"Scientism" on Wikipedia ...

[lukethethird]

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.

It's the pot calling the kettle black. Refusing to explain what they claim to know in falsifiable terms after almost the better part of a century since Karl Popper introduced the term falsifiability to discern knowledge from pseudo claims. Believers are accusing atheists of what they themselves are doing.

 

[lukethethird]

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.

Define God in falsifiable terms and the problem goes away.

 

[PureX]

Define God in falsifiable terms and the problem goes away.

Stop throwing "falsifiable" around like it's a 500 lb. manhole cover. Very few things in our experience of reality are "falsifiable". And even those that you think are, are only relatively so. Meaning that they are only true or false relative to the context/criteria being imposed.

 

[lukethethird]

Stop throwing "falsifiable" around like it's a 500 lb. manhole cover. Very few things in our experience of reality are "falsifiable". And even those that you think are, are only relatively so. Meaning that they are only true or false relative to the context/criteria being imposed.

Falsifiability goes a long way, for example; your accusations in the OP were presented in falsifiable terms and so far demonstrated to be false because you have yet to come up with an example of an atheist on this forum doing what you claimed they were doing, let alone many examples. It's believers that commit scientism when couching their claims in unfalsifiable terms, calling the kettle black in the process.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

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.

Considering your OP where you complained about this at length, I have the feeling that you know at least one person who has a problem with this.

The problem begins when people conflate their concept of science with philosophical materialism, resulting in a concept of existence that is purely physical,

By "people," I assume you mean the straw men you've created.

and thereby elevating science to being the only possible valid methodology of determining reality and truth.

Not truth in general, but truth regarding empirical things, yes.

Remember that "science" doesn't just mean stuff done in a lab while wearing a white coat. As Dr. Novella touched on in his quote, science is just considering observations in a systematic, consistent, and thorough way.

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.

Well no, they're not.

There are some things beyond the scope of science - e.g. aesthetics and value judgements - but for things within the scope of science, science is the best path to knowledge.

... and this is because - as Dr. Novella highlighted - acquiring knowledge about empirical things in a rigorous way is what science is. If you're examining the empirical by any method that doesn't qualify as "science," it's only because that method lacks the rigor of science.

 

[Windwalker]

Define God in falsifiable terms and the problem goes away.

Define God in scientific terms, and God goes away. It's not God anymore. God becomes an object. God is not an object.

 

[Windwalker]

It's believers that commit scientism when couching their claims in unfalsifiable terms, calling the kettle black in the process.

Correct. It's true believers that treat science like it were the Bible. It's just "believerism" for atheists, instead of theists.

 

[Windwalker]

There are some things beyond the scope of science - e.g. aesthetics and value judgements - but for things within the scope of science, science is the best path to knowledge.

I 100% agree. This is not scientism. In similar vein, since science is not the right tool for art, or values, it is also not the right tool to investigate questions of God.

So why is it then, so many atheists on these sites, and RF is hardly any exception to the rule, do you constantly hear "Where's your evidence", when someone is saying they believe in God. Aren't they trying to use science for something it is unqualified for, like judge art?

Apparently they believe science is the measure of all truth, and hence why there are threads like this discussing how science is treated as a belief system for many, or 'scientism". It's the treating of science as if it were Holy Mother Church, or the Bible or something, making grand pronouncement with the final voice of authority on all matters pertaining to truth. That is in fact, how these people are treating it. "Where's your evidence", is not a valid scientific question to ask regarding the Divine, any more than it is for a work of art.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I 100% agree. This is not scientism. In similar vein, since science is not the right tool for art, or values, it is also not the right tool to investigate questions of God.

So you don't think God exists in any form that can be examined empirically?

Do you consider yourself an atheist?

So why is it then, so many atheists on these sites, and RF is hardly any exception to the rule, to you constantly here "Where's your evidence", when someone is saying they believe in God. Aren't they trying to use science for something it is unqualified for, like judge art?

No; they're taking theistic claims at face value.

Even if you think that God only exists as a metaphor or whatnot, you can still recognize that the vast majority of theists preach the existence of gods that actually do stuff in the physical world.

A god that miraculously heals someone's cancer, or comes to Earth in human form to preach, or makes the rains come, or created the universe, etc., etc. is an empirically testable god.

