"Scientism" on Wikipedia ...

[Windwalker]

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.

Provocative, or offensive? I know you like to attempt to reduce anything that escapes your ability to follow with such words as "deepity", in order to overcompensate for your lack. Ridiculing what you don't understand in order to feel less insecure, is a sign of weakness. It's a sign you lack a legitimate argument.

Try actually addressing what I have said, rather than reaching into the absurd and imagine that gets you off the hook in your mind. I've noticed a trend with this anti-intellectualism with certain atheist fundamentalists, where references to actual scholarship, philosophers, researchers, et all, as "deepity", or "tomes of obscure references which no one can understand".. Etc. Nothing I post here, can be compared with this nonsense you posted trying to draw some comparison. These types of responses are answers to themselves. It says nothing about what I have been saying, but says everything about you.

Try dealing with the actual substance of what I say. And if you can't, then consider that.

But to actually respond: Lunatic claims can be understood as such, because if you compare them to others, they are alone and unique, typically, or follow some form or pattern of clinical disease, like schizophrenia. The research I refer to recognizes the differences. They are not fools. You should expose yourself to knowledge I am sharing, rather than isolating yourself into you belief systems and ridiculing anything that challenges those, like fundamentalists do. Speaking of patterns....

 

[Yazata]

For an example of atheistic scientism, look no further than Alex Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to Reality

https://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Guide-Reality-Enjoying-Illusions/dp/0393344118

The book blurb reads, "We can't avoid the persistent questions about the meaning of life - and the nature of reality. Philosopher Alex Rosenberg maintains that science is the only thing that can really answer them - all of them."

He sets out his ontology in his first 2 chapters. I haven't read his book so I don't know how/if he tries to justify his rather grandiose claim to have pretty much solved the deepest age-old questions about the nature of reality. (And in just 2 chapters too! Amazing!)

Chapter 1 Answering lifes persistent questions: Do you want stories or reality?

Chapter 2 The nature of Reality: The physical facts fix all the facts

Then 2 chapters about design, 2 chapters about morality, 4 chapters about the philosophy of mind, 1 chapter on history, and finally

Chapter 12 Living with Scientism: Ethics, Politics, the Humanities, and Prozac as needed

Brad Schneider, one of the book's reviewers, made these excellent remarks (highlighting by me):

"This books' title is misleading. Rosenberg is not principally advancing a defense of atheism, he is defending what he himself describes as "scientism." By scientism, Rosenberg means the view that the "physical facts" -- essentially meaningless collections of sub atomic particles ("fermions and bosons") -- "fix" all other facts. In this view, physics not only offers an extremely powerful insight into the nature of reality -- the whole of reality is exhausted by what physics tells us...

Take the matter of defining one's terms -- an essential part of any philosophical argument. Rosenberg can't be bothered. Most notably, while pronouncing himself a believer in "scientism," Rosenberg cannot even be bothered to define what he means by "science." Does it include mathematics (presumably)? Philosophy (presumably not)? What does it mean for something to be "physical"? The closest Rosenberg comes is to say that science is "more a matter of blueprints, recipes, formulas, wiring diagrams, systems of equations, and geometrical proofs." Well, that narrows it down...

How can Rosenberg demonstrate, within the methodological limitations of modern physics, that physics exhausts all there is to know about reality? Is there a theory of physics from which one can draw that conclusion?..."

 

[Augustus]

They're all unevidenced right? I think maybe focus on that, and not obsess so much over the epoch from which it's precursors were derived.

As a rationalist, surely you should appreciate being corrected on your mistakes

Why focus on 'unevidenced' though? Belief systems in general are 'unevidenced'. Ideologies are subjective value preferences that are mostly acquired from our environment rather than being the product of dispassionate and rational evaluation of evidence.

I'm far more interested in the ways people are affected by beliefs rather than whatever axiomatic assumptions they hold and what they thinks underpins them.

 

[Augustus]

For an example of atheistic scientism, look no further than Alex Rosenberg's An Atheist Guide to Reality

https://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Guide-Reality-Enjoying-Illusions/dp/0393344118

The book blurb reads, "We can't avoid the persistent questions about the meaning of life - and the nature of reality. Philosopher Alex Rosenberg maintains that science is the only thing that can really answer them - all of them."

Scientism doesn't exist. Was just made up by theists to attack atheists. etc. etc.

