Who here believes in "Scientism"?

[shunyadragon]

Then try to explain in your own words how social science does not meet the criteria of methodological naturalism.

Instead of posting links to articles that don’t directly address the question and that you seem to misunderstand, just write a few concise sentences that explain in your own words what you think.

If you can’t explain in a few sentences, then it means you don’t really understand what point you are trying to make.


That says nothing to support your claim.

Just posting an article that says nothing relevant without a single word of your own comment is not a discussion.

What in the above article supports your claim that social sciences do not meet the standards of methodological naturalism?

Use your words to explain it, as you don’t seem to understand the point you are trying to make.

Social sciences uses subjective methods to evaluate human nature such as personality and behavior, and social issues of society and render conclusions that do not meet the standards of falsification of hypotheses and theories. Examples of these are polls, surveys, interviews of subjects, and consensus conclusions based on the polls and surveys.

Please respond to the references which you are ignoring.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Empiricism is the word, not science. Science is just one its application, as when we are in a laboratory or an observatory.

We do the same things in daily life - make observations (experience), generate rules about how the world works (induction), then apply them to specific situations to effect desired outcomes, whether that be landing man on the moon or getting a good Italian meal. Experience has taught me that I can get a good veal scallopini on the corner of 4th St and Broad Ave, but if you get there after six, you'll need reservations, and don't go on Tuesday at all unless you want to find it closed (induction). Call that informal science. Or call it empiricism.

Whatever knowledge we have about any of those things you named, we gained it empirically (experientially). It's experience that offers us a chance to learn to live well. Experience tells us what we enjoy and what we dislike, and how to make one happen but not the other.

Experience teaches us whether we like Shakespeare or Tolstoy, and with that knowledge, we can seek more or less of either. Likewise with Mozart and Miles Davis.

If we have learned how to laugh when we feel like crying or to not laugh when we feel like laughing, we learned it empirically. And we learned why that important and when it's important empirically. We learned whatever we have learned through trial and error.

And yes, experience tells us who we are to the extent that that question can be answered. It tells us what we enjoy and what we do well.

And nothing else can add to that knowledge, including religions and holy books. They will offer answers, but those answers are not knowledge. Your Bible would say that we're here because God made us, and that we are formed in its image, but those words explain nothing, predict nothing, and can be used for nothing.

Contrast that with telling me that I'm made in my father's image. Assume that that's accurate. If he had trouble with alcohol, that's meaningful to me. That's information I can use to make my life better, to avoid the pitfall he didn't, and it's acquired empirically.

Empiricism is your own personal obsession, it seems, but the subject of this thread is neither empiricism nor is it science; it’s scientism.

But to address empiricism briefly, have you considered the limitations which a dogmatic attachment to empiricism as the only tool of value, places on scientific enquiry? Since entities are observable but terms, concepts, and explanations are not, it follows that strict empiricism precludes an ontology.

Science restricted to observing regularities in nature and making predictions based on those regularities, can tell us what happens, but using empiricism alone, it cannot attempt to tell us how or why things happen. Because how and why are concepts, and concepts, unlike entities, are unobservable.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Yes science does not falsify subjective claims.

That sea serpent origins theory would have been blown out of the water, had the valley not been a huge lake some 2 million years ago, huh?

By a million years ago, the lake had drained onto the Pacific Ocean.

That was close one!

I mean, you know, at least for folks who insist on interpreting non-western cultures in western terms.

Thank God (or whoever) for plate tectonics!

 

[Augustus]

Social sciences uses subjective methods to evaluate human nature such as personality and behavior, and social issues of society and render conclusions that do not meet the standards of falsification of hypotheses and theories. Examples of these are polls, surveys, interviews of subjects, and consensus conclusions based on the polls and surveys.

Bingo

That is discussing the degree to which social sciences can utilise the same methodologies as the natural sciences.

You are conflating "the methodologies of the natural sciences" with "methodological naturalism".

The article is not about whether or not the social science use MN (they do), but relates to a different philosophical question "The Unity of Science" i.e. the extent to which different sciences can be considered to form part of the same unified methodological and explanatory framework.