You may not believe in such a god, but your personal beliefs are not the be-all and end-all of theism.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Define God in scientific terms, and God goes away. It's not God anymore. God becomes an object. God is not an object.

Ironically, you just used God as an object. Twice.

(1: "Define God in scientific terms"; 2: "It's not God anymore.")

 

[lukethethird]

So you don't think God exists in any form that can be examined empirically?

Do you consider yourself an atheist?


No; they're taking theistic claims at face value.

Even if you think that God only exists as a metaphor or whatnot, you can still recognize that the vast majority of theists preach the existence of gods that actually do stuff in the physical world.

A god that miraculously heals someone's cancer, or comes to Earth in human form to preach, or makes the rains come, or created the universe, etc., etc. is an empirically testable god.

You may not believe in such a god, but your personal beliefs are not the be-all and end-all of theism.

Yes, if a believer wants to believe, I say knock yourself out, but when a believer states what God does in the physical world they enter into the realm of scientific inquiry, much to their chagrin.
,

 

[Windwalker]

So you don't think God exists in any form that can be examined empirically?

Do you consider yourself an atheist?

Great question. If I considered God as an object that has form, like an "entity" or a person like a man of something, then I am an atheist. I do not believe that either. That is why I did identify as an atheist for over 10 years, because that is how God was presented to me from religion. I don't believe in that idea of God, literally speaking.

However, I understand God as "formless", or "Spirit" to give some word to what is beyond giving words to. If God is formless, then science is unable to analyze it. It's like trying to examine the metric weight of "love", or "hope", or 'value". Me personally, I like to say God is an atmosphere in which we live and move and have our being. If you want to measure God, then measure everything that exists.

No; they're taking theistic claims at face value.

I think you mean to say is they're taking metaphors literally. Yes, that is the problem. It's like another poster who heard me talk about listening with the heart, and they began arguing how the heart pumps blood as doesn't have ears, or something ridiculous like that. Maybe they truly have never heard that expression before, or literalism has crippled their abilities to understand metaphors in language. Not sure which.

Even if you think that God only exists as a metaphor or whatnot, you can still recognize that the vast majority of theists preach the existence of gods that actually do stuff in the physical world.

To be clear, I am not saying God only exists as a metaphor. Not at all. But the word God, is a metaphor to point to something actual. It's a finger pointing at the moon. Not the moon itself. It's like saying the word "love". You don't find an object in nature called love that grows on a certain tree. It's a metaphor of language to point to a lived reality, that really exists, but without physical form.

Do the vast majority of theists preach the existence of God in the physical world, as if it were a being, like a yeti, or some other critter of the forest? The only theists I know who image God has a physical body is the Mormons. But they hardly qualify as the vast majority of theists.

Most theists I know see God as Spirit. But some may struggle with something so abstract as that, and literalize God, or they 'anthropomorphize' God in order for their minds to think about God. But of course, to take that literally presents logical contradictions. Contradicts which the atheists seize upon, as if that somehow debunks God. It's only debunking the literalization of God, and nothing more than that.

A god that miraculously heals someone's cancer, or comes to Earth in human form to preach, or makes the rains come, or created the universe, etc., etc. is an empirically testable god.

Or it's a prescientific way to talk about the nature of reality as a language system, not meant to be a scientific understanding or way of looking at the world. A great many people have a hard time accepting science, because they are stuck yet literalizing these metaphors. And atheists themselves are stuck literalizing them themselves. Instead of being believed as literally true, they are viewed as literally false.

I speak a lot about how that is just flipsides of the same coin of literalism. Neither truly understanding the nature of symbolic reality yet. All these things are all literally true, or literally false. Not fingers pointing to the moon, but actually the moon itself.

You may not believe in such a god, but your personal beliefs are not the be-all and end-all of theism.

Of course not. There are many perspectives of the Divine. The best researchers I've come across recognize these in terms of a progression of stages from early archaic and magic systems of perception and thought, to mythic, to rational, to pluralistic, to integral, and potentially beyond. Most literalists are at the mythic-literal stages. Here's one brief look at that regarding stages of Faith. It's very helpful information to understand it's not all just one thing. It's best not to treat it as such:

The Stages of Faith According to James W. Fowler | Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.