One of the Founding Fathers of scientism was this chap: Auguste Comte - Wikipedia so it's hardly something new.

Unsurprisingly, he is also someone who played a big role in the development of Secular Humanism given how the 2 are often comorbidities.

 

[Sheldon]

Well I wouldn’t be going to a doctor for spiritual guidance, any more than I’d ask a dentist for advice on loft insulation,

I'm relieved to hear it, though I suspect you've missed my point.

so that little false equivalence misses the target rather.

Well that's probably because you didn't give a target, just a vague unevidenced assumption of Empiricism, reason, logic, falsifiable hypotheses not trumping lived experiences. I know plenty of people who have lived experiences, but that would definitely be trumped by empirical knowledge in a wide variety of circumstances.

 

[Windwalker]

Oh so faith only works if you're not denying the faith of others? I have faith your claim is wrong - check mate? No stale mate? No, wait???

I've gone to great lengths previously to explain how I see the difference between faith and beliefs. They relate to each other, but they are not identical. What you said is if someone challenges my faith, or claims its wrong. If that's the case, then they are dealing with their beliefs. If you're claiming some else's beliefs are wrong, then you need to provide support for it. If you say their faith is wrong, that's like saying, "no, you're wrong, ice cream does not taste good to you!" Huh???

You see? I can say ice cream tastes good, because taste, like faith, is subjective. You're free to say your taste finds it icky. But if you say my saying ice cream tastes good is wrong, you're the one in error. You just have to take my word for it. That's how I experience it. Otherwise to debate that, only speaks of your insecurity that you have to have everyone agree with your own subjective reality. "Nah ah! It tastes bad! You're wrong!" Of course, that's just silly.

Well the god claim would be entirely unfalsifiable of course, but why can't I use faith to believe in bigfoot or mermaids, or anything really?

I'd say because you're talking about things that can be verifiable. You're talking about animal species that are supposed to exist in the world of living things that have mass and shape and form. Science is the right tool for that. But if you're talking about "Spirit", that has no material form that science would have the tools to investigate, how then is that a scientific question? It's not. It's not the right set of eyes through which to look. You don't use a telescope to investigate why you feel sad.

Now scientism claims that all that exits in only physical. But that's a matter of faith, not facts. That's not a scientific claim. That's a philosophy, or in the case of scientism, a near-religious faith.

Indeed, so if the case involves nothing more than the bare unevidenced claim I have no alternative but to disbelieve it, but keep an open mind.

Yes, if it's just one person claiming something, consider it but take it with a good dose of skeptical reservations. If you have scores of people all claiming similar things, then take better notice. If you have researchers collect the data and can map out common trends and patterns, then it's best to set aside being married to what you assumed before.

I agree, but since neither science not atheism need involve such a claim, I'm not sure why you posted that?

Simple answer. You, or countless atheists, ask for scientific evidence when someone claims a belief in God. That's why.

She left while I was in work a couple of years ago. Though I'm not sure I've suggested love is solely an imagined idea, I can imagine the Eiffel Tower, I have also been to the top of it.

So if love is not solely an imagined idea, why do you assume God is? What idea of God is it you have in mind, when you expect evidence to support it? Isn't a subjective feeling sufficient? It is for love, isn't it? Why this insistence on offering evidence? Where is that coming from?

I think we both know that isn't true.

A unicorn isn't considered as a horse with a horn?

Unicorn

a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead​

Only if your straw man about unicorns were true, which it manifestly isn't.

You didn't follow my analogy? A horse is supposedly an animal. It has form. It has a body. It has mass - if it ostensibly exists. Therefore, science should be able to find evidence of it, just as it can for all other animals.

So when you say we should be able to expect evidence of God, if it really existed, you must be imagining it like a unicorn, something that has mass and form. A 'critter' of sorts.

This is a reasonable conclusion based upon you and other atheists asking believers "where's your evidence", expecting some form of scientific verification to satisfy your "skepticism". What sort of "evidence" would you expect, if not something along the lines of hair samples, hoofprints, or dung droppings from a 'critter' called God? It must be a creature of some sort, in order for science to have anything whatsoever to say about it. Right?

It's a variety of emotions, that are applicable to a variety of circumstances and relationships.

So you think love is just an emotion? I don't know any relationship that can survive based on emotions. They come and go. But love sustains, because it is an attitude, a mindset, an intention, a way of life. "I used to love you, but I don't anymore", is not really love. It's something teenagers call love.

