Who here believes in "Scientism"?

[cladking]

Nevertheless, your whole point is that ""Science" is bought and paid for by individuals who have no scruples, no morals, no compunctions and lots and lots of greed". What do you mean "science is bought and paid for"? I really don't understand. Are you talking about someone buying something made using science or are you talking about embracing science as a whole?

No. This is not my point at all. My point is that we don't know much of what people think we know and even what we think we know is the tiniest possible percentage of what there is to know.

To get funding one MUST NECESSARILY work within the status quo. If you posit that there is no such thing as global warming or that ancient people weren't superstitious and ignorant you will get no funding and will be in need of a real job. Results depend on assumptions and any assumptions that don't reflect PC, the status quo, and current beliefs are not funded.

 

[firedragon]

No. This is not my point at all. My point is that we don't know much of what people think we know and even what we think we know is the tiniest possible percentage of what there is to know.

To get funding one MUST NECESSARILY work within the status quo. If you posit that there is no such thing as global warming or that ancient people weren't superstitious and ignorant you will get no funding and will be in need of a real job. Results depend on assumptions and any assumptions that don't reflect PC, the status quo, and current beliefs are not funded.

Hmm. So I asked you for your point. I can't see you answering me with your exact point. All I get finally is that "we don't know much of people think" in this post.

Anyway thank you for engaging. I shall take my leave from this conversation now. Peace.

 

[cladking]

Well, reductionism means reducing complex phenomena, such as consciousness or social behavior, to their simplest scientific explanations, sometimes ignoring the nuances provided by other perspectives.

No!!!

It is impossible to reduce ANYTHING until it can be defined. You can't model velocity until you can define and quantify change in time and distance.

Consciousness, if my theory is correct, can never really be reduced. Just as all things in reality affect all other real things in reality and are affected by everything that has come before, so too is consciousness. Free will is a product of the mind/ body in homo omnisciencis but it is modeled in all other species. It is modeled by its wiring where we are a product of what we believe.

I'm not saying reductionism is wrong merely that it is inappropriate to study of thing like the double slit experiment, Evolution, and consciousness. Science must of necessity acquire aspects of holism. Some things can only be studied all at once.

 

[cladking]

"we don't know much of people think" in this post.

NO!!!

I said "we don't know much of what people think we know".

What people think is irrelevant (to reality) because it merely reflects what we believe.

 

[cladking]

My point is that we don't know much of what people think we know and even what we think we know is the tiniest possible percentage of what there is to know.

Just to reiterate. Human knowledge is infinitesimal relative what there is to be known and most of what we think we know isn't even true. This is what experiment has been telling us for a century now.

 

[gnostic]

Wow

I am beginning to see, that some among you, are either going to misunderstand what I say, or misrepresent what I say, with the later, be confusing my intention to the point, where they think I am against some things that I am really not.

So hopefully, I can clarify my earlier positions in my other posts, to put it too rest, the misunderstanding.

Yes, I do divide the line between Natural Sciences & Social Sciences, classifying them as different groupings of science, mainly because of the handling evidence. Nowhere do I deny the “science“ or the “research” in branches of Social Sciences.

Nowhere in my posts do I consider any Natural Sciences or Physical Sciences to be superior Social Sciences. They are just different sciences, with mostly different methodology of investigating evidence.

They differed because all evidence for Natural/Physical Sciences have to be "natural" and "physical" (eg stars, planets, Earth's atmosphere, hearts, lungs, red blood cells, molecules, atoms, chemical reaction, genetics, electric fields, radiowave, etc), where as the evidence for Social Sciences can be -

• physical evidence but MAN-MADE (or artificial), like archaeological evidence of artifacts (eg pottery ware, tools, weapons, coins) or physical structures (eg tombs, dwellings, etc),
• or the evidence can be ABSTRACT and/or SUBJECTIVE, like translating texts of writing that may or may not be historical reliable, or psychologists or psychiatrists listening to their patients' accounts as to their behaviour or emotion or thoughts.

