Who here believes in "Scientism"?

[Dan From Smithville]

Well, you asked for a more reasoned challange.
Now remember I am not a metaphyiscal supernaturalist and all the rest. For the purpose of this, I am a skeptic.

The bold one is all I need, because in effect the question is if all learning about the world can be done objectively. That is where it ends in practice for actual scientism.
Now in my culture there are 7 variants of science and the hard one from your culture is not the only one.
In short there are your exchanges as you are engaged in them and then there are if science needs to be only about that which can be tested objectively, observed objectively and reasoned about objectively.
Or if you can include a limited version of subjectivity.

In science we have a means to discover facts about the world and to share those facts with others. Others can follow the same specific method and should see similar results in a comparable range. It isn't going to be perfect, because you cannot always account for every confounding variable or predict what slightly altered conditions will produce, but that scientists account for this as a group is also evidence of group recognition of sources of bias.

That may approximate objectivity as well as can be done. Subjectivity and bias is always going to be there.

I'm still trying to figure out where you are going with this, but it sounds interesting.

 

[Viker]

I accept the possibility that Bigfoot exists. Accepting that possibility does not mean that I believe in Bigfoot.

Seems like I just debunked the claim that accepting something makes you a believer.

I've tried to jackhammer this in so many times. That accepting isn't necessarily believing. One needs no verifiable facts to believe something. One can accept possibilities without believing their likelihoods to be true.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

No, if science can only be done objectively. And thus is in effect the only form of knowledge we have.
We have at least one poster with that version of science and who is not a believer in the supernatural.

I see. I think.

The way scientism is being used on this thread goes beyond the idea of it as the best means to gain objective knowledge. The scientismist that is regularly described on these thread as a derogatory epithet is one that doesn't need to understand science, but follows it as a belief system rejecting other belief systems.

If someone has come to the view that science is the best means to learn about the world, I hardly see that as equivalent to the above.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Based on what I have observed, I think scientism was invented by belief-based thinkers as a straw man to beat on for the successes that have resulted from the knowledge acquired through science and the successful application of that knowledge through technology.

Accepting and believing are not synonymous terms outside of scientism.

Accepting an explanation as the best available based on the evidence is not the same as believing without evidence or reason.

Scientismists may claim the terms are synonyms, but they are wrong. They make a lot of fantastical, baseless, almost mystical nonsense claims to spearhead their denial that science has any value.

Well, scientism comes in 2 versions.
The one used by the believers to actack naturalism in the end. And another from social and human science.
You just have to for the second one answer, if science as natural science is the only form of knowledge there is.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I see. I think.

The way scientism is being used on this thread goes beyond the idea of it as the best means to gain objective knowledge. The scientismist that is regularly described on these thread as a derogatory epithet is one that doesn't need to understand science, but follows it as a belief system rejecting other belief systems.

If someone has come to the view that science is the best means to learn about the world, I hardly see that as equivalent to the above.

Yeah, I get that.
But there are 2 versions of scientism. And the OP was about the social and human science version for scientism and not the one you talk about.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I've tried to jackhammer this in so many times. That accepting isn't necessarily believing. One needs no verifiable facts to believe something. One can accept possibilities without believing their likelihoods to be true.

I agree.

There are many things that I don't believe in, but accept as possible. It may be that one day an alien species may land in our midst, but I don't believe that the denizens of lonely roads and trailer parks are regularly visited, kidnapped and violated by scads of low key alien invaders.

I think that synonymizing accept and believe is another means to muddy the waters and claim scientism or belief where it isn't.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yeah, I get that.
But there are 2 versions of scientism. And the OP was about the social and human science version for scientism and not the one you talk about.

It is the version I am responding to, since it is the dominant version being bandied about. And it is getting deeper all the time.

I have confidence in what is learned using the methods of science, but I do not think it is the only means to learn.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I've tried to jackhammer this in so many times. That accepting isn't necessarily believing. One needs no verifiable facts to believe something. One can accept possibilities without believing their likelihoods to be true.

I like that phrase jackhammer. It is so fitting to the approach that one has to take in order to express themselves amid all this negative effort.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Bad models lead to bad results, but some people seem to think their bad models are the bestest models every devised. The goodest kind. Yet, can't support those models with more than claims they have supported them or that their claims are invisible. That they can't be seen is evidence of how poor the fruit is of their detractors. You can't see their clothes because you just aren't good enough.

 

[Viker]

I like that phrase jackhammer. It is so fitting to the approach that one has to take in order to express themselves amid all this negative effort.

I've got a whole lot of phrases I keep in a pocketbook, right next to my bag of cats and close to the duct tape (my fix all for every occasion). Duct tape and spit. That's how I keep it all together.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It is the version I am responding to, since it is the dominant version being bandied about. And it is getting deeper all the time.