 

[lukethethird]

Speaking of metaphors, who is to discern what comes from the heart verses what is pulled out of ones arse?

 

[Windwalker]

Ironically, you just used God as an object. Twice.

(1: "Define God in scientific terms"; 2: "It's not God anymore.")

In order to speak of "That", I have to use words which make it an object by default. Our language system is dualistic in nature, dividing things into this versus that terms. That's why even though I use the word "God", it is not literally viewed as an object outside of myself.

The best way to speak of it, is without words at all. But that's hard to do on an internet forum. That's why they speak of the Divine as "ineffable", or incapable of being expressed in words. It includes All That Is, which includes me as the subject. God is the Subject of Reality, is not a bad way to try to use words. But good luck wrapping the logical mind around that, like trying to imagine Infinity. God is something you breathe, far more than think about.

 

[Windwalker]

Speaking of metaphors, who is to discern what comes from the heart verses what is pulled out of ones arse?

Someone who has developed their heart and aren't confused teenagers anymore.

 

[lukethethird]

Yes, because teenagers that otherwise hone their critical thinking skills are confused, right.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

a concept of existence that is purely physical, and thereby elevating science to being the only possible valid methodology of determining reality and truth.

What we are saying is that empiricism - experience, such as observing or tasting - is the only reliable method available for determining what is true about the world. The word "science" connotes test tubes and professional journals. Most of what I know about how the world works comes from experiencing it, drawing inductions from that experience, and testing them to see if they accurately predict outcomes.

That is empiricism. You call it science so that you can demean empiricists, implying that they go to physics books for all information, when almost none that they use comes from such sources. This is why I have begun referring to empiricism as formal and informal science, the former being the white coat in a lab type of empiricism, and the latter referring to the activities of daily life that reveal truth about life in exactly that same way, just not wearing a white coat or being at a telescope.

So, you've begun with a straw man. Empiricism, not science, is the only known method for determining what is true about the world, and you have no rebuttal to that, just contradiction without a sound argument. You have claims that there are other methods to determining truth, but never have anything to show from these methods that deserves to be called more than unsupported opinion, much less truth.

And then there is the claim that empiricists place too much reliance on evidence, which is the theists way of saying that strict empiricists are missing out on something, but never describe what that is.

So no, you have made no argument that there is any other method of determining truth than empiricism, nor that using other methods produces a benefit or that avoiding them comes with a cost. So, this claim is really nothing more than theists objecting to their principle method for deciding about gods, unjustified belief, being rejected by empiricists as a means path to knowledge, and condemning them for it without any argument or evidence to support your position that strict empiricism is a defective epistemology.

Stop throwing "falsifiable" around like it's a 500 lb. manhole cover. Very few things in our experience of reality are "falsifiable". And even those that you think are, are only relatively so. Meaning that they are only true or false relative to the context/criteria being imposed.

It seems that you don't understand the term. Falsifiable doesn't refer to the truth or falsity of a statement, nor to demonstrating the truth or falsity of a statement. Some falsifiable statement are correct, some incorrect (the ones that have been falsified), and some as yet undetermined. These are also called scientific statements. Unfalsifiable statements are never true or false, just undecidable (not even wrong) and thus all permanently undetermined and undeterminable, and are not scientific.

And you're incorrect about very few ideas in our world being falsifiable. Suppose I told you that I was having guests over for dinner tonight. If that is untrue, can it be shown to be in principle? Is there a method for disproving that if it is incorrect? Of course. And if it is, the claim falsified. And no Bunsen burners or microscopes needed. Just the bare senses.

science is not the right tool for art, or values, it is also not the right tool to investigate questions of God.

I don't need a special tool to investigate art or values beyond my own faculties and experience. I know what I find artistically appealing empirically. I see a few drawings or hear a few songs, and know directly whether they are experienced as art or something less, and whether I enjoy it or not. It is on this basis that I expect to like classic rock songs, but not rap, and choose my radio station accordingly.

I've experienced them before, and noted my aesthetic responses then - when I felt pleasure listening and when I did not. Empiricism. I don't know what calculations are going on out of view in my neural circuits - how my brain decides what is pretty or funny or whatever - but that is the tool I am using, and it is reliable. I present potential art to the senses and note whether the experience is more euphoric or dysphoric, and make future decision based on that empiric knowledge.