The evidence are just different, and I can accept the scopes (limits) of each types of science, that use different types of evidence that are relevant that specific science.

I see nothing wrong with that, so I don't why you guys - @mikkel_the_dane, @PureX, @Augustus & @Banach-Tarski Paradox have so much difficulties in understanding these distinctions between Natural Sciences and Social Sciences.

Understanding & accepting these differences and distinctions between the two, don't make one science inferior to others, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY it don't make what I say "Scientism".

I just find your objections to these obvious distinctions, just absurd.

Second:

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.

Now, I find that, just a tad offensive.

Art, religion and philosophy are not sciences, that just simple facts.

But no way do I find any of them frivolous or distractions.

They simply belonged to academic studies and research, and they are relevant to what they do, which belonged to Humanities. Literature (eg epic poems, saga, poetry) also belonged to Humanities.

History also belong here too; history is about the written accounts as opposed to archaeology.

And guess what, PureX.

I love history, art & literature, and there are nothing wrong with these not being "scientific".

So you and Augustus, mikkel and BTP.

And just important, I like religions, particularly the myths and legends, I just loved their storytelling. My problems are not scriptures as written; no my issues are some people's interpretations of the scriptures, trying to mix modern sciences with their religious beliefs. That's where I have the real issues - particularly with creationists.

And as to philosophy.

You do realize that isn't one philosophy, but hundreds of them if not thousands of them. Most of these philosophies are focused on cultures and on morals or ethics. Only a fraction of the total philosophies, pertain to logic or to science - the so-called "philosophy of science" (eg Natural Philosophy (before Natural Sciences; NP existed from ancient Greece time to the mid-19th century), Metaphysics, Methodological Naturalism, Metaphysical Naturalism, Empiricism, etc).

You also need to understand much of the philosophies become outdated, or simply wrong, so why would accept everything single philosophies to be true, when I know they are not. Do I have to accept a philosophy that I disagree with, or that are irrelevant?

DO YOU AGREE WITH EVERY SINGLE PHILOSOPHIES THAT WERE EVER INVENTED?

Of course not, so why are you being so rude about that philosophies that I don't agree with?

Tell me, PureX? Do you like every single type of music? Or just only those suit your taste? Do you like classical music, country, jazz, rock, heavy metal, etc?

There are nothing wrong with you disagreeing philosophies, just like we all have different taste in art, music, fashion.

Just because I find most of the philosophies are irrelevant to me, don't make me being "Scientism". You are being absurd when you really don't know me.

 

[Pogo]

No. This is not my point at all. My point is that we don't know much of what people think we know and even what we think we know is the tiniest possible percentage of what there is to know.

To get funding one MUST NECESSARILY work within the status quo. If you posit that there is no such thing as global warming or that ancient people weren't superstitious and ignorant you will get no funding and will be in need of a real job. Results depend on assumptions and any assumptions that don't reflect PC, the status quo, and current beliefs are not funded.

There are a lot of scientists" working for oil companies which have lots of money who have posited that there is no global warming, problem is they can't seem to find any evidence for their hypotheses, though they do come up with some outlandish ideas. We don't increase knowledge by navel gazing, we increase it by testing idea to see if they work and keeping those that do.

 

[firedragon]

It is impossible to reduce ANYTHING until it can be defined.

I did not say it's justified. I am only stating what reductionism means by definition. If you say "no", you are not arguing with me. You are arguing with the definition.

 

[firedragon]

NO!!!

I said "we don't know much of what people think we know".

What people think is irrelevant (to reality) because it merely reflects what we believe.

Okay. So all I heard is ""we don't know much of what people think we know".

That's all I got as s point.

 

[Augustus]

I see nothing wrong with that, so I don't why you guys - @mikkel_the_dane, @PureX, @Augustus & @Banach-Tarski Paradox have so much difficulties in understanding these distinctions between Natural Sciences and Social Sciences.

