The three myths of scientism

[C C]

Jonny Thomson: . . . This is exactly what Mary Midgley hoped to draw attention to in her attack on “Scientism”. Midgley spent a lot of her philosophical life looking at those thought patterns or “conceptual schema” that underpin how we each see the world.

[...] She points out that there’s a difference between “doing science” and Scientism. Science is a method and discipline, but Scientism is something more – it establishes a set of beliefs by which to view things.

[...] For Midgley, not only does Scientism haughtily demand obedience to its version of the world, but there’s a deeper problem yet. She believed that Scientism comes embedded with three “myths” which are, themselves, unproven. Scientism passes off as unchallengeable “fact” what are, in fact, actually value judgements. But what are these myths?

Firstly, there is the assumption that if we only look at science a certain way, we’re bound to be overcome with awe and wonder at the “glory of the natural world”...

[...] Secondly, Scientism is happy to claim that science has a monopoly on human knowledge...

[...] Thirdly, Scientism comes with the assumption that it will lead us all to some progressive, Enlightenment utopia...

[...] It in no way “discredits science” to point out that Scientism is something distinct. And it’s entirely possible to do one without believing the other. (MORE - details)

[Magical Realist]

"Midgley also noted Scientism often comes with a condescension towards those who don’t see science as they do. Oppositional views are lambasted as the naïve wish-fulfillment of the weak, probably involving unicorns and leprechauns, angels and devils. Scientism, then, is a faith, or at least a value system, in favour of materialistic asceticism. Which means that it wants to say, “Accept the bleakness of reality!” or “Don’t childishly daydream!” We must all accept The Truth, as defined by science, and to do otherwise is ignorant and superstitious."

Beneath this is a sort of heroic stoicism of seeing the world as nothing but barren facts and formulae, entirely void of mystery and wonderment. This is strange since some the most scientific minds, like Einstein and Sagan, have always included that sort of reverence and enchantment in their own view. Einstein even went so far as to imply some cosmic mind or spirit within the majestic order of the cosmos. True science is always driven by an aesthetic and a spirituality of the transcendent, unlike scientism which reduces everything to mundane factoids and cold abstractions. To the phenomenon itself, taken in it's all of its sublime and emergent glory.

[Syne]

MR missed the part about being "overcome with awe and wonder" to claim scientism is "entirely void of mystery and wonderment". Poor reading retention.

But yes, criticism of scientism is by no means a criticism of science. The former is a primarily leftist dogmatism (complete with reverent, quasi-religious awe), while the latter is a practical matter that freely admits to its own shortcomings, limitations, and transitory nature.

[Yazata]

. . . This is exactly what Mary Midgley hoped to draw attention to in her attack on “Scientism”. Midgley spent a lot of her philosophical life looking at those thought patterns or “conceptual schema” that underpin how we each see the world.

[...] She points out that there’s a difference between “doing science” and Scientism. Science is a method and discipline, but Scientism is something more – it establishes a set of beliefs by which to view things.

It seems to me that science is an attempt to answer particular sorts of questions by methods appropriate to whatever sort of question it is. Various sorts of spectography or mathematical modeling or whatever it is serve to answer particular questions. Justification for the various methods is often kind of intuitive (it just seems logical or reasonable) or is constructed atop an existing body of theory that may in many cases be peculiar to particular sciences. (The methods that molecular biologists or fluid dynamicists use are constructed out of and justified by molecular biological or fluid dynamical theory.)

Scientism on the other hand is simultaneously a broad and general philosophical worldview (typically some form of metaphysical naturalism about the nature of reality along with a whole set of general epistemological beliefs about what truths are and how they are known), a claim to intellectual authority based on that worldview (an implicit and sometimes explicit claim that anything knowable and any claim to knowledge must conform to these foundational beliefs), and a demand that others believe unquestioningly and uncritically whatever idea is flying the flag of 'science' (where value terms like 'should' which are more appropriate to ethics than to science enter the picture front and center.

The thing that most puts me off about scientism is that it's a demand that other people stop thinking for themselves, stop constructing their own hypotheses, and instead just credulously and uncritically believe whatever the adherent of scientism instructs them to believe. Which naturally carries the self-serving implication that the adherent of scientism is intellectually superior. It's often been used for political ends in recent years.