You want to know what I see God as? Like Love, it is an "atmosphere" in which we "live and move and have our being". Feelings can come and go, but like love, it is a condition of being. Not an emotion. I can feel great anger, and still be acting from love.

Nope, but if the claim went entirely unevidenced, I'd grow to believe the claim had no credence.

And what sort of evidence convinces you of love? Seeing actions consistent with it? If those qualify as evidence of love, then when you see someone's life transformed through faith in God, isn't that evidence of something substantive too? More than just an idea in someone's head that has no supporting evidence? Isn't personal transformation, evidence of the validity of that belief for them?

My heart is a muscle that pumps blood, I don't discern anything with it, nor does any other human.

Please try not to be so literal. You know what I mean. I clearly mean heart as a metaphor for something sensed or intuited, versus reasoned and rationalized by the thinking mind. You can't be that naive not to have heard the heart used to mean that before.

Are you just trying to dodge the point here?

Straw man fallacy...it seems theists are far more obsessed with science than atheists.

It's the atheists in question who continually ask the theist when they say they believe in God, "where's your evidence!". The believer seems far less concerned with that then the atheist is. Why is that?

I don't believe you, since theists keep making the claim, but fail to demonstrate any objective evidence.

Repeatedly I have cited researchers, scholars, and philosophers, and the responses I get from the so-called rationalists, is derogatory dismissals of this as "deepity", or something to the effect of, 'tomes of obscure ideas that no one can understand', and such. That's just anti-intellectualism, intellectual dishonesty, not actual healthy skepticism. It's just bare cynicism.

It's nothing I can accept or respect. It's intellectually dishonest

False equivalence fallacy and straw man fallacy. Do you know how fossils are formed? Why on earth would you pretend that a human emotion as varied as what we call love could ever be fossilised?

Why on earth would you expect to find evidence of God, like you would a fossil? I think yours is the straw man argument, asking for evidence of God, when God is not an object in nature, but the Subject of Being itself.

I don't know, what else have you got beyond the bare subjective claims theists keep making here?

I've been directing you to those, yet you seem to just want to dismiss them the same ways a Creationist wishes to dismiss those researchers who are qualified to understand the data they are looking at. Calling it "deepity", or preferring trite dictionary definitions over philosophical considerations of complex topics, is pretty much what fundamentalist theists do, ignoring the evidence when it challenges their entrenched beliefs. Atheists are not immune to this either.

 

[Sheldon]

For an example of atheistic scientism, look no further than Alex Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to Reality

I haven't read his book so I don't know

That's a rare gift, sizing up books by the cover alone.

Of course this can't be one of the "many many examples of scientism on here" obviously. Those are coming no doubt, so far though the only examples seem to be a book, you haven't read, and a post that wasn't scientism, and was posted after the claims were made.

 

[Windwalker]

Nope....I....have.....no...idea... of ....what....a....deity.....IS.

Yes, you most certainly do. Right here:

Would be possible to ask you to quote a few examples of what you are labelling "absurd and arrogant thinking" on here?

Only believing the entire universe, and every living thing was all created solely as a vehicle for humans to achieve an eternity of bliss after they die, had always struck me as absurd, and more than a little arrogant. Especially when you consider the fact humans only evolved about 200k years ago.

You just expressed what your idea of God is, right there. Furthermore, you openly admitted with you own words, including the full quote, not chopping it off like you just did:

I don't have any idea of "what any deity is", because I'm an atheist see. That concept of a deity came form theists I have encountered.

You have an idea, a concept of what God is, that you picked up from theists you've encountered. You used that concept in expressing how you find that concept to be absurd. Your mind is not a blank, a vacuum of lack of awareness, on the subject. You clearly have an idea, a concept you were referring to, regardless if it came from others or not. It's what you are thinking of in refuting it.

That is my point. You have a concept of God that you are thinking of in denying it. You may not have come up with it on your own, but that is irrelevant. It's what is in your mind when you think it's absurd. You have some idea of God that came from others, and it's that concept you are thinking of in denying it. Your atheism is based upon that concept.

 

[Sheldon]

if it's just one person claiming something, consider it but take it with a good dose of skeptical reservations. If you have scores of people all claiming similar things, then take better notice.