Understanding & accepting these differences and distinctions between the two, don't make one science inferior to others, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY it don't make what I say "Scientism".

I just find your objections to these obvious distinctions, just absurd.

I didn’t object to any of those things or accuse you of scientism.

I’m not even sure I’ve said anything at all to you in this thread, let alone any of the things you mentioned in your rant.

I simply pointed out (in a different thread) that the difference between natural and social sciences is not that one requires falsifiability and methodological naturalism and the other doesn’t.

Social sciences are generally falsifiable and use MN, and natural sciences, ant least arguably, aren’t always falsifiable (although only in some very limited areas).

Not that there is no difference or that you are claiming anything else, just that I think you were wrong on that specific point.

To use your turn of phrase, I don’t see why you have so much difficulty understanding that?

 

[Pogo]

I didn’t object to any of those things or accuse you of scientism.

I’m not even sure I’ve said anything at all to you in this thread, let alone any of the things you mentioned in your rant.

I simply pointed out (in a different thread) that the difference between natural and social sciences is not that one requires falsifiability and methodological naturalism and the other doesn’t.

Social sciences are generally falsifiable and use MN, and natural sciences, ant least arguably, aren’t always falsifiable (although only in some very limited areas).

Not that there is no difference or that you are claiming anything else, just that I think you were wrong on that specific point.

To use your turn of phrase, I don’t see why you have so much difficulty understanding that?

I think maybe @gnostic lumped you when he should have split you.
There are too many philosophies of what is beyond Methodological Naturalism here to keep track, not to mention too many definitions of scientism from various points of view.

Blind men describing an Elephant comes to mind.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Everything that is reality is dependent on all other reality and everything that has come before. Reductionistic science (our science that takes things apart to understand them) can't even explain free will or its basis. It can't even define the terms.

To believe that science has all the answers is to believe free will doesn't exist, the universe is like a clockwork, and reality is preordained by science and its laws. "Science" as practiced by most people is a sick and perverted belief system that glorifies its priests (called Peers) and worships a methodology that they don't even understand is based solely on experiment.

The reality is we don't even know the nature of gravity, it's been proven the universe is no clockwork, and computer modeling can generate any desired results. Science changes one funeral at a time because people are nearly incapable of changing their beliefs even in the face of overwhelming evidence and even experiment itself. We believe we are "intelligent" but in actuality we have a complex language that allows the accumulation of knowledge over generations. True intelligence isn't a condition, it's an event.

"Science" is bought and paid for by individuals who have no scruples, no morals, no compunctions and lots and lots of greed.

Well actually science, when making genuine progress, demands more humility of it’s practitioners than this. The old Newtonian physics acknowledged the need to allow always for a margin of error; estimating the uncertainty of a result is often as important as the result itself.

So much for Newton and his laws, which still yield results despite being ontologically misleading. The last century of theoretical physics has overturned the notion of a mechanical universe, observed that there are limits on how much information can be known about a system, and shown that determinism is undermined by a degree of irreducible randomness in nature.

Those afflicted with scientism don’t see any of this, of course. Scientism, which requires blind conviction in a philosophy not even acknowledged as such, is utterly incompatible with the genuine spirit of scientific enquiry, which requires humility.

 

[Augustus]

There are too many philosophies of what is beyond Methodological Naturalism here to keep track, not to mention too many definitions of scientism from various points of view

Funnily enough, the need to point out that the term is a criticism of unscientific approaches rather than a criticism of science goes back to the very beginnings of the debate with Hayek in the 1940s.

