Who here believes in "Scientism"?

[shunyadragon]

Did you even read my post?

"There is no science outside of experiment and its second cousin; prediction. There is no science in statistics and it seems like science only because reality and math are both aspects of logic.

Statistics is a tool to test the probability of research data. Nothing more.

 

[shunyadragon]

I would take this a step further and say that the social sciences aren't really sciences at all. Any trust in their methods is misplaced.

This is an extreme biased view of Social Sciences. At least you apparently recognize the difference be

There is no science outside of experiment and its second cousin; prediction. There is no science in statistics and it seems like science only because reality and math are both aspects of logic.

Needs more explanation. Prediction is not a second cousin of anything, Prediction is part of Methodological NAturalism to confirm hypotheses and theories.

Math is a form of number logic, but reality is as is without human logic.

 

[shunyadragon]

I doubt this is true.

Empiricism has been demonstrated to be observed in the more intelligent animals.

 

[Augustus]

Did that and you ignored it, and made a long controtted rationalization of your agenda.

Don’t tell fibs, you posted some irrelevant articles, and I kindly explained why you didn’t understand them.

I then asked you to explain in your own words and you proved what I’d just said.

Why pretend otherwise?

All objectivity is not true.

You are good at saying “no” like a petulant toddler, not so good at providing any reasons.

Given you could point out what is wrong in a single sentence, your reluctance is somewhat telling.

Let’s try again:

What of the following do you disagree with or consider an “extreme anti-science agenda”? Given it is all objectively true and endorses rigorous scientific standards, it would be beyond inane to consider it “apologetics”. Let’s see if you have the intellectual honesty to accept this is a perfectly reasonable statement:

Some sciences are highly reliable, others, especially within the social sciences are much less so. In these, excessive trust in the methods of the natural sciences to achieve accurate and reliable results is unscientific and can lead to problems.

In addition, due to their abstraction, subjectivity, complexity and the inability to study them neutrally or objectively, there may be certain fields that cannot really be studied using the methods of the natural science at all. In these we must use other methods of enquiry.

Either you can point out something that is "extreme anti-science" in the above statement, or you accept scientism is a valid and meaningful concept as it is simply shorthand for the above (at least in one common usage

 

[shunyadragon]

Don’t tell fibs, you posted some irrelevant articles, and I kindly explained why you didn’t understand them.

I then asked you to explain in your own words and you proved what I’d just said.

Why pretend otherwise

Did that and you ignored it, and made a long controtted rationalization of your agenda.

You are good at saying “no” like a petulant toddler, not so good at providing any reasons.

No for good reason of your failure to respond to the references.

Given you could point out what is wrong in a single sentence, your reluctance is somewhat telling.

Let’s try again:

What of the following do you disagree with or consider an “extreme anti-science agenda”? Given it is all objectively true and endorses rigorous scientific standards, it would be beyond inane to consider it “apologetics”. Let’s see if you have the intellectual honesty to accept this is a perfectly reasonable statement:

Some sciences are highly reliable, others, especially within the social sciences are much less so. In these, excessive trust in the methods of the natural sciences to achieve accurate and reliable results is unscientific and can lead to problems.

In addition, due to their abstraction, subjectivity, complexity and the inability to study them neutrally or objectively, there may be certain fields that cannot really be studied using the methods of the natural science at all. In these we must use other methods of enquiry.

Either you can point out something that is "extreme anti-science" in the above statement, or you accept scientism is a valid and meaningful concept as it is simply shorthand for the above (at least in one common usage

What you describe are issues as in Social Sciences and fully accepted and not a basis nor well defined enough to warrant the accusation of "extraordinary trust," issues to go to the name calling of the pejorative :Scienism,"

Yes as in Social Sciences "use other methods of inquiry" as necessary for research in Social Science. This is acknowledged as not meeting the criteria of Methodological Naturalism,

 

[gnostic]

But scientism isn't science.

That’s true. No one saying it is.

But this…

And the scientism cult has enshrined their delusional idealization of science as their godless God. Their anti-deity.

…this is nothing more than generalization, misrepresentation and sophistry.

Science isn’t a religion, nor a cult. And science isn’t god for anyone. And no scientists are considered seers or prophets.

The singular source of all truth, reality, and human advancement.

Again, more misrepresentation and sophistry.

There are no “singular source of all truth, reality and human advancement”.

Every single fields in every branch of sciences, whether it be Natural Sciences or Social Sciences, have only specific area(s) to investigate in, each field has a scope or focal point of their endeavour (eg study, research, work), that limited the field in what can be learned from it, and what to use.

So a person studying neurosciences, wouldn’t need to know carpentry, accounting, astronomy, etc. Neuroscience do need to understand the brain & spinal cords (the central nervous system), the nerves, neurons and synaptic connection, and how they all interact with the rest of human body (Eg heart, lung, eyes, ears, reproductive organs, etc). And those who would become surgeons, will need to know what diseases that can affect these areas, and how they would treat the brain or other nerve tissues.