That's just an irrational bare appeal to numbers, an argumentum ad populum fallacy, which has been explained now enough times surely? A claim or belief is not remotely validated because of the number of people who hold it. A belief held by one person is rationally no less likely to be valid than a belief held by billions.

Simple answer. You, or countless atheists, ask for scientific evidence when someone claims a belief in God. That's why.

Not sure why this claim keeps being falsely assigned to me, but I have literally never made that claim?

So if love is not solely an imagined idea, why do you assume God is?

I don't assume it of course, I just withhold belief as no one ever seems able to demonstrate anything beyond bare subjective opinion to support the idea.

A unicorn isn't considered as a horse with a horn?

You said just, and no clearly a horse is objectively real, you could stick a horn on a horse, it would not be a unicorn.

You didn't follow my analogy? A horse is supposedly an animal. It has form. It has a body. It has mass - if it ostensibly exists. Therefore, science should be able to find evidence of it, just as it can for all other animals.

You think science has no evidence for horses?

So when you say we should be able to expect evidence of God, if it really existed, you must be imagining it like a unicorn, something that has mass and form. A 'critter' of sorts.

Where did I say that? A request someone demonstrate sufficient objective evidence for a claim need have no expectations.

expecting some form of scientific verification to satisfy your "skepticism".

Again you are assigning this to me, but I have never made any such demand?

What sort of "evidence" would you expect,

Why would you think I have expectations here? This is not a belief i hold, others are making claims, I ask them what objective evidence can they demonstrated for the claim.

It must be a creature of some sort,

Must it, well it's your belief, so I will wait for you to demonstrate what evidence you think you have.

in order for science to have anything whatsoever to say about it. Right?

Again it is theists who obsessed with science, and you demonstrate this again here, I have not mentioned scientific evidence for any deity.

So you think love is just an emotion?

I didn't say that, so what do you think?

I don't know any relationship that can survive based on emotions. They come and go. But love sustains, because it is an attitude, a mindset, an intention, a way of life. "I used to love you, but I don't anymore", is not really love. It's something teenagers call love.

As I said love is a descriptor for a range of complex emotions. You seem to have spun that into a number of straw man claims I haven't made.

And what sort of evidence convinces you of love?

That would depend what you mean by love, it's facile to imagine there is a simple answer for such a complex range of emotions that can exist under the umbrella of the term love.

Seeing actions consistent with it?

Well again this is a little vague, but it would represent objective evidence, whether it would be sufficient needs some specific context.

when you see someone's life transformed through faith in God, isn't that evidence of something substantive too?

Not necessarily, though first I'd have to see what you're claiming of course, I mean people change their lives substantially all the time through sheer will, why would that ever need anything more? However the bare claim alone would not be sufficient for me to believe it.

Isn't personal transformation, evidence of the validity of that belief for them?

What kind of transformation, and how is it objective evidence exactly?

Please try not to be so literal. You know what I mean. I clearly mean heart as a metaphor for something sensed or intuited, versus reasoned and rationalized by the thinking mind.

I know that, it is a meaningless metaphor, the heart doesn't reason, nor intuit, nor does it sense. If you wanted to suggest I use intuition over logic then say that, but you'd need to offer something bare assertion that intuition is a valuable or even extant method of discerning anything.

You can't be that naive not to have heard the heart used to mean that before.

I just don't care for meaningless metaphors in the context of debate. "Open your heart" "use your heart" "listen to your heart" they're pretty meaningless. .

Are you just trying to dodge the point here?

Which is?

It's the atheists in question who continually ask the theist when they say they believe in God, "where's your evidence!".

Well what on earth would you expect an atheist to ask?

 

[Sheldon]

Nope....I....have.....no...idea... of ....what....a....deity.....IS.

Yes, you most certainly do. Right here:

That was clearly not mine, as I believe I already explained.

You just expressed what your idea of God is, right there.

Again it was not mine.

​

You have an idea, a concept of what God is, that you picked up from theists you've encountered.

So it's their concept or idea clearly, and not mine. How hard is that to grasp?

You used that concept in expressing how you find that concept to be absurd. Your mind is not a blank, a vacuum of lack of awareness, on the subject.

I repeated one concept I've seen theists use, it's not a my concept. I'm an atheist.

You clearly have an idea, a concept you were referring to, regardless if it came from others or not. It's what you are thinking of in refuting it.