82 years later the point still hasn’t been understood consistently


It need scarcely be emphasised that nothing we shall have to say is aimed against the methods of Science in their proper sphere or is intended to throw the slightest doubt on their value. But to preclude any misunderstanding on this point we shall, wherever we are concerned, not with the general spirit of disinterested inquiry but with that slavish imitation of the method and language of Science, speak of “scientism” or the “scientistic” prejudice. Although these terms are not completely unknown in English, [1] they are actually borrowed from the French, where in recent years they have come to be generally used in very much the same sense in which they will be used here. [2] It should be noted that, in the sense in which we shall use these terms, they describe, of course, an attitude which is decidedly unscientific in the true sense of the word, since it involves a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed. The scientistic as distinguished from the scientific view is not an unprejudiced but a very prejudiced approach which, before it has considered its subject, claims to know what is the most appropriate way of investigating it.

http://www.compilerpress.ca/Competitiveness/Anno/Anno%20Hayek%20Scientism%201.htm

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I think maybe @gnostic lumped you when he should have split you.
There are too many philosophies of what is beyond Methodological Naturalism here to keep track, not to mention too many definitions of scientism from various points of view.

Blind men describing an Elephant comes to mind.

Yeah, as long as we could just agree on what methodological naturalism is and how come we that in regards to epistemology.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

Funnily enough, the need to point out that the term is a criticism of unscientific approaches rather than a criticism of science goes back to the very beginnings of the debate with Hayek in the 1940s.

82 years later the point still hasn’t been understood consistently


It need scarcely be emphasised that nothing we shall have to say is aimed against the methods of Science in their proper sphere or is intended to throw the slightest doubt on their value. But to preclude any misunderstanding on this point we shall, wherever we are concerned, not with the general spirit of disinterested inquiry but with that slavish imitation of the method and language of Science, speak of “scientism” or the “scientistic” prejudice. Although these terms are not completely unknown in English, [1] they are actually borrowed from the French, where in recent years they have come to be generally used in very much the same sense in which they will be used here. [2] It should be noted that, in the sense in which we shall use these terms, they describe, of course, an attitude which is decidedly unscientific in the true sense of the word, since it involves a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed. The scientistic as distinguished from the scientific view is not an unprejudiced but a very prejudiced approach which, before it has considered its subject, claims to know what is the most appropriate way of investigating it.

http://www.compilerpress.ca/Competitiveness/Anno/Anno%20Hayek%20Scientism%201.htm

Thanks.

This is really helpful.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Wow

I am beginning to see, that some among you, are either going to misunderstand what I say, or misrepresent what I say, with the later, be confusing my intention to the point, where they think I am against some things that I am really not.

So hopefully, I can clarify my earlier positions in my other posts, to put it too rest, the misunderstanding.

Yes, I do divide the line between Natural Sciences & Social Sciences, classifying them as different groupings of science, mainly because of the handling evidence. Nowhere do I deny the “science“ or the “research” in branches of Social Sciences.

Nowhere in my posts do I consider any Natural Sciences or Physical Sciences to be superior Social Sciences. They are just different sciences, with mostly different methodology of investigating evidence.

They differed because all evidence for Natural/Physical Sciences have to be "natural" and "physical" (eg stars, planets, Earth's atmosphere, hearts, lungs, red blood cells, molecules, atoms, chemical reaction, genetics, electric fields, radiowave, etc), where as the evidence for Social Sciences can be -

• physical evidence but MAN-MADE (or artificial), like archaeological evidence of artifacts (eg pottery ware, tools, weapons, coins) or physical structures (eg tombs, dwellings, etc),
• or the evidence can be ABSTRACT and/or SUBJECTIVE, like translating texts of writing that may or may not be historical reliable, or psychologists or psychiatrists listening to their patients' accounts as to their behaviour or emotion or thoughts.

The evidence are just different, and I can accept the scopes (limits) of each types of science, that use different types of evidence that are relevant that specific science.

I see nothing wrong with that, so I don't why you guys - @mikkel_the_dane, @PureX, @Augustus & @Banach-Tarski Paradox have so much difficulties in understanding these distinctions between Natural Sciences and Social Sciences.

Understanding & accepting these differences and distinctions between the two, don't make one science inferior to others, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY it don't make what I say "Scientism".