Every single field in science, have to limit their scopes. No scientific field have every single knowledge, answers or solutions.

And science, particularly Natural Sciences, like physics or chemistry or biology, work with observations of natural facts, not the often misuse subjective “truth”.

if you want to seek “truth”, then try some things in the fields of Social Sciences (eg psychology), Humanities (eg arts, music, literature, etc), philosophies or even religions if you are that desperate.

 

[Augustus]

Did that and you ignored it, and made a long controtted rationalization of your agenda.
No for good reason of your failure to respond to the references.

Either you are deliberately telling fibs or your comprehension must be incredibly bad (or both).

I was showing you with both primary and secondary sources that your understanding of the term scientism was based on your ignorance of the historical usage of the term.

You chose not to become better informed again, that's your (habitual) choice.

What you describe are issues as in Social Sciences and fully accepted and not a basis nor well defined enough to warrant the accusation of "extraordinary trust," issues to go to the name calling of the pejorative :Scienism,"

Yes as in Social Sciences "use other methods of inquiry" as necessary for research in Social Science. This is acknowledged as not meeting the criteria of Methodological Naturalism,

So the problems are:

1. You don't understand the concept of methodological naturalism, which is simply the exclusion of supernatural forces from scientific explanation. Unless social sciences explain things in terms of the supernatural, they use MN.
2. You have been blinded by the magical powers of the word "scientism" into desperately trying to argue against something that you actually agree with. This is because you are ignorant of the fact that scientism is not a term invented by religious apologists to attack science, but emerged in the philosophy of science to criticise bad science, primarily in social sciences such as economics.

So basically, you agree with me about social sciences, and acknowledge the methodological problems in the social sciences that lead to unreliable results.

As long as you accept that the sciences are not necessarily reliable in all fields of enquiry, you accept that scientism exists, unless you think that not a single human has ever significantly overstated their scope or accuracy in these particular fields (which would be nonsense even by your own low standards).

So as someone who has just explained that they accept the problems of scientism (whether you understand it or not), you will now have to question your own extreme anti-science agenda

see, when you try to explain things in your own words, discussions are much more productive.

 

[PureX]

That’s true. No one saying it is.

But this…



…this is nothing more than generalization, misrepresentation and sophistry.

Science isn’t a religion, nor a cult. And science isn’t god for anyone. And no scientists are considered seers or prophets.

It's an anti religion for the scientism cultists.

Again, more misrepresentation and sophistry.

There are no “singular source of all truth, reality and human advancement”.

Go tell the scientism cultists that. According to them, reality is defined and determined by materiality, and only science can tell us what that is. AND enable us to gain control over it. Everything else is just whimsy and superstition.

Every single fields in every branch of sciences, whether it be Natural Sciences or Social Sciences, have only specific area(s) to investigate in, each field has a scope or focal point of their endeavour (eg study, research, work), that limited the field in what can be learned from it, and what to use.

So a person studying neurosciences, wouldn’t need to know carpentry, accounting, astronomy, etc. Neuroscience do need to understand the brain & spinal cords (the central nervous system), the nerves, neurons and synaptic connection, and how they all interact with the rest of human body (Eg heart, lung, eyes, ears, reproductive organs, etc). And those who would become surgeons, will need to know what diseases that can affect these areas, and how they would treat the brain or other nerve tissues.

Every single field in science, have to limit their scopes. No scientific field have every single knowledge, answers or solutions.

And science, particularly Natural Sciences, like physics or chemistry or biology, work with observations of natural facts, not the often misuse subjective “truth”.

if you want to seek “truth”, then try some things in the fields of Social Sciences (eg psychology), Humanities (eg arts, music, literature, etc), philosophies or even religions if you are that desperate.

But you're not anti-religious. Right?

 

[cladking]

I did, apparently I understand it differently than you, could you expound further?

"There is no science outside of experiment and its second cousin; prediction. There is no science in statistics and it seems like science only because reality and math are both aspects of logic."

Like everything there are an infinite number of ways to express this because of the nature of our language. We see what we expect. We process input such as to agree with our existing belief. This leads to our beliefs and experience to become somewhat fixed regardless of what we see. Even the finest scientists rarely snap out of this circle without experiment to force them out. Even when experiment clearly shows they are wrong they often still cling to old beliefs leading science to change one funeral at a time.

Reason and experiment have another means of showing theory or hypothesis to be real; prediction. Prediction can't be the same quality of evidence as experiment because it is uncontrolled however as a rule good theory creates good prediction and bad theory creates no prediction.

