Doing Away With Scientism

[Philosophy Now]

Ian Kidd exposes the errors of the science fundamentalists.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/102/Doing_Away_With_Scientism

[jayjacobus]

There is alot of truth in this article. In fact most of what is said mirrors my own thinking. But one thing that can be said about scientists is that they speak with one voice on the major issues. Philosophers have many voices.

[Greta]

Karl Popper for instance, argued that the hallmark of genuine scientific hypotheses was that they had the potential to be proved wrong – or that they would be, in his term, ‘falsifiable’. However, other philosophers of science, such as Imre Lakatos and Thomas Kuhn, soon pointed out that Popper’s ‘falsification’ doesn’t accurately describe the way all science is done. Science, it seems, is too messy and complex for such one-sized-fits-all characterisations.

There's a seemingly common expectation in the west that, figuratively speaking, if a hammer fails at tuning bolts then it is a flawed tool.

Popper reasonably made the distinction clear - science deals with that which is testable and falsifiable. However, as implied above, nature is very complex and it sometimes does not restrict itself to activities that may be falsifiable by early 21st century researchers.

So, if something can be falsified, use the scientific method. If something can't be falsified, then we need to consider other tools at our disposal in our mental toolbox, eg. mathematics, logic.

[Science Fan]

Isn't social science itself scientism? After all, social science assumes behavior is predictable and people don't have free-will, without ever establishing this as being true.

[-1-]

Ian James Kidd is a ninnie.

He completely missed the point of science and scientism. He pits it against relgion and philosophy, and declares a tie.

There is no tie. The realms of knowledge are not interlapping between the three disciplines. He painfully misses that.

Religion deals with historically codified mysticism. That is neither philosophy nor science. Philosophy is more an enemy of religion, because the two use axiomatic truths as premises and the results of the findings of the two are wholly different, because their axiomatic truths on which they build their theories, are mutually declared as false.

Philosophy deals with largely unverified theories that rely on logic, and uses axiomatic truths that are questionable.

Science leaves nothing to speculation, much unlike philosophy and religion. Science IS more accurate in predicting those events in the physical world, which are epistemologically strictly empirical. Things happen, science predicts which things happen and why and how to make them happen in the realm of the observed.

======================

Ian Kipp throws in some expressions and opinions, and calls them triumphant in proving science and scientism is weak in its findings of truth.

For instance, he writes: "A common example is the claim that science emerged suddenly and triumphantly in the seventeenth century, quickly collapsing the shaky house of cards that was Christian theology, and rapidly erecting in its place a solid edifice of scientific knowledge that will – so the story continues – soon see us emerge as rational, logical, enlightened beings and take our place a myth-free citizens of a society of secular Spocks. Such a scenario may be good fodder for science fiction, but few if any historians of science, religion, or culture find such a story plausible."

Here, he invokes an Ad Hominem fallacy, namely, appeal to authority. He does not even come near to explaining why the "story ... (in)plausible." He leaves it to the reader to figure this out, because apparently he can't prove this, and can't even come near to convincingly explain his point. He simply leaves it as an ad hominem argument.

He does this all through his paper.

Kipp writes, "Finally, the American mathematician Norman Levitt writes in Prometheus Bedevilled of his dislike of Science Studies scholars – victims of ‘faddishness’ and ‘ideological obsessions’." Ad hominem again, of which his article has an abundance. Who cares Levitt dislikes science studies scholars? And his accusations are mentioned, but not shown in detail. He (Kipp) does it all through his paper.

Kipp writes, "Atkins and Levitt, for instance, are hostile to philosophy because in their view it challenges the authority of science by peddling postmodernist conceits or introducing capricious conceptual confusions, and so must be counteracted." What are some instances of it? Atkins and Levitt may be simpletons much like Kipp, and Kipp's problem is that he takes them seriously. No scientist will waste any brain activity on trying to prove philosophy wrong, evil. Atkins and Levitt; are they scientists or philosophers? Plus Kipp never gives an example of "capricious conceptual confusions". What? Is that something that any scientist ever gave a hoot about? Again, Kipp is vague, unconvincing and superficially stupid.

Kipps further writes: "For it is an injustice to rest the prestige of science upon false conceptions of its development and status; an injustice, too, to resort to overheated rhetoric about its merits and magic;" Only an idiot would claim that scientists believe their work involves magic, or claiming that science as an endeavour of inquiry, claims any sort of prestige. Whether there are scientismists who claim this, or this is Kipp's view, this is completely uncharacteristic of science.

Kipp writes, "Whatever science is – and that is a large and on-going debate – it does not need scientism to merit our admiration and appreciation,"

Science does not need admiration and appreciation. Only stupid little fucks like Kipps think that. Science is not an organism that has needs and motivations. It is a type of inquiry.

