Scientism

[NORM]

I'm not aware of any fundamental question in ontology that has ever been settled by the scientific method, even though we've obtained more information than we could ever know what to do with.

 

The body of knowledge of the existing universe, in my opinion, has been vastly expanded with the advent of the scientific method. Atomic theory, human anatomy and morphology, etc...

 

We consistently mistake methodology for ontology in the West.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate?

 

 

As far as Shermer and Dennett go...as I see it, they are not mere commentators; they are exerting their energy in their respective fields to advance their personal metaphysical commitments.

 

I don't see this as a cause for concern. So they see science as a valid explanation for perceived reality? You see, I presume, the supernatural as a valid explanation for reality. I happen to agree with Shermer and Dennett and not you. This is not to say that I don't value your belief system, just that I and others see reality through different lenses.

 

Their personal view is that there are no statements of truth aside from scientific objectivity. Reality itself must conform to the ideals of that method.

 

Yes, this is an accurate description of naturalism. I hold to this way of thinking, and it seems right to me. Call it a "show-me" state of being.

 

Nothing is sacred, nothing is private, they will not be satisfied until everything and everyone are reduced to the category of object.

 

This statement is the equivalent of me saying that all Christians are homophobic. I'm a naturalist and I don't seek to reduce everything to an object. I don't think that either Shermer or Dennett wish to reduce everything to an object.

 

I don't see how such a project could succeed in principle, since it is already on the shakiest of grounds (please see the post above for a little more elaboration). If it rests on a mistake - an absurdity even -, then in this respect I think 'time has already told'. This goes well beyond religion and to what it means to even exist.

 

I think the project is moving along quite nicely. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is "settled."

 

NORM

[Mike]

Hi Norm,

 

Thank you for your thoughts.

 

The body of knowledge of the existing universe, in my opinion, has been vastly expanded with the advent of the scientific method. Atomic theory, human anatomy and morphology, etc...

 

I agree, that much is undeniable.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate?

 

Scientific objectivity is a methodology. As such it involves distancing oneself from reality through abstraction in order to fit reality into a preconceived category. No methodology can claim to explain reality-in-itself, by definition it cannot make that sort of claim. Let me put it this way, Is the scientific method itself reality? If not (I hope you would answer in the negative), then reality lies beyond the scientific method. Reality is quite fine as what it is whether we want to analyze it or not.

 

Objectivity is a method, but this doesn't mean that reality is an object or must conform to that conceptual expectation. In fact, it doesn't. Approaching reality as if it were an object that one can stand outside of and manipulate is what I mean by 'confusing methodology for ontology'. Even though science must abstract reality in terms of the concept of object, it does not mean that that is a true ontological category.

 

I don't see this as a cause for concern. So they see science as a valid explanation for perceived reality? You see, I presume, the supernatural as a valid explanation for reality. I happen to agree with Shermer and Dennett and not you. This is not to say that I don't value your belief system, just that I and others see reality through different lenses.

 

Actually I don’t see any real meaning in the term supernatural. Nor ‘natural’, ultimately. They are just names, not reality, though I think 'natural' probably has more content. Science may explain to some arbitrary degree perceived reality, but it cannot replace perceived reality, reality will always be too immediate and unruly for our abstractions. Science (or any type of method) is incapable of speaking to purely objective state of affairs (which is its ideal). Because no such state of affairs exists, and if it somehow does, there can be no bridge between us and it. I am not a realist when it comes to the world people tend to presuppose science describes.

 

Yes, this is an accurate description of naturalism. I hold to this way of thinking, and it seems right to me. Call it a "show-me" state of being.

 

I think naturalism goes beyond the scientific method as a metaphysical stance. In fact, the belief that “that there are no statements of truth aside from scientific objectivity. Reality itself must conform to the ideals of that method,” is a statement about science and therefore lies without the scientific method - and therefore is a contradiction.

 

This statement is the equivalent of me saying that all Christians are homophobic. I'm a naturalist and I don't seek to reduce everything to an object. I don't think that either Shermer or Dennett wish to reduce everything to an object.