Weather forecasts are often blown out the window but that they do tend to be accurate merely shows that the math of computer models reflects the reality of evolving weather patterns. Accurate forecasts obviously don't prove that every belief and every understanding of meteorologists is accurate and complete. Even if they were accurate and complete which is an impossibility the fact is they still couldn't predict when and why a butterfly in China flaps its wings.

Reality is not deterministic and it is not reductionistic. Mother nature doesn't sit around training butterflies nor is there a plan for how butterflies cause hurricanes. All of reality occurs interdependently in real time. It is infinitely more complex than our belief in "infinity".

We think we can reduce all of reality to experiment but obviously we can not. We can't even reduce the consciousness with which we study science to a definition!!! How are we going to reduce our own consciousness to experiment? To understand consciousness and to progress in physics probably requires that science becomes holistic.


We believe what we want to believe and this applies to every field of science but nowhere does reality and "science" diverge more than in the social "sciences". If we can't reduce a single consciousness to experiment then how can we possibly do so with interpersonal events that happened 5000 years ago or even last week?

Most of what people think is science is a perversion of religion and assumptions. Anyone who believes science is by nature and definition anti-religion is experiencing scientism.

 

[shunyadragon]

"There is no science outside of experiment and its second cousin; prediction. There is no science in statistics and it seems like science only because reality and math are both aspects of logic."

Like everything there are an infinite number of ways to express this because of the nature of our language. We see what we expect. We process input such as to agree with our existing belief. This leads to our beliefs and experience to become somewhat fixed regardless of what we see. Even the finest scientists rarely snap out of this circle without experiment to force them out. Even when experiment clearly shows they are wrong they often still cling to old beliefs leading science to change one funeral at a time.

Reason and experiment have another means of showing theory or hypothesis to be real; prediction. Prediction can't be the same quality of evidence as experiment because it is uncontrolled however as a rule good theory creates good prediction and bad theory creates no prediction.

Weather forecasts are often blown out the window but that they do tend to be accurate merely shows that the math of computer models reflects the reality of evolving weather patterns. Accurate forecasts obviously don't prove that every belief and every understanding of meteorologists is accurate and complete. Even if they were accurate and complete which is an impossibility the fact is they still couldn't predict when and why a butterfly in China flaps its wings.

Reality is not deterministic and it is not reductionistic. Mother nature doesn't sit around training butterflies nor is there a plan for how butterflies cause hurricanes. All of reality occurs interdependently in real time. It is infinitely more complex than our belief in "infinity".

The bold above is a ridiculous overstatement as to how science considers "Natural Determinism." None of the above is remotely true in terms of science.

Your misrepresenting what is called "Natural Determinism" versus Newtonian hard determinism. Natural Determinism demonstrates that our physical existence is predictable within a range of possible outcomes that are fractal. If NAture was not "Naturally Deterministic" Science simply would not work.

We think we can reduce all of reality to experiment but obviously we can not. We can't even reduce the consciousness with which we study science to a definition!!! How are we going to reduce our own consciousness to experiment? To understand consciousness and to progress in physics probably requires that science becomes holistic.

Science does not reduce reality to experiments. More clarification is needed here to understand real science.

Most of what people think is science is a perversion of religion and assumptions. Anyone who believes science is by nature and definition anti-religion is experiencing scientism.

Agreed

 

[firedragon]

"There is no science outside of experiment and its second cousin; prediction. There is no science in statistics and it seems like science only because reality and math are both aspects of logic."

Like everything there are an infinite number of ways to express this because of the nature of our language. We see what we expect. We process input such as to agree with our existing belief. This leads to our beliefs and experience to become somewhat fixed regardless of what we see. Even the finest scientists rarely snap out of this circle without experiment to force them out. Even when experiment clearly shows they are wrong they often still cling to old beliefs leading science to change one funeral at a time.

Reason and experiment have another means of showing theory or hypothesis to be real; prediction. Prediction can't be the same quality of evidence as experiment because it is uncontrolled however as a rule good theory creates good prediction and bad theory creates no prediction.

Weather forecasts are often blown out the window but that they do tend to be accurate merely shows that the math of computer models reflects the reality of evolving weather patterns. Accurate forecasts obviously don't prove that every belief and every understanding of meteorologists is accurate and complete. Even if they were accurate and complete which is an impossibility the fact is they still couldn't predict when and why a butterfly in China flaps its wings.

Reality is not deterministic and it is not reductionistic. Mother nature doesn't sit around training butterflies nor is there a plan for how butterflies cause hurricanes. All of reality occurs interdependently in real time. It is infinitely more complex than our belief in "infinity".

We think we can reduce all of reality to experiment but obviously we can not. We can't even reduce the consciousness with which we study science to a definition!!! How are we going to reduce our own consciousness to experiment? To understand consciousness and to progress in physics probably requires that science becomes holistic.


