• A creation-like event (singular origin) that opens the door to positing a creator
  
• An infinite regress that just avoids an actual answer
  
• Just accept it as is because some things are forever beyond our understanding
  

Quote:Phillip E. Johnson: Science is a wonderful thing in its place. Because science is so successful in its own territory, however, scientists and their allied philosophers sometimes get bemused by dreams of world conquest. Paul Feyerabend put it best: "Scientists are not content with running their own playpens in accordance with what they regard as the rules of the scientific method, they want to universalize those rules, they want them to become part of society at large, and they use every means at their disposal -- argument, propaganda, pressure tactics, intimidation, lobbying -- to achieve their aims." Samuel Johnson gave the best answer to this absurd imperialism. "A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden."

(Sep 29, 2017 06:19 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: Put on your big boy pants, Syne. 

(Sep 29, 2017 06:19 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: C C quoted Phillip E. Johnson regarding this issue, who in turn quoted Samuel Johnson.  Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, C C.

(Sep 29, 2017 05:13 AM)Syne Wrote: [...] Scientism is essentially equivalent to god of the gaps. [...]

Scientism (Steven Lehar)

[...] But the term Scientism is most often used pejoratively, as a contradiction in terms, because the belief in this more general form of Scientism is not itself a scientific conclusion but just a belief, as unproveable as any other belief system. To quote Michael Shermer (http://www.skeptic.com/scientism.html), "Scientism ... is the self-annihilating view that only scientific claims are meaningful, which is not a scientific claim and hence, if true, not meaningful. Thus, scientism is either false or meaningless." The key point of my thesis is that yes, I acknowledge that Scientism is a religion, in the sense that it is an initial assumption that seems to make intuitive sense to me, but which I cannot prove beyond a doubt, and the readers should decide for themselves whether or not they find this belief credible. So science can be seen in some sense as the latest generation of religious belief, a belief in the triumph of reason over mysticism, as the most proven and reliable path toward the objective truth. But science has not replaced religion entirely, and that is because there is something that religion offers which is outside the scope of science. Religion offers a system of values, right and wrong, good and evil, a code of morality, and that is why even many scientists choose a religious belief to guide their lives. Although science is unquestionably the best tool to answer any question one might choose to ask, science offers no hint as to which questions are important to ask. Questions of value are totally outside the scope of science. Unfortunately religion snatches its moral imperatives seemingly out of thin air....
(PDF) http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/Scientism.pdf

Six Signs of Scientism (Susan Haack)

Briefly and roughly summarized, they are:

1. Using the words “science,” “scientific,” “scientifically,” “scientist,”
etc., honorifically, as generic terms of epistemic praise.

2. Adopting the manners, the trappings, the technical terminology, etc.,
of the sciences, irrespective of their real usefulness.

3. A preoccupation with demarcation, i.e., with drawing a sharp line
between genuine science, the real thing, and “pseudo-scientific”
imposters.

4. A corresponding preoccupation with identifying the “scientific
method,” presumed to explain how the sciences have been so successful.

5. Looking to the sciences for answers to questions beyond their scope.

6. Denying or denigrating the legitimacy or the worth of other kinds of
inquiry besides the scientific, or the value of human activities other than
inquiry, such as poetry or art.

(PDF) https://pervegalit.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/haack-six-signs-of-scientism-october-17-2009.pdf