 

I disagree; I never made such a sweeping generalization. And as for Shermer and Dennett, I would only suggest that you may not be aware of what they’re up to.

 

I think the project is moving along quite nicely. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is "settled."

 

I see things very differently. And that’s ok.

 

Peace to you,

Mike

Edited July 1, 2011 by Mike

[Harry]

Why is reality such a contentious issue?

 

 

[Neon Genesis]

Here is an article in which Michael Shermer discusses what he believes scientism is and his embrace of the label: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-shamans-of-scientism

What is it about Hawking that draws us to him as a scientific saint? He is, I believe, the embodiment of a larger social phenomenon known as scientism. Scientism is a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life appropriate for an Age of Science.

 

Scientism's voice can best be heard through a literary genre for both lay readers and professionals that includes the works of such scientists as Carl Sagan, E. O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond. Scientism is a bridge spanning the abyss between what physicist C. P. Snow famously called the "two cultures" of science and the arts/humanities (neither encampment being able to communicate with the other). Scientism has generated a new literati and intelligentsia passionately concerned with the profound philosophical, ideological and theological implications of scientific discoveries.

 

Although the origins of the scientism genre can be traced to the writings of Galileo and Thomas Huxley in centuries past, its modern incarnation began in the early 1970s with mathematician Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, took off in the 1980s with Sagan's Cosmos and hit pay dirt in the 1990s with Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which spent a record 200 weeks on the Sunday Times of London's hardcover best-seller list and sold more than 10 million copies in 30-plus languages worldwide. Hawking's latest work, The Universe in a Nutshell, is already riding high on the best-seller list.

 

Hawking's towering fame is a result of a concatenation of variables that include the power of the scientism culture in which he writes, his creative insights into the ultimate nature of the cosmos, in which he dares to answer ersatz theological questions, and, perhaps most notably, his unmitigated heroism in the face of near-insurmountable physical obstacles that would have felled a lesser being. But his individual success in particular, and the rise of scientism in general, reveals something deeper still.

 

First, cosmology and evolutionary theory ask the ultimate origin questions that have traditionally been the province of religion and theology. Scientism is courageously proffering naturalistic answers that supplant supernaturalistic ones and in the process is providing spiritual sustenance for those whose needs are not being met by these ancient cultural traditions. Second, we are, at base, a socially hierarchical primate species. We show deference to our leaders, pay respect to our elders and follow the dictates of our shamans; this being the Age of Science, it is scientism's shamans who command our veneration. Third, because of language we are also storytelling, mythmaking primates, with scientism as the foundational stratum of our story and scientists as the premier mythmakers of our time.

Edited July 1, 2011 by Neon Genesis

[Mike]

Why is reality such a contentious issue?

 

Certainly doesn't have to be. But life tends to be what we make of it.

 

Peace,

Mike

[glintofpewter]

Now is reality and science will always be this far away from knowing reality. It can make no observations now. All observations are about something that has happened, not something that is occurring. Reality is the unmediated moment. Observation, measurement are ways of mediating, thinking about, they are not in the moment. Now.

 

In pop science vernacular I suppose science is left brain, unmediated experiencing is right brain.

 

from a book review of Why Beliefs Matter by E. Brian Davies

book review is titled "The faith that underpins science".

Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, did not believe that science grants us access to an objective reality and insisted that the task of physics was not to find out "how nature is" but only "what we can say about nature". Einstein, on the other hand, maintained an unshakeable belief in a reality that exists out there. Otherwise, he said, "I simply cannot see what it is that physics is meant to describe".

 

In good company I guess -- discussing reality.

 

Dutch

[NORM]

Scientific objectivity is a methodology. As such it involves distancing oneself from reality through abstraction in order to fit reality into a preconceived category. No methodology can claim to explain reality-in-itself, by definition it cannot make that sort of claim. Let me put it this way, Is the scientific method itself reality? If not (I hope you would answer in the negative), then reality lies beyond the scientific method. Reality is quite fine as what it is whether we want to analyze it or not.

