythology is actually quite far from Bonze Age polytheistic semitic mythology.

The best part of a millennium does tend to result in significant evolution in thought.

 

[Augustus]

You quoted the thread OP on scientism verbatim

No I didn't. I presented a simpler definition of scientism to someone who found the OP confusing. Then you jumped in with some awful attempt at mind reading based on some kind of delusion.

If you disagree use the quote function to show the verbatim copying of the OP, or admit you are lying or delusional.

No you haven't, at least not here, and I suspect you may be confusing me with another poster, and the hilarity of your constant ad hominem about my reading ability, is manifest in the full stop you've placed in the middle of that sentence, and the capital letter for the word but.

More than once in a different thread, you failed to grasp it then either

I'm an atheist so why would I think there is a conspiracy?

I have never denied there are limits to the scientific method,

Excellent, so you agree scientism exists. Wonderful. We agree.

Well science can't tell me which colour is best, or whether chicken tastes better than beef, if that's what you mean, but your question is too facile to be of much use. Which was the point I made in the context you offered it, but you clearly didn't understand what was being offered in response to your original, and equally facile claim.

Tbh I didn't understand your point as it is more vapid than I could have imagined.

What I was discussing was the areas of science that are actually deemed scientific by some people.

That is why I gave the example of "scientific" morality that some people actually propose rather than talking about mermaids. It would also include other areas that fall within the social sciences.

Overstatement of the accuracy of methods can fall in any scientific discipline, although some are obviously far more reliable than others.

Agreed?

 

[Augustus]

Why do you think I differentiate between unevidenced superstitions derived from previous unevidenced superstitions?

Because belief systems have real world consequences so treating them all as completely fungible would be inane?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Just to be provocative, I've noticed that @Windwalker has frequently made reference to "experiences" in this thread, as "evidence" that there are things that science cannot have access to, cannot examine.

Well....here's an example of a claimed experience. I'd like to hear what @Windwalker or others have to say to justify that claim.

 

[lukethethird]

I'd say Iron Age semitic monotheistic mythology is actually quite far from Bonze Age polytheistic semitic mythology.

The best part of a millennium does tend to result in significant evolution in thought.

Unless it's turtles all the way down.

 

[Yazata]

"Scientism" is a pejorative term used by believers to misrepresent science, and so it goes.

It is often a pejorative term, but not always. There are definitely philosophers who argue for scientism.

My objection to scientism is that if all possible human knowledge becomes identified as the content of natural science, discoverable, justifiable and explainable by the "scientific method" (assuming that such a blessed thing even exists) or by the myriad of methods of the many special sciences, then that would leave the most fundamental questions about science unanswerable and the practice of science without rational justification. So scientism threatens to subvert our understanding of science, precisely the thing that it hopes to glorify and to extol.

Here's a very good article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy that discusses some of the fundamental questions about science that aren't themselves scientific questions. It addresses dispositions, necessity and possibility, laws of nature, causation, natural kinds, reduction, emergence, supervenience and grounding. I would add justification of logic, mathematics and reason itself, along with what sort of phenomena require explanation, what explanation is and what it seeks to accomplish, what the word 'reality' means and how it is distinguished from 'imaginary;, and many more questions like these, along with all sorts of epistemological questions regarding how any of these things can be known by beings such as us.

Metaphysics of Science | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

If all human knowledge is somehow identical and coextensive with the contents of the natural sciences and can only be acquired by use of scientific methods, then these sorts of questions would be ruled out by fiat and science itself and whatever it is that science purports to be doing would seem to be deprived of justification and explication.

There's a large literature on scientism, for and against, and most of it has little to do with "theism" or "believers", or even with "atheism" for that matter. As I tried to suggest in this post, these arguments are more commonly found in the philosophy of science.

 

[lukethethird]

It is often a pejorative term, but not always. There are definitely philosophers who argue for scientism.

My objection to scientism is that if all possible human knowledge becomes identified as the content of natural science, discoverable, justifiable and explainable by the "scientific method" (assuming that such a blessed thing even exists) or by the myriad of methods of the many special sciences, then that would leave the most fundamental questions about science unanswerable and the practice of science without rational justification. So scientism threatens to subvert our understanding of science, precisely the thing that it hopes to glorify and to extol.

Here's a very good article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy that discusses some of the fundamental questions about science that aren't themselves scientific questions. It addresses dispositions, necessity and possibility, laws of nature, causation, natural kinds, reduction, emergence, supervenience and grounding. I would add justification of logic, mathematics and reason itself, along with what sort of phenomena require explanation, what explanation is and what it seeks to accomplish, what the word 'reality' means and how it is distinguished from 'imaginary;, and many more questions like these, along with all sorts of epistemological questions regarding how any of these things can be known by beings such as us.

Metaphysics of Science | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

If all human knowledge is somehow identical and coextensive with the contents of the natural sciences and can only be acquired by use of scientific methods, then these sorts of questions would be ruled out by fiat and science itself and whatever it is that science purports to be doing would seem to be deprived of justification and explication.