See for example:

The Unity of Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

You are also wrong to state methods that contain a degree of subjectivity "can't be falsified", for example "do tax cuts increase perceptions of well-being" would use a subjective survey and is certainly falsifiable.

Why are you so blindly hostile to the concept of scientism though, given the methodological problems and poor reliability of many social sciences are the most common thing beings criticised? (in serious and academic discussions that is, not the silly religious apologetics you are stuck on).

"Scientism" is this magic word that makes people endlessly argue against things they would otherwise completely agree with if they had been explained using different terminology.

Please respond to the references which you are ignoring.

I didn't ignore them, I said they did not support your claim. Your post above just demonstrated this.

No further questions, I rest my case

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

"Scientism" is this magic word that makes people endlessly argue against things they would otherwise completely agree with if they had been explained using different terminology.

I’d be happy if my fellow atheists would accept the right to Welcome the Stranger.

I don’t care what they call it.,

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You tend to make up your own definitions to suit your own "Scientism" agenda, Not cricket.


The meaning of word are recognized Oxford Dictionary or other accepted dictionary source and not objective observation and evidence of the objective physical meaning.

Yeah, meaning is subjective. Now stop taling about it, because it is all in the mind and the mind is the only subjective there is.

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.

www.oed.com

"...
scientificism, n.
Belief in or advocacy of science and the scientific method; spec. the theory or belief that all phenomena can be scientifically explained. Cf…"

Now here is the trick. I am the Oxford Dictory and I have made up this. You are so right!!!

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.

www.oed.com

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.

www.oed.com

So to perform (the method of getting to) that which is true, real or actual; or in reality.

Now combing that what the defintion of in effect scientism and you get the follwing.
The idea that all what is real, can be scientifically explained.

The problem being that neither true, real, actual or reality have objective referents, but that is properly beyound you to understand.

 

[Audie]

Empiricism is your own personal obsession, it seems, but the subject of this thread is neither empiricism nor is it science; it’s scientism.

But to address empiricism briefly, have you considered the limitations which a dogmatic attachment to empiricism as the only tool of value, places on scientific enquiry? Since entities are observable but terms, concepts, and explanations are not, it follows that strict empiricism precludes an ontology.

Science restricted to observing regularities in nature and making predictions based on those regularities, can tell us what happens, but using empiricism alone, it cannot attempt to tell us how or why things happen. Because how and why are concepts, and concepts, unlike entities, are unobservable.

Dogmatic attachment, restricted capacity to recognize
anything outside those limits, precluding ontology,
and the other vices you describe are characteristic of
religious thought, it being a mirror image of "scientism".

Religious thinking does of course claim to explain
all manner of things, with no capacity to actually do so.

If some scientismist claims empiricism could explain
everything he's probably being foolish, but none would
claim they already have the Answers to life's persistent
questions.

The above described theists are out there in their billions.
" Answers" in wholesale lots.
Empiricists at least ask for data.

If you could ID, say, one scientist similarly crippled with
self deception I'd say he has a problem

The number of actual victims of " scientism" is probably
fewer that active rabies cases.

The interst in this supposed phenom, with no actual cases identified, is rather odd.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Dogmatic attachment, restricted capacity to recognize
anything outside those limits, precluding ontology,
and the other vices you describe are characteristic of
religious thought, it being a mirror image of "scientism".

Religious thinking does of course claim to explain
all manner of things, with no capacity to actually do so.

If some scientismist claims empiricism could explain
everything he's probably being foolish, but none would
claim they already have the Answers to life's persistent
questions.

The above described theists are out there in their billions.
" Answers" in wholesale lots.
Empiricists at least ask for data.

If you could ID, say, one scientist similarly crippled with
self deception I'd say he has a problem.

Well, for once you make sense.
The problem is the believers, who believe they only have beliefs with evidence. They can be potentionally as dangerous as some theists.

 

[shunyadragon]

Empiricism is your own personal obsession, it seems, but the subject of this thread is neither empiricism nor is it science; it’s scientism.