 

I guess we are on totally opposite sides of this issue. I don't see naturalism, or scientism as you say, as distant and abstract from reality. On the contrary, I feel more in touch with reality than during my days following religious dogma and mysticism.

 

Since my last post, I've dug deeper into Shermer and Dennett and still have not found any reference to their desire to reduce everything to an object, as you suggest. The quote from Shermer is illustrative of much of what I am seeing.

 

Can you perhaps post a section of either man's writing where they explicitly say that everything must be reduced to an object? Or is this, perhaps, just your interpretation of their philosophy?

 

NORM

[minsocal]

"Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do." (Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance, p. 17)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_stance

 

This is behaviorism?

 

Myron

[glintofpewter]

Now I know why Dennett makes me uncomfortable but why bring up bad examples?

 

Discussing naturalist and supernaturalist ways of knowing misses a third way, what our body, our soul, experiences

 

from Ilia Delio

It’s interesting that Augustine spoke of love as the weight of the soul and, you can speak of love as the gravity of the soul. As physical gravity bends the space-time fabric of the earth, intense love bends the soul and opens it up to more love or to more relationship.

....

 

But we know that knowledge itself is much deeper than reason alone. The deepest knowledge is really wisdom. And wisdom is knowledge deepened by love. Wisdom is the bridge, between the rational knower and the faith knower. The one who knows, who can use reason, a reason now deepened by faith and by love—this one knows the world and the things in this world in a much deeper way.

[glintofpewter]

I had to throw the Delio quotes quickly so I would have a chance of going to sleep. Someone of you may latch on to "faith". Seeing that evidence of supernaturalism will lead you astray from my understanding of Delio. If you read other of her writing, 'You would feel affirmed that she is talking from supernatural data. But her writing is at 2nd or 3rd level remove from the center or core of her experience. The closest science ever gets to experience is a first level abstraction: description. (My definitions of levels of abstraction may be idiosyncratic.)

 

The core of Delio's knowledge comes from what I call a "butt on the bench, hand in the soil" experience. She had an "a-ha" when, as a neuro-scientist, she was watching one human neuron firing, an experience that had a different quality than the gathering of scientific data. She became a nun and learned how to garden and how to pray (supernatural I know, just close your eyes, it is not essential in this case.) sitting on a bench with other women for months. Gardening and being in the presence of others in silence have a quality that is not accessible by science, when science believes it is only about data gathering. If science looks like the temple-like set for the TV series Cosmos and the fake star that so often appears as they travel through space - second coming anyone? - or if science is set in the rich language and imagery of Michael Shermer above I think scientism reveals a reverential aspect that is attractive. Well Cosmos seems out dated in its imagery and pseudo-religious trappings. But Dennett has been on one too many panels and in one too many debates. He has stripped down his arguments and, dehydrated the flesh of his knowledge so that he sounds like a sputtering fundamentalist.

 

Michael Dowd suggests an empirical reformation is at hand where there is Pentecostal and almost mystical fervor around the multitude manifestations of ultimate reality, "what ever you want to call it". As an evidentialist and Christian naturalist, the evolution of the universe is the great story and our religious practices as Christians, or Hindus or Muslim necessarily are part of that story. Our particular stories are most often differentiated by how we personify ultimate reality. For Michael, I think, there are three ways to interact with ultimate reality: 1) to talk about it; 2) to personify it - and this often done in meditations, counseling, and self help contexts without any claims of knowing that is similar or competes with science - and 3) as self-aware self conscious manifestations of this scientific and wondrous great story, we have a responsibility to move evolution forward. While science lies at the core of Michael's experience, I think, only people like Shermer approach this qualitatively stance.

 

In one series of comments on a science blog, someone raised the example of an aid worker in Africa who, order to make any headway in delivering appropriate medical care had to work within the worldview of the village chief. She was limited in what she could accomplish for the well being of the village by the supernatural world views of the chief: she had to frame her project in his terms and abide by his limitations. One commenters felt that "scientists" should as "conquistadors" (my pejorative term) and make it happen according to the best science. Devil damn the chief.