I have confidence in what is learned using the methods of science, but I do not think it is the only means to learn.

Yes, I know.
But if you follow some of the debates about in the end morality and/or metaphysics/ontology you can come across the in the wild version of scientism as the only/best form of knowledge is based on natural science qua it is objective.
That is the short dirty version of it.
So we have those that you engage with who don't understand natural science at all.
And then we have those, who think natural science can do more than it actually can. I engage those.

Now to be honest, both kinds are dangerous, but your kind as you are from the USA is more dangerous to you and your country.
But weird as it may sound, the other kind is more dangeruous to me and my country as it stands.
In effect we are both doing culturally what is most impartant to us individually.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

If my garden has become overrun with an insect pest, what is the best method for me to employ to find some positive resolution and save my crops?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes, I know.
But if you follow some of the debates about in the end morality and/or metaphysics/ontology you can come across the in the wild version of scientism as the only/best form of knowledge is based on natural science qua it is objective.
That is the short dirty version of it.
So we have those that you engage with who don't understand natural science at all.
And then we have those, who think natural science can do more than it actually can. I engage those.

Now to be honest, both kinds are dangerous, but your kind as you are from the USA is more dangerous to you and your country.
But weird as it may sound, the other kind is more dangeruous to me and my country as it stands.
In effect we are both doing culturally what is most impartant to us individually.

That is an interesting and useful perspective.

I think it relates to the idea of Dunning/Kruger here, coupled with the notion of some that individual freedom is a panacea.

Although, @It Aint Necessarily So has made some useful comments regarding alternative conclusions to simply laying it all at the feet of Dunning/Kruger.

Still we see a lot of people speaking as experts on subjects that they are clearly lost in.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If my garden has become overrun with an insect pest, what is the best method for me to employ to find some positive resolution and save my crops?

Well, the answer to that is in effect objective for what you want to achive, but subjective for what you chose to do.
Now we are playing the is-ought problem and natural science can only answer the first one.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

That is an interesting and useful perspective.

I think it relates to the idea of Dunning/Kruger here, coupled with the notion of some that individual freedom is a panacea.

Although, @It Aint Necessarily So has made some useful comments regarding alternative conclusions to simply laying it all at the feet of Dunning/Kruger.

Still we see a lot of people speaking as experts on subjects that they are clearly lost in.

Yeah, it is a bit more complex than just Dunning/Kruger.
But on a side note. Don't get me started on what freedom and an indivudal is.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Well, the answer to that is in effect objective for what you want to achive, but subjective for what you chose to do.
Now we are playing the is-ought problem and natural science can only answer the first one.

We could play good cop bad cop regarding consideration of gardening to be natural by extension or an unnatural phenomenon, but I don't think that would save my crops.

I could consider that I have an imperfect perception of the reality that is my garden. I think I will still be hungry in the end though.

I could read up on current information about pests. Collect some specimens to see if they match that information. And then find the safest, most cost effective and efficacious means to treat for the pests and hope it works.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yeah, it is a bit more complex than just Dunning/Kruger.
But on a side note. Don't get me started on what freedom and an indivudal is.

Perhaps we can save that for another time. I have my own ideas on that as well.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

There's air, there's fuel and there's spark. Why won't this thing run? Sometimes there are variables that we don't recognize.

 

[cladking]

Bad models lead to bad results, but some people seem to think their bad models are the bestest models every devised. The goodest kind. Yet, can't support those models with more than claims they have supported them or that their claims are invisible. That they can't be seen is evidence of how poor the fruit is of their detractors. You can't see their clothes because you just aren't good enough.

The best way to test a model is in making prediction. I have made predictions that when they came true Peers asked for hypotheses as to their cause!!! But no one asked me how I could predict it.

On and on it goes but people who believe in science can't see it.

This cuts across every field of science because all homo omnisciencis possess a wide streak of mysticism. Believers in science are the most mystical of all.

 

[cladking]

One cannot rely on empiricism too much, but one can rely on it too little.

My public persona rejects mysticism in its entirety and is strictly intuitive and empirical.

But I certainly have some mystical traits and proclivities. I don't consider them relevant except in some interpersonal interactions. I suppose too there is some limited element of mysticism even in intuition.

Yes, knowledge follows from observation and successful induction, and only from these.

Induction is not a proper way for me to learn anything at all. As I've said before logic can not be expressed in modern language and I don't even believe in taxonomies. Any learning derived from induction is always suspect and must be confirmed through other means.

Are you turning to scientism now?

Deduction and theory. No beliefs.