While science is about open questions and various processes of inquiry and discovery, scientism is primarily about claims to possess Intellectual Authority. It's science reduced to something more reminiscent of popular caricatures of the theology of the medieval church. Believe what we tell you to believe or you will be denounced and persecuted.

For Midgley, not only does Scientism haughtily demand obedience to its version of the world, but there’s a deeper problem yet. She believed that Scientism comes embedded with three “myths” which are, themselves, unproven. Scientism passes off as unchallengeable “fact” what are, in fact, actually value judgements. But what are these myths?

Firstly, there is the assumption that if we only look at science a certain way, we’re bound to be overcome with awe and wonder at the “glory of the natural world”...

I think that might just be an empirical fact. Many/most people do respond to natural beauty. They respond to the awesomeness of the cosmos. I'm not sure what to call it, the 'Sublime' maybe. But I expect that it was the first aesthetic experience of prehistoric humanity. The so-called arts (painting, sculpture, music etc.) are in a way attempts to create artifacts that elicit the same kind of response. It's the basis of all sorts of nature mysticism from prehistoric animism to today's "deep ecology".

Secondly, Scientism is happy to claim that science has a monopoly on human knowledge.

Yes, that's fundamental to scientism. It's interesting how the basically aesthetic value above (beauty, awesomeness, the sublime) becomes smeared together and identified with knowledge. I guess that it was the ancient Greeks that pioneered that particular move. The Platonist tradition, exemplified in mathematical physics today, is built around it.

Thirdly, Scientism comes with the assumption that it will lead us all to some progressive, Enlightenment utopia...

Yes, that's implicit and often explicit too. Scientism often takes the place of religiosity in a particular kind of atheist and it seems to be on the increase in our day and age. Science is what reveals the higher eternal truths, the ultimate mysteries and the path towards the ultimate Good. It's what is believed will reveal the should to guide our personal and social lives. In some cases like Karl Marx, it actually takes the form of a sort of soteriology preaching an atheist sort of salvation.

It in no way “discredits science” to point out that Scientism is something distinct. And it’s entirely possible to do one without believing the other.

Very true. But it will fall on many deaf ears these days.

[C C]

For Midgley, not only does Scientism haughtily demand obedience to its version of the world, but there’s a deeper problem yet. She believed that Scientism comes embedded with three “myths” which are, themselves, unproven. Scientism passes off as unchallengeable “fact” what are, in fact, actually value judgements. But what are these myths?

Firstly, there is the assumption that if we only look at science a certain way, we’re bound to be overcome with awe and wonder at the “glory of the natural world”...

I think that might just be an empirical fact. Many/most people do respond to natural beauty. They respond to the awesomeness of the cosmos. I'm not sure what to call it, the 'Sublime' maybe. But I expect that it was the first aesthetic experience of prehistoric humanity. The so-called arts (painting, sculpture, music etc.) are in a way attempts to create artifacts that elicit the same kind of response. It's the basis of all sorts of nature mysticism from prehistoric animism to today's "deep ecology".

Midgley seems to have refined that particular myth to "It’s a myth that claims the awe of science stands, quite sufficiently, as a spiritual surrogate."

So that is "nature" as interpreted through a scientific lens. Some Eastern philosophies/religions may have later projected more systematic, sacred feelings upon the non-artificial environment. But items like animism, a play of opposing philosophical energies, and ecotheology in general predate construing and being dumbfounded by the world in a contemporary science context.

Early peoples confronted nature phenomenally (excluding the early, supplemental belief baggage) without scientific conceptions about it. Indeed, going back millennia before our W.E.I.R.D. mindset and the contemporary artistic and academic idolatry of nature.

And even in the 19th-century, when Thoreau-type apprehensions were poised to be popularized, both everyday practical and ambitious industrial oriented types still exploited North American landscapes and wildlife with little reverence for them.

Which is to say, from my experience, being awed by the natural world through a science filter doesn't seem to be universal. I encounter "extremely pragmatic" people who lack interest in the cosmos (even the neighboring Moon), couldn't care less about particle physics, and are uninterested in biology apart from medical issues, etc. Or to put another way, those nerd obsessions are wasted preoccupations to them in contrast to their immediate concerns about life.