Now try to fit a deity into that. What tool do you have to determine if there is a god, and if so, what that god like? None. Theists are just guessing. I'm sure that you don't like reading that, but can you rebut it with more than the wave of a hand or the repetition of points already rebutted but then not defended, just repeated? I don't think so.

So why is it then, so many atheists on these sites, and RF is hardly any exception to the rule, do you constantly hear "Where's your evidence", when someone is saying they believe in God. Aren't they trying to use science for something it is unqualified for, like judge art?

There you go equating seeking evidence with science. It's empiricism. And yes, that is the only method I would use to judge anything, including god claims. If you present no compelling evidence, I note that and reject your claim. When you tell me that you have other means of determining truth, but can't demonstrate those methods or that truth, I reject the claim EMPIRICALLY, which is what is being called scientism in this thread, and criticized as being small-mined without a speck of evidence or argument to support the idea that life should be approached any other way.

 

[Windwalker]

Yes, because teenagers that otherwise hone their critical thinking skills are confused, right.

Teenagers with honed critical thinking skills? Very interesting. You believe in unicorns and mermaids too, I suppose?

 

[Windwalker]

I don't need a special tool to investigate art or values beyond my own faculties and experience. I know what I find artistically appealing empirically. I see a few drawings or hear a few songs, and know directly whether they are experienced as art or something less, and whether I enjoy it or not. It is on this basis that I expect to like classic rock songs, but not rap, and choose my radio station accordingly.

I've experienced them before, and noted my aesthetic responses then - when I felt pleasure listening and when I did not. Empiricism. I don't know what calculations are going on out of view in my neural circuits - how my brain decides what is pretty or funny or whatever - but that is the tool I am using, and it is reliable. I present potential art to the senses and note whether the experience is more euphoric or dysphoric, and make future decision based on that empiric knowledge.

Excellent. I find no fault in any of this. Why is it then when a theist claims to experience God, the "where's your evidence" atheist responders disregard experience as "unevidenced"? You seem to have no problem accepting experience is valid evidence for art and music. Do you accept it for belief in God as well, when that is what someone tells you why they believe God exists? If not, why not? What's different?

Now try to fit a deity into that. What tool do you have to determine if there is a god, and if so, what that god like? None. Theists are just guessing.

I'm sorry, what? You just said experience is evidence. Experience is not guessing. It's experience. Experience is the evidence for why a lot of people, certain for me myself, say God exists. I experience the Divine. It's not guessing. It's not an idea. It's not wishful thinking. It's experience.

I'm sure that you don't like reading that, but can you rebut it with more than the wave of a hand or the repetition of points already rebutted but then not defended, just repeated? I don't think so.

I just did rebut it, with the same argument you used to explain how you evaluate the validity of art. It's a bit disingenuous to assume everyone who says they believe God exists, is relying solely on ideas of the mind. My experience occurred before my exposure to religion. And my interest in religion occured because I had hope I could maybe learn more about it. (that's a long story). I've doubted all ideas about God, but never doubted my own experience. Nor do I now. Why should I?

There you go equating seeking evidence with science. It's empiricism.

The folks who are saying "where's your evidence" are disregarding experience. Therefore, they are not following empiricism according to your explanation of it. They are expecting a weight or measurement, a snippet of hair, or a footprint in the fossil record or something. That's scientism, disregarding evidence that isn't 'scientific' enough for them. It's just nothing more noble than cynicism.

And yes, that is the only method I would use to judge anything, including god claims. If you present no compelling evidence, I note that and reject your claim.

Do you disregard personal experience as evidence? If so, why?

When you tell me that you have other means of determining truth, but can't demonstrate those methods or that truth, I reject the claim EMPIRICALLY, which is what is being called scientism in this thread, and criticized as being small-mined without a speck of evidence or argument to support the idea that life should be approached any other way.

I believe because of experience. Is that why you don't believe? Because of a lack of experience?

 

[Sheldon]

It seems to me that your general posting consistently provides examples. Do you not consider this to be a fair representation?

I consider that to be a bare claim, since that is all you have offered.

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."

Duly noted....