 

For me, this represents scientism at its worse. This distorted scientism fails to deal with the two worlds delineated by CP Snow, mentioned above, fails to take into consideration the learnings of sociology and psychology as data after a methodologically well design experiment sees the data crunched this way and data and fails to understand individual human experience as part of the average.

[minsocal]

I don't think there is any problem with science. The problem is in the "ism" and the "ist". I think John Searle is right when he says that for some it is like a high stakes poker game. The winner, the one who "gets it right", passes into the immortality of history. The loser is forgotten.

 

Myron

Edited July 2, 2011 by minsocal

[JenellYB]

post edited, some how double posted. Jenell

Edited July 2, 2011 by JenellYB

[JenellYB]

I think some of the issues here go back to the concepts of a duality, two 'realms', the one the material that is access able to our senses and reasonable to our minds, and the other the immaterial or 'spiritual'.

 

If we remove the idea of such duality or reality, aparant conflicts at least change in nature or dissapear.

 

A point I encountered in Dr. Mitchell's Science and Religion course was that primitive man had no concept of a "supernatural". Primitive man accepts all aspects of his environment and reality as natural, even those parts he didn't understand. Of course, those parts he didn't understand were a primary root of primitive man's religious thought, as he tried to put what he experienced as somehow 'real' but not accessable to his limited physical senses. As Emile Durkheim posited in his classic work, "The fundamental elements of religion", all of man's basic level elements of religion were grounded in what he termed "the real." Primitive man was responding to real challenges for survival and ability to adapt to his reality.

 

Thus arose ideas of spirits and gods at work influencing the physical reality as Man experienced it. But to that primitive man, those things he didn't understand weren't 'supernatural', they were simply part of the 'natural', an extension of the natural that he could observe with his physical senses. Primitive man did not think he had to know and understand something in a rationalsense in order to accept the reality of its existence. This of course is also the orgin of the God of the Gaps that has persisted in many religions.

 

The concept, or idea of, a "supernatural" (beyond natural) actually arose out of the emergence of the ages of reason and science. Being grounded in what is accessable to our senses and mental reasoning abilities, science and reason created the duality of two realms, the natural, that could be observed and examined by our physical senses and rational minds, and that which could not, being the supernatural. It then evolved that one was considered within the scope of science and reason, the other, of religion.

 

This divide moves science and reason into "scientism" when it is decided that only what falls within the scope of science and reason is "real", relegating any other to be dismissed as "not real", which of course relegates anything religious that doesn't meet that "real' status as therefore non-existant.

Whereas that not understood is in religion attributed to the God of the Gaps, while in science and (faulty)reason is simply dismissed as existing at all. Now, the reason I just preface reason with 'faulty' is that sound reasoning does not arrive at such a conclusion. Sound reasoning recognizes that just because we lack evidence of something, doesn't mean we can conclude it does not exist. Sound reasoning recognizes that there is a vast unknown, and that we simply can't know what it is we don't know.

 

So with sound reasoning, we actually come full circle back to primitive man's concept of a single reality, which embraces both the known, what can be understood, and the unknown. All is natural. What is called supernatural is merely what of the natural we cannot access with our present means of observation.

 

Jenell

[Harry]

Definition of SUPERNATURAL

 

1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil.

 

 

 

2a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature.

 

2b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit).

 

I don't see "supernatural" as "beyond natural". I understand supernatural as not only natural but natural to perfection. God would be supernatural. I think of natural law coming from a supernatural life force of love, truth and consciousness.

 

To me the only true reality is my own existence; “###### ergo Sum” all the rest is sensual and therefore posteriori knowledge. Debating the meaning of words with other words the definitions of which are uncertain is an academic exercise but can be entertaining in the right spirit. I can remember back in my youth when I questioned if everything I sensed could be a figament of my active imagination. Things seem as real to me when I dream sometimes as they do when I'm awake.