[...] The political ideology favored by Scientism is the one manifest in nature, and that is the law of free market capitalism and the survival of the fittest. Perhaps if our educational institutions taught the secular religion of Scientism, instead of the naive liberal dogma and idealistic twaddle that currently dominates the discussion in government and academia, perhaps our democracy will finally work as intended by the Founding Fathers, as a check and balance against the natural tendency for a capitalist system to degenerate into a corrupt and wasteful oligarchy. It is telling that the liberal policies are always intolerant to diversity of ideas -- individuals are not permitted to opt out of the social security, welfare, or universal health-care systems even if they agree to forgo their "benefits", the liberal welfare state is imposed on everyone whether they like it or not, whereas in the free market system individuals are free to choose their own level of life insurance, health insurance, and private charitable contributions, and nobody is ever coerced into buying insurance they don't want either for themselves or for their neighbor against their will. This is a system that works, because it promotes a diversity of different strategies, and may the best insurance companies or charitable organizations, or schools or corporations or individuals win, based on their demonstrable results. This is the way that nature works, success is rewarded by success, failure is punished by failure. The liberal welfare state, and the public-private partnerships of the Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and now the major banks and automobile manufacturers, are the beneficiaries of monstrous government largess, and they return the favor by campaign contributions that ensure the continuation of this oligarchic scheme. We know that things have gone too far when the average taxpayer pays almost half of what he earns in taxes, hard working people are indentured slaves who labor for half of their working lives to support the other half of the population who pay no income tax at all.

I dream of a day when Scientism and reason will finally triumph over dogma and ignorance, and become the dominant philosophical belief or religion of our culture. One day a Church of Scientism will collect charitable donations from contributing members, to fund the establishment of educational institutions at home and around the world, to compete directly with the religious schools and madrasses around the world, to spread the good word of science and reason, and make the world a better place for everyone. I dream of a day when the Church of Scientism will be wealthy enough to fund space exploration, beyond government control, to expand humankind, and our trans-human descendants to spread throughout the solar system and beyond, to extend the tendrils of vibrant life out beyond our ancestral home planet. We expand into space not only as an essential back-up copy in case of global disaster, but also by the missionary imperative to expand life upward and outward as far as it can go, as life has always done. Because we believe that Life is Good, and that is the most noble and lofty goal that we as living creatures can pursue. If Scientism is morally right, that truth will eventually be proven so objectively, by the forward-teleology of future generations who will find that it works and helps them thrive and propagate to the farthest reaches of the universe. Those future generations will hopefully look back historically at this birth of the faith of Scientism, and declare that it was good.

(PDF) http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/Scientism.pdf

(Sep 29, 2017 08:26 PM)C C Wrote: Yes, but purely to clarify: Phillip Johnson in the review of Dennett's book was correlating the quote a level up to the aggressive extension of authority in general ("imperialism" or whatever selected hypernym), of which today's label of "scientism" would just be one of many different members in / candidates for the set (including religious forms of tyranny).

(Sep 30, 2017 08:35 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: God of the gaps 

"We’re tackling these mysteries one by one. If you’re going to stay religious at the end of the conversation, god has to be more to you than just where science has yet to tread."—Neil deGrasse Tyson

(Sep 30, 2017 08:35 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: I'm curious. Are you all for capitalism?

(Sep 30, 2017 09:07 PM)Syne Wrote: Yeah, that's so trivially true (at least to the religious) that it's no wonder it took a demagogue like Tyson to act as if it were profound. Being a purveyor of scientism himself, Tyson doesn't realize that even those would do argue god of the gaps only do so in regard to materialist evidence claims. The notion that god is nothing more than those gaps is laughably ignorant.

(Oct 1, 2017 01:52 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:

(Sep 30, 2017 09:07 PM)Syne Wrote: Yeah, that's so trivially true (at least to the religious) that it's no wonder it took a demagogue like Tyson to act as if it were profound. Being a purveyor of scientism himself, Tyson doesn't realize that even those would do argue god of the gaps only do so in regard to materialist evidence claims. The notion that god is nothing more than those gaps is laughably ignorant.

I’m not so sure that it was Neil deGrasse Tyson that was the first to point out the obvious. The demagogue could have easily been Dr. Francis Collins. A much earlier version of those exact same sentiments are found on the website of his organization BioLogos, which all began with this scientist and his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

BioLogos invites the church and the world to see the harmony between science and biblical faith as we present an evolutionary understanding of God’s creation.