We believe what we want to believe and this applies to every field of science but nowhere does reality and "science" diverge more than in the social "sciences". If we can't reduce a single consciousness to experiment then how can we possibly do so with interpersonal events that happened 5000 years ago or even last week?

Most of what people think is science is a perversion of religion and assumptions. Anyone who believes science is by nature and definition anti-religion is experiencing scientism.

Hi I am new to this thread. You write well. But I don't seem to grasp your thesis in a nutshell. What are you actually saying in simple words?

 

[PureX]

"There is no science outside of experiment and its second cousin; prediction. There is no science in statistics and it seems like science only because reality and math are both aspects of logic."

The scientism cult has so exaggerated and glorified the idea of science in their minds that they think math is science, and logic is science, and medicine is science, and sociology is science, and history is science. All methods of advancing knowledge are "science" in their minds. While art, religion, and philosophy are just frivolous and unnecessary distractions.

 

[ChieftheCef]

If Scientism means true knowledge can/could find God, The Supreme God, The Animating Force whatever your flavor I agree with it.

 

[PureX]

That’s true. No one saying it is.

There are several posters, here, that have no idea what the dfference is, because in their world view there is no difference. Their scientism IS science.

Science isn’t a religion, nor a cult.

No, it's not. But scientism IS. Apparently you are having difficulty recognizing the difference, too.

And science isn’t god.

No, it's not. But the scientism cult treats science as if it were a deity.

There are no “singular source of all truth, reality and human advancement”.

When science becomes math, and logic, and medicine, and history, and every and all forms of intellectual inquiry and technical advancement in one's mind, science then becomes the “singular source of all truth, reality and human advancement”. This is the mind of the scientism cultist.

Every single field in science, have to limit their scopes. No scientific field have every single knowledge, answers or solutions.

But in total, the mighty Godhead of science DOES have all the answers, or will have them soon enough. This is the unshakeable faith of the scientism cultists.

And science, particularly Natural Sciences, like physics or chemistry or biology, work with observations of natural facts, not the often misuse subjective “truth”.

That is a commonly held subjective bias, yes. But the "observed facts" are just as subjective as any other humans experience. PERCEPTION IS CONCEPTION. The "true believers" of scientism are not able to recognize that there are no "objective facts". There are only objectified opinions being labeled as "facts".

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Is it "scientism" if I believe that science has
many good answers, but not all? And that
religion has no useful answers...& can't
even get the questions right?

Possibly, given this level of dogmatism.

You’ll have to ask folks who use the term regularly.

But coining terms for various forms of dogmatism is hardly unusual, as you probably know from experience.

 

[shunyadragon]

Either you are deliberately telling fibs or your comprehension must be incredibly bad (or both).

I was showing you with both primary and secondary sources that your understanding of the term scientism was based on your ignorance of the historical usage of the term.

You chose not to become better informed again, that's your (habitual) choice.

Did that and you ignored it, and made a long controtted rationalization of your agenda.
No for good reason of your failure to respond to the references.

So the problems are:

1. You don't understand the concept of methodological naturalism, which is simply the exclusion of supernatural forces from scientific explanation. Unless social sciences explain things in terms of the supernatural, they use MN.
2. You have been blinded by the magical powers of the word "scientism" into desperately trying to argue against something that you actually agree with. This is because you are ignorant of the fact that scientism is not a term invented by religious apologists to attack science, but emerged in the philosophy of science to criticise bad science, primarily in social sciences such as economics.

So basically, you agree with me about social sciences, and acknowledge the methodological problems in the social sciences that lead to unreliable results.

As long as you accept that the sciences are not necessarily reliable in all fields of enquiry, you accept that scientism exists, unless you think that not a single human has ever significantly overstated their scope or accuracy in these particular fields (which would be nonsense even by your own low standards).

So as someone who has just explained that they accept the problems of scientism (whether you understand it or not), you will now have to question your own extreme anti-science agenda

see, when you try to explain things in your own words, discussions are much more productive.

Bizarre extortion of my posts on your part. Not worth responding to. The long controtted rationalization of your agenda on your part continues.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Math is a form of number logic,

I call this Mathism.

 

[shunyadragon]

I call this Mathism.

OK. you make up your own terminology to justify your own personal agenda.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

OK. you make up your own terminology to justify your own personal agenda.

The first time you asserted this it was paired with the assertion that I don’t understand what your religion believes is the “purpose of mathematics”.

Not everybody works in the fields that you want us to restrict our attention to.

It’s hardly surprising (at least to me!) that you have similar constraints for anthropologists and historiographers as well.

 

[shunyadragon]

But scientism isn't science.

True

And the scientism cult has enshrined their delusional idealization of science as their godless God. Their anti-deity. The singular source of all truth, reality, and human advancement.

This paranoid intentional Ignorance of science based on an ancient tribal agenda.