Beware scientism’s onward march!

By Lionel Milgrom PhD

Introducing some concepts 

First it is necessary to make a clear distinction between science and scientism. The former might be defined as a continuing effort to increase human knowledge and understanding through observation (with the important proviso that in spite of its more outlandish proposals, post-modernism still serves to warn that objectivity in observation is always conditioned by expectations and past experiences; regardless of the 'rigour' of the science). Scientism, on the other hand, [1] is the totally unscientific belief that:-

·      Only scientific knowledge is real knowledge:

·      There is no rational, objective form of inquiry that is not a branch of science:

·      Science is the absolute and only justifiable access to truth.

Significantly, no sign of post-modernism's warning being heeded here. Indeed, supporters of scientism (which has its roots in materialistic logical positivism [2] and naïve inductivism [3] - both of which are seriously limited interpretations of science) [4] see it as their bounden duty to do away with most, if not all, metaphysical, mythological, philosophical, sociological (in any non-reductive sense), and religious claims to knowledge, as their truths cannot be apprehended by the scientific method. And precisely because scientism's supporters are so jealous of what they believe is their monopoly on truth (especially as exemplified by the science of the day: science too has its fashions), they represent a form of dogmatic intolerance bordering on fundamentalism; even fascism. As neurophysiologist and Nobel Laureate Sir John Eccles once so eloquently put it, “Arrogance is one of the worst diseases of scientists and it gives rise to statements of authority and finality which are expressed usually in fields that are completely beyond the scientific competence of the dogmatist. It is important to realise that dogmatism has now become a disease of scientists rather than of theologians."We shall soon see how ominously prescient were these words.

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