But to address empiricism briefly, have you considered the limitations a dogmatic attachment to empiricism as the only tool of value places on scientific enquiry? Since entities are observable but terms, concepts, and explanations are not, it follows that strict empiricism precludes an ontology. Science would then be restricted to observing regularities in nature, and making predictions based on those regularities. It could tell us what happens, but empiricism alone cannot tell us how or why. Because how and why are concepts, and concepts, unlike entities, are unobservable.

This post reflects your extreme agenda against science based on an ancient religious agenda. This post like the pejorative acrid accusation of "Scientism" is personal and irrational.

My views on science and empiricism are not personal they are shared by 95%+ of all the scientists of the world, and every major academic university of the world.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

This post reflects your extreme agenda against science based on an ancient religious agenda.

My views on science and empiricism are shared by 95%+ of all the scientists of the world, and every major academic university of the world.

It wasn't adressed to you.

 

[shunyadragon]

It wasn't adressed to you.

Regardless, the post is an attack on ALL scientists and science, and I WILL respond to such personal attacks.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Regardless, the post is an attack on ALL scientists and science, and I WILL respond to such personal attacks.

Well, that is your subjective opinion.

 

[shunyadragon]

Bingo



You are also wrong to state methods that contain a degree of subjectivity "can't be falsified", for example "do tax cuts increase perceptions of well-being" would use a subjective survey and is certainly falsifiable.

No

Why are you so blindly hostile to the concept of scientism though, given the methodological problems and poor reliability of many social sciences are the most common thing beings criticised? (in serious and academic discussions that is, not the silly religious apologetics you are stuck on).

I am hostile to the accusation of Scientism, because it is a pejorative accusation with an agenda against science.

"Scientism" is this magic word that makes people endlessly argue against things they would otherwise completely agree with if they had been explained using different terminology.

No

I didn't ignore them, I said they did not support your claim. Your post above just demonstrated this.

You ignored them and did not respond.

No further questions, I rest my case

Go back to sleep.

 

[shunyadragon]

Well, that is your subjective opinion.

No, it is from the reference on "Scientism" I cited.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

@shunyadragon

"Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
empiricism
/ɛmˈpɪrɪsɪz(ə)m/
noun PHILOSOPHY
the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses. Stimulated by the rise of experimental science, it developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, expounded in particular by John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume."

The problem is that it is philosophy you are attacking and not science as such.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, it is from the reference on "Scientism" I cited.

Yeah and empiricism is philosophy according to the dictonary you demand I use.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

I am hostile to the accusation of Scientism, because it is a pejorative accusation with an agenda against science.


...

Those are feelings and not science. In fact it is all in your mind and not part of our physical existence. You are doing ontological idealism.

 

[PureX]

Yeah and empiricism is philosophy according to the dictonary you demand I use.

The scientism cultists think science is like God: omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. All good and true things come from science, and anything else is just the silly make-believe of weak and childish minds.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The scientism cultists think science is like God: omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. All good and true things come from science, and anything else is just the silly make-believe of weak and childish minds.

The problem I have is that their subjective opinions abot what correct is, is not really subjective.

 

[shunyadragon]

Yeah, meaning is subjective. Now stop taling about it, because it is all in the mind and the mind is the only subjective there is.

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.

www.oed.com

"...
scientificism, n.
Belief in or advocacy of science and the scientific method; spec. the theory or belief that all phenomena can be scientifically explained. Cf…"

By the way I like the word you made up neat!

Now here is the trick. I am the Oxford Dictory and I have made up this. You are so right!!!

You like to play tricks to justify your "Scientism" agenda

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.

www.oed.com

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.

www.oed.com

So to perform (the method of getting to) that which is true, real or actual; or in reality.

Careful, NOT which is true. It is that which can be verifiable.

Now combing that what the defintion of in effect scientism and you get the follwing.
The idea that all what is real, can be scientifically explained.

Incomplete, though true of all science supported by 95% of all scientist and every major academic university. What is "real" here is the physical reality of our universe, which your vague nebulous Ontological Idealism rejects.

The problem being that neither true, real, actual or reality have objective referents, but that is properly beyound you to understand.

you continue to make up words and define words to justify your own personal Nihilist agenda.