I repeated the concept it is not mine, I have no concept of any deity, as I don't believe in any deity or deities, though i appreciate this a hard thing for you to grasp.

That is my point. You have a concept of God that you are thinking of in denying it. You may not have come up with it on your own, but that is irrelevant.

Irrelevant to what? Theists have concepts of deities, atheists can remember those concepts, and challenge them, as I did. It's not my concept, nor do I have a concept of any deity.

Your atheism is based upon that concept.

No, my atheism would precede any concept theists have offered, obviously, as I was born without any belief in or knowledge of any concept of any deity. A lot of theists struggle to see this, but I can only explain my own rationale. Your ideas about atheists might apply to some you have encountered, but beyond a lack of theistic belief, atheists might be differ drastically in almost every other respect. When you say atheists, you're really describing an homogenous group. They may have just one thing in common.

 

[Secret Chief]

Of course this can't be one of the "many many examples of scientism on here" obviously. Those are coming no doubt, so far though....

It seems to me that your general posting consistently provides examples. Do you not consider this to be a fair representation? Please bear in mind I do not consider the term pejorative (as I said earlier) and don't really feel I have a "dog in this fight."

 

[Windwalker]

That was clearly not mine, as I believe I already explained.



Again it was not mine.

​

So it's their concept or idea clearly, and not mine. How hard is that to grasp?



I repeated one concept I've seen theists use, it's not a my concept. I'm an atheist.



I repeated the concept it is not mine, I have no concept of any deity, as I don't believe in any deity or deities, though i appreciate this a hard thing for you to grasp.



Irrelevant to what? Theists have concepts of deities, atheists can remember those concepts, and challenge them, as I did. It's not my concept, nor do I have a concept of any deity.



No, my atheism would precede any concept theists have offered, obviously, as I was born without any belief in or knowledge of any concept of any deity. A lot of theists struggle to see this, but I can only explain my own rationale. Your ideas about atheists might apply to some you have encountered, but beyond a lack of theistic belief, atheists might be differ drastically in almost every other respect. When you say atheists, you're really describing an homogenous group. They may have just one thing in common.

 

[wandering peacefully]

Instead of a face palm, why not explain how "the heart" can in anyway be an explanation of reality when it comes to existence of anything.

 

[Windwalker]

Instead of a face palm, why not explain how "the heart" can in anyway be an explanation of reality when it comes to existence of anything.

I facepalmed the inexplicable degree of denial of the obvious fact that the poster actually has an idea of God in his mind as he talks about it. He talked about how he viewed God. Something was in his head in order for words to come out. Common sense sometimes just doesn't seem prevail, so what else can one do but facepalm?

As far as the heart goes, I don't need to explain to you I'm not talking the literal organ here, as I seem to have to do inexplicably for others. I think you naturally understand it as a metaphor in the context I am using it. How does the heart have anything to do with an "explanation" of reality? I never said that. Explanations are cognitive in nature. But the heart can know, what the mind cannot reason. For sure. Don't you just know something in your heart to be true, even though you can't explain it to yourself? Some can't. But those who learn to be attune to their other senses, like intuitions and 'gut feelings' can and do. In fact, the greatest minds are led by that, which inspires them to search with the mind to attempt to understand what they feel and sense to be true.

Here's a fantastic quote that explains just that:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

- Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies​

That's "the heart" knowing something the mind, which is dull by comparison, can only begin to hope to understand. The heart, that feeling, is what leads the mind. As Einstein said, "It is the source of all true art and science".

So much for scientism!!

 

[RestlessSoul]

I just don't care for meaningless metaphors in the context of debate. "Open your heart" "use your heart" "listen to your heart" they're pretty meaningless. .

No, they're not meaningless. Not at all.

But before you can listen to your heart, you need to silence the noises in your head. Prayer and meditation can help you do that it really isn't hard.

 

[lukethethird]

Born with the gift of just knowing what exists out there, believers are nothing less than amazing.

 

[oldbadger]

At this point you could just substitute the word "science" (as you are interpreting it) with "God", and it'd mean the same thing: the singular source of all human knowledge.

No..... not at all.
'God' is our superstition.
'Science' is what we know and can do.

History becomes "science". Maths and languages become "science". Medicine, sociology, art, politics and even recreation become "science".

Not quite, no.
It's a mix up that you've stirred up.

C'mon, man, that's just stupid.