There's a large literature on scientism, for and against, and most of it has little to do with "theism" or "believers", or even with "atheism" for that matter. As I tried to suggest in this post, these arguments are more commonly found in the philosophy of science.

My comments were perhaps best suited towards this thread, the scientism trying to be pinned on non-believers of this forum.

 

[Augustus]

Unless it's turtles all the way down.

I'd say that few things are better supported empirically than the ideas that culture influences behaviour, and that cultures change over time.

Wouldn't you agree?

 

[RestlessSoul]

You have a winner? I'd say that I do. I not only embraced scientism, I repeated the claim that empiricism is the only path to truth about the world as I defined truth, that is true statements are those that can be empirically demonstrated (to all in the case of public truths, and to oneself in the case of personal truths, such as Brussels sprouts tasting unpleasant) to be true by making accurate predictions of outcomes.

I have said that what others are calling truth, such as the "truth" that God exists, because they have a hunch that what they are experiencing is a deity rather than their own minds, and projecting something that exists entirely within the theater of their personal consciousness onto reality, doesn't rise to this standard.

You ignored all that and went into your victory lap, a phenomenon others call pigeon chess. The statement still stands unrebutted. Unless you can demonstrate otherwise, well. you don't have a winner. You have a loser.

I have also questioned what excessive reliance on empiricism means. Too say that people like me go too far implies a mistake with undesirable consequences. I illustrated what I meant with the analogy of too much alcohol, and why for that to have meaning, one needs to show some harm coming from that degree of drinking, whether physical (blackouts) or social (DUI). Can you or anybody else show the world a second path to truth about it as I have defined truth, or will you just claim like other critics of strict empiricists that others are too small-minded without ever demonstrating that you are right or they are wrong?

Yes I embrace scientism, and proudly as you can see, as I do atheism. It is a correct epistemic position for as long as it has not been successfully rebutted.

You didn't even try, did you? If there was more of a response to my reasoned argument that the response I culled the above quote from, I didn't see it.

Let me share something with you about the values of academia in disputation. Dialectic is the method employed. It is the cooperative effort of two or more people skilled in critical thinking attempting to resolve differences. It is done by addressing the points one another make, and when in disagreement, explaining where and why.

Here's a schematic representation of the different levels of disputation. The four highest levels describe addressing the argument in progressively lesser degrees. The apex is what I am asking for - if you can, refute my central point as just restated here. Less interesting is addressing only peripheral points, as when somebody answers a comment that was in the argument, but wasn't the central point (level 2), doesn't rebut the argument made but does give an argument of his own in contradiction (level 3), or simply contradicts without explanation (level 4).

Below that are the responses that don't address the argument at all, such as yours above.

I'm asking you to join me at the top there. That's where dialectic lives. That's where progress is made in discussion. One we stop addressing one another's objections or answering one another's questions, the dialectic train derails, and the useful part of the discussion is over:

You didn't read my post properly, though it was a short one.. I declared you the winner, not me. You won the game, because you were the first poster on the thread who understood the rules and was willing to play by them. Everyone else either claimed not to understand the OP, or recognised the game but had no wish to join the other players.

You're a musician aren't you? Do you subject music, or poetry, or a movie, to rigourous empiricism and logic; or do you ever use your intuition, go where others lead, search for inspiration?

Isn't there a working part of the conscious self, beyond the intellect, beyond the ego, which you engage with when you're playing? That, I suggest, is the part of you which is closest to divinity, to the transcendent; your logical, empirical constructs won't get you there. Intuition, inspiration, and a willingness to take risks and have faith, these are the tools that might help your spirit take wing.

Even if you don't think you have a soul, you must acknowledge that Jimi Hendrix had one - metaphorically at least. Metaphor is a good place to begin, when searching for that which is both immaterial and real.

 

[Augustus]

Just to be provocative, I've noticed that @Windwalker has frequently made reference to "experiences" in this thread, as "evidence" that there are things that science cannot have access to, cannot examine.

The social and behavioural sciences frequently aim to measure subjective personal experiences.

How effective this is in each situation is open to debate.

 

[Augustus]

My comments were perhaps best suited towards this thread, the scientism trying to be pinned on non-believers of this forum.

At times, some non-believers here (and some believers too) express views that would qualify as scientism.

 

[lukethethird]

At times, some non-believers here (and some believers too) express views that would qualify as scientism.

Agreed, the thread fleshed them out. Pot, meet Kettle.

 

[oldbadger]

I think it's the fact that you are making this comparison, and having to decide which is the more daft, is what's significant.

Of course it is...... significant!

While I accept that sciences can be inexact, and strongly held scientific opinions can be reversed, it is that which makes Science so much more safe than, say, fundamental Christianity.

And so, 'yes', I do make the comparison. That some religions actually do think that God looks like humans, is interested in recently evolved humans in such a vast existence which includes trillions of sun-systems and billions of galaxies, take your pick. But if a single person alone was to walk our streets and calling out such ideas ...I think they would be regarded as in need of psychiatry.

 

[lukethethird]

I'd say that few things are better supported empirically than the ideas that culture influences behaviour, and that cultures change over time.

Wouldn't you agree?

What influences culture more than anything?