I just find your objections to these obvious distinctions, just absurd.

Second:



Now, I find that, just a tad offensive.

Art, religion and philosophy are not sciences, that just simple facts.

But no way do I find any of them frivolous or distractions.

They simply belonged to academic studies and research, and they are relevant to what they do, which belonged to Humanities. Literature (eg epic poems, saga, poetry) also belonged to Humanities.

History also belong here too; history is about the written accounts as opposed to archaeology.

And guess what, PureX.

I love history, art & literature, and there are nothing wrong with these not being "scientific".

So you and Augustus, mikkel and BTP.

And just important, I like religions, particularly the myths and legends, I just loved their storytelling. My problems are not scriptures as written; no my issues are some people's interpretations of the scriptures, trying to mix modern sciences with their religious beliefs. That's where I have the real issues - particularly with creationists.

And as to philosophy.

You do realize that isn't one philosophy, but hundreds of them if not thousands of them. Most of these philosophies are focused on cultures and on morals or ethics. Only a fraction of the total philosophies, pertain to logic or to science - the so-called "philosophy of science" (eg Natural Philosophy (before Natural Sciences; NP existed from ancient Greece time to the mid-19th century), Metaphysics, Methodological Naturalism, Metaphysical Naturalism, Empiricism, etc).

You also need to understand much of the philosophies become outdated, or simply wrong, so why would accept everything single philosophies to be true, when I know they are not. Do I have to accept a philosophy that I disagree with, or that are irrelevant?

DO YOU AGREE WITH EVERY SINGLE PHILOSOPHIES THAT WERE EVER INVENTED?

Of course not, so why are you being so rude about that philosophies that I don't agree with?

Tell me, PureX? Do you like every single type of music? Or just only those suit your taste? Do you like classical music, country, jazz, rock, heavy metal, etc?

There are nothing wrong with you disagreeing philosophies, just like we all have different taste in art, music, fashion.

Just because I find most of the philosophies are irrelevant to me, don't make me being "Scientism". You are being absurd when you really don't know me.

Yeah, but it won't stop some people claiming the universe is natural and they know that with science.
So yes, you understand the difference, but not everbody on the side of methodological naturalism and science understand that.

 

[Banach-Tarski Paradox]

I see nothing wrong with that, so I don't why you guys - @mikkel_the_dane, @PureX, @Augustus & @Banach-Tarski Paradox have so much difficulties in understanding these distinctions between Natural Sciences and Social Sciences.

Your philosophy seems to begin with the notion that anybody who might view themselves as a part of nature and part of the physical world must lack a particular cultural understanding that you have, and therefore they are wrong.

But these are assumptions that we don’t all necessarily share.

The Molecular Shape of You (Ed Sheeran Parody) | A Capella Science​

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Science is the best tool known to humans to learn about the physical world.
For anything unreal like ideals, morals, constructs, laws, stories, there are philosophy, jurisprudence, literary sciences, etc.

@gnostic
The problem is that best and unreal are not physical properties in the physical world and it is philosophy that there is the physical world in the strong sense.

 

[PureX]

True

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

Actually, scientism seems to be based on an unreasonable abhorrence of ancient tribal gods.

 

[cladking]

and shown that determinism is undermined by a degree of irreducible randomness in nature.

I'm in general agreement but there are numerous problems with determinism. Certainly there appears to be something we call "randomness" but there is also chaos. Even if reality were preordained as scientism often holds we don't know the rules and can't often quantify the variables that are known.

It's entirely possible science can come to predict "random" but it will never be able to understand consciousness and free will through reductionism. Life is consciousness and science is a sort of microcosm of life so understanding reality and science requires an understanding of the nature of consciousness. Any application of science to life at least borders on scientism. Obviously this is not meant to demean the field of medicine.

Yes. Randomness alone is far more than sufficient to toss out determinism.

People want easy explanations for why we are here and scientism is the worst possible answer for most people.