So leave it. Just follow what makes sense to you, and Good Luck with that.

 

[Windwalker]

No, they're not meaningless. Not at all.

But before you can listen to your heart, you need to silence the noises in your head. Prayer and meditation can help you do that it really isn't hard.

Thank you. Yes. I mentioned to another poster last night that some don't know how to listen to the heart. It is something that may seem entirely foreign to them, because they are so wrapped up in their heads, trying to 'idea' their way through life. That certainly is something that can happen to anyone. We can get ensnared in 'thought world' as I like to call it. I certainly struggle with that myself!

We have to cultivate being present in the world, "listening to", rather than "thinking about". We have to get out of our heads. That is exactly as you say, something that meditation exposes us to. It's quite literally miraculous the difference in perceptual awareness that occurs when we aren't constantly chattering about in our heads all day.

All of that actually transfers into stress in the body. We don't know how to relax. And so we compensate through things like escaping into drugs and alcohol, distractions like constant entertainment, reaming people out on Internet forums , and such. We can't sit quietly with ourselves.

But once we experience that letting go, suddenly what was there the whole time appears, 'magically' before our eyes! That bird chirping in the tree. The person with their child down the street. The sky above, the air in our lungs. We notice, fully.

The more we practice that, the more we learn how to hear with the heart, 'seeing as' rather than 'thinking about'. We have to cultivate that, particularly so due to the constant stresses of the modern world. That's why we long to 'get away'. We are detached from our own souls, from connection with the world, with others, and mostly, with ourselves.

And if all of what I just said sounds like nonsense to someone, all the more reason for them to take notice of that. What I just described is being human. We are more than just brains and thoughts and ideas, "thinking about", rather than "being as".

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I was just reading some of the more recent additional information on wiki about "scientism", and could not help but notice the striking resemblance between many of the 'atheists' that participate on this site, and the characterizations being offered on wiki regarding "scientism". And yet whenever I've tried to point out these same characterizations to those atheists on this site who routinely express these exact same characteristics, they deny that they or anyone they know show any resemblance to them. Somehow, they are unable to see themselves as such even as they actively express themselves as such.

It's quite puzzling, and it gives me the impression of there being some sort of cult-like phenomena involved.

Let me post some of the characteristics of "scientism" from wiki and lets see if any of you self-proclaimed atheists, here, can see yourself in any of them ...

"In the philosophy of science, the term scientism frequently implies a critique of the more extreme expressions of logical positivism[2][3] and has been used by social scientists such as Friedrich Hayek,[4] philosophers of science such as Karl Popper,[5] and philosophers such as Mary Midgley,[6] the later Hilary Putnam,[6][7] and Tzvetan Todorov[8] to describe (for example) the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methodology and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measured or confirmatory.[9]"

"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") 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;"

"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 ... it didn't count."[32]"

"Intellectual historian T.J. Jackson Lears argued 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."
​

I have read many of the self-proclaimed atheists on this site paraphrasing many of these same ideals, often, and repeatedly.

"God is not real unless and until God can be proven real by the objective methodology of science".

A quote that I think would be helpful in this thread:

"What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?"
- Dr. Steven Novella

... so when I hear people complaining about "scientism" or over-reliance on science to test empirical claims, I immediately suspect that what they're actually complaining about is rigor, and that their complaint is motivated by sour grapes because their own core beliefs don't hold up to rigorous scrutiny.

This is just a starting hypothesis, not a conclusion, but it's what frames how I look at people's responses in threads like this.

 

[PureX]

A quote that I think would be helpful in this thread:

"What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?"
- Dr. Steven Novella

... so when I hear people complaining about "scientism" or over-reliance on science to test empirical claims, I immediately suspect that what they're actually complaining about is rigor, and that their complaint is motivated by sour grapes because their own core beliefs don't hold up to rigorous scrutiny.

This is just a starting hypothesis, not a conclusion, but it's what frames how I look at people's responses in threads like this.

The problem is not science. Science is not 'scientism'. Note that in the definition above the quot states that science is "simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results." And no one I know has any problem with that. The problem begins when people conflate their concept of science with philosophical materialism, resulting in a concept of existence that is purely physical, and thereby elevating science to being the only possible valid methodology of determining reality and truth. The problem being that it is not, and should not ever by saddled with that distinction. Especially to the exclusion of the various other human endeavors that are more germane to that quest.