 

 

 

 

[JenellYB]

Exactly, Harry. You have come that full circle I refer to toward the end of my post, by having rejected the dual-reality concept returned to a one reality position.

 

Jenell

[minsocal]

There is something about alternate ways of framing a particular problem that seems to grab my attention. I was in the middle of gathering information to start a thread on Whitehead's Process and Reality when I found this:

 

The Cartesian subjectivism in its application to physical science became Newton's assumption of individually existent physical bodies with merely external relationships. We diverge from Descartes by holding that what he has described as primary attributes of physical bodies are really the forms of relationships between actual occasions, and within actual occasions. Such a change of thought is the shift from materialism to organism, as the basic idea of physical science.

(emphasis in original)

 

It is the "displacement of static stuff with with the notion of fluent energy." Keep in mind that Whitehead is talking here of 'actual' human beings in an 'organically real' world. Organic reality - this I have to reflect upon.

 

Myron

[romansh]

...

-indoctrinating children in religion is child abuse,

 

So is the reductionist approach of science. I know that many atheists on the speakers tour will deny this. The point is that some are. Some religious practices toward children are abusive. ...

 

This is from a different thread, but there were some issues cited with reductionism on the thread and it I noticed Dutch's observation.

 

Firstly - are there any practicing scientists knocking around who care to post their Progressive Christian views on this comment? It is OK, non scientists can also pitch in.

 

Here's my two cents worth.

 

My first point is science is reductionism! If anyone says reductionism is a 'bad' idea they are also decrying science.

 

Secondly, science can give us spiritual insights as well. eg the immensity and complexity of the universe and the various bits pieces around us. It fills me with shear awe and wonder.

 

So a comment that suggests that a reductionist approach to science is child abuse us neither progressive nor Christian. This sort of view requires some discussion and clarification.

Edited July 6, 2012 by romansh

[minsocal]

This is from a different thread, but there were some issues cited with reductionism on the thread and it I noticed Dutch's observation.

 

Firstly - are there any practicing scientists knocking around who care to post their Progressive Christian views on this comment? It is OK, non scientists can also pitch in.

 

Here's my two cents worth.

 

My first point is science is reductionism! If anyone says reductionism is a 'bad' idea they are also decrying science.

 

Secondly, science can give us spiritual insights as well. eg the immensity and complexity of the universe and the various bits pieces around us. It fills me with shear awe and wonder.

 

So a comment that suggests that a reductionist approach to science is child abuse us neither progressive nor Christian. This sort of view requires some discussion and clarification.

 

If you wish to say that science is reductionism, then you must first deal with scientists that say it is not.

Edited July 6, 2012 by minsocal

[romansh]

If you wish to say that science is reductionism, then you must first deal with scientists that say it is not.

Not really - in that I don't think so - I can't find too many scientists who would argue against reductionism. There is a caveat though. Ultimately I cannot explain why I prefer a shiraz to say most merlots using quantum mechanics (or similar), at least not yet. But we can deduce the cause of my preferences, perhaps the social sciences, psychology, sciences related to flavours addiction etc. This is reductionism. To deny reductionism is to deny cause. Are you claiming there is no cause to my shiraz preference? The moment we try to identify a cause we are participating in reductionism (science).

 

So what are the other scientists arguments against science being reductionism?

Edited July 6, 2012 by romansh

[minsocal]

Not really - in that I don't think so - I can't find too many scientists who would argue against reductionism. There is a caveat though. Ultimately I cannot explain why I prefer a shiraz to say most merlots using quantum mechanics (or similar), at least not yet. But we can deduce the cause of my preferences, perhaps the social sciences, psychology, sciences related to flavours addiction etc. This is reductionism. To deny reductionism is to deny cause. Are you claiming there is no cause to my shiraz preference? The moment we try to identify a cause we are participating in reductionism (science).

 

So what are the other scientists arguments against science being reductionism?

 

A great deal depends on which branch of science enters into the hall of fame.

[minsocal]

Not really - in that I don't think so - I can't find too many scientists who would argue against reductionism. There is a caveat though. Ultimately I cannot explain why I prefer a shiraz to say most merlots using quantum mechanics (or similar), at least not yet. But we can deduce the cause of my preferences, perhaps the social sciences, psychology, sciences related to flavours addiction etc. This is reductionism. To deny reductionism is to deny cause. Are you claiming there is no cause to my shiraz preference? The moment we try to identify a cause we are participating in reductionism (science).

 

So what are the other scientists arguments against science being reductionism?

 

Do you deny there are such things as human desires? What is the difference in causation between a belief and a desire?

[romansh]

Do you deny there are such things as human desires? What is the difference in causation between a belief and a desire?

 

Hmmn ... interesting question. The short answer for the purposes of this discussion is "no". Different parts of my body have responded using different chemical pathways. That is for me what is the difference between belief and desire. Though I would suggest that wise agnostics should remain sceptical of beliefs. Therein lies a knot of circularity. Take sexual desires; certain coloured splodges on pages on certain kinds of magazine will elicit certain autonomic reponses (at least in my case ). A philosophical statement will elicit a different autonomic response.

 

I have to be very careful here. I don't mean to imply a separation of the self and the cosmos. 'Me' (the boundaries it implies) and the rest of the universe is an arbitrary convention (albeit a useful one).

 

A great deal depends on which branch of science enters into the hall of fame.

 

This reply does not leave me a lot to go on minsocal.

 

Taking psychology one of the most nebulous of our arbitrary boundaries we draw. Does not a clinical psychologist try to understand the antecedents (causes) of a patient's behaviour; more importantly for the patient to be aware of those causes. Of course this is daunting task.

Edited July 7, 2012 by romansh

[minsocal]

Hmmn ... interesting question. The short answer for the purposes of this discussion is "no". Different parts of my body have responded using different chemical pathways. That is for me what is the difference between belief and desire. Though I would suggest that wise agnostics should remain sceptical of beliefs. Therein lies a knot of circularity. Take sexual desires; certain coloured splodges on pages on certain kinds of magazine will elicit certain autonomic reponses (at least in my case ). A philosophical statement will elicit a different autonomic response.

 

I have to be very careful here. I don't mean to imply a separation of the self and the cosmos. 'Me' (the boundaries it implies) and the rest of the universe is an arbitrary convention (albeit a useful one).

 

This reply does not leave me a lot to go on minsocal.

 

Taking psychology one of the most nebulous of our arbitrary boundaries we draw. Does not a clinical psychologist try to understand the antecedents (causes) of a patient's behaviour; more importantly for the patient to be aware of those causes. Of course this is daunting task.

 

This might come as a shock to you, but many psychologists doing therapy are trained to avoid the "why" question. It only leads in the direction of the theory one might be trained in, but not always the experience of the client. That is the real point. There are many theories, reductionist or not. They all compete for the grand prize of being "right". The causal connection sought by many therapists is "what helps my client." I think Jesus had a similar view.

Edited July 7, 2012 by minsocal

[romansh]

This might come as a shock to you, but many psychologists doing therapy are trained to avoid the "why" question. It only leads in the direction of the theory one might be trained in, but not always the experience of the client. That is the real point. There are many theories, reductionist or not. They all compete for the grand prize of being "right". The causal connection sought by many therapists is "what helps my client." I think Jesus had a similar view.

 

Can you give an example of a non-reductionist theory? This concept is illuding me.

Thanks

 

Why is a daft question especially if we are asking for the purpose behind the question.

[minsocal]

Can you give an example of a non-reductionist theory? This concept is illuding me.

Thanks

 

Why is a daft question especially if we are asking for the purpose behind the question.

 

In cognitive science the entire body of work presented by Dr. John Searle.

 

In psychology, take your pick. C. G. Jung, Gestalt, Bowen Family Sytems Theory.

 

Any theory that subscribes to one of the many forms of holism.