The article closes with "Ian Kidd is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Durham University". They left out t a few of his qualifications, that are incredibly important to know if you want to buy his article, or understand why he wrote it in the first place. I think his credentials would be better described this way:

"Ian James Kidd is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Durham University, a stupid little fuck, and a religious-minded individual who ought to have kept quite instead of showing his true nature of religious zealotry in a community which is largely uninterested or hostile toward religious considerations."

I left the best for the last.

Kipp writes, "we might adopt the daunting German term Wissenschaft, which means, roughly, ‘systematic rational enquiry’." Here he completely exposes his enormously sized ignorance. He claims to speak German, and he shows to any bilingual person that he lightyears away from getting the point. "Wissen" in German is the noun form of the verb "to know". "-schaft" is a noun qualifier, which is customarily expressed by the enidng "-y","-hood", "etc, in English. Y ending is what we use in creating words like "army" from "arms", or vegetariantaxidermy form vegetariantaxiderma. Wissenshaft simply means science, or knowledgeness. Systematic in German is "regelemassig" or "systematisch", rational is expressed with the words "vernunftig", and enquiry is expressed as Studium or Anfrage. So he claims that "systematic rational enquiry" is translated into German as "Wissenschaft", whereas in reality it is translated as "Regelmassige vernunftige Anfrage".

Why Kipp exposed himself into such an easily shot-down position can be only explained by the fact that he is an idiot.

================

Why does shit like Kipp get to publish in a peer-reviewed journal, writing complete gibberish, while none of us on the forums can get published with our clearly written, logical and sensible essays?

I tell you why: because Kipp, before he lost his mind, earned a Ph.D. He is in the club. These days it's only credentials that will get you published. They figure these people paid their dues, they went through umpteen years of training, they can publish, because THE PAID THEIR DUES, IN THE MOST LITERAL SENSE OF THE WORD.

Einstein, Student, Newton, would never get published today as scientists, and Hume, Nietzsche, or Camus would never see their work in print in today's world if they started out today.

This whole world is fucked. I am glad we are frying ourselves in deep hot shit of global warming. We deserve no better.

When I see bloody shit like this essay by Kipp, my blood boils.

[Science Fan]

1 Care to explain how science leaves nothing to speculation when it is dependent on mathematics, which simply assumes axioms are true? Care to give us the solution to the problem of induction that haunts science and places it firmly on a circular-reasoning foundation? Care to provide a single scientific experiment that could ever verify the validity of any scientific method? (You won't be able to do it, which makes the existence of a scientific method or methods a philosophical question, and not a scientific one.) I can go on, but your claim that science produces knowledge while philosophy does not is an excellent example of scientism.

[Immanuel Can]

...your claim that science produces knowledge while philosophy does not is an excellent example of scientism.

Quite true.

I've found that naïve Scientism is most common among those who have a very little, but not nearly enough, familiarity with science. They know enough to see it has great advantages, but don't see it clearly enough to know that it doesn't yield certainty, but rather, merely increased probability. Hence, they imagine it involves no episteme, no traditions of knowledge, no logic and no value judgments at all; and thus, they tidily assert that it can be neatly separated from things like philosophy.

That sort of claim is clear evidence of someone being dazzled by, but not informed about science.

[A_Seagull]

Those who are opposed to scientism appear to have an irrational fear of it... their response is more emotional than rational.

I can only conclude that this is because they fear its power to overturn their long-cherished beliefs.

If scientism is really so bad.. what are its logical flaws? No one has yet presented evidence of any logical flaw.

[Impenitent]

as mentioned above, science suffers from the fallacy of induction...

-Imp

[Science Fan]

It takes all of 30 seconds to debunk scientism's claim that only science provides knowledge. Here goes: 1. Science is dependent on mathematics. 2. All objects in mathematics are abstractions, and, since one can never do experiments on an abstraction, mathematics cannot be a science. 3. Thus, we have knowledge through other means besides science, and, furthermore, science cannot even function without that type of knowledge.

So, what is it that I have to fear about scientism? I don't fear it. I just think it's overly pretentious and down-right stupid.

[-1-]

It takes all of 30 seconds to debunk scientism's claim that only science provides knowledge. Here goes: 1. Science is dependent on mathematics. 2. All objects in mathematics are abstractions, and, since one can never do experiments on an abstraction, mathematics cannot be a science. 3. Thus, we have knowledge through other means besides science, and, furthermore, science cannot even function without that type of knowledge.

So, what is it that I have to fear about scientism? I don't fear it. I just think it's overly pretentious and down-right stupid.

Absolutely.

Except science is not always dependent on mathematics.

Some if it is, but some of it is not.

But all science is dependent on observation.

I agree absolutely that scienticism is a hoolabaloo, a vehicle for stupid people who don't understand science, and feel or opine that science needs emotional and moral support. That is so not true.

Scienticism is for science-aficionados much like hifolutin admiration is for admirers of Socrates et al, and much like a blind devotion to a belief in god is for the ignorant but enthusiastic believer. Socrates never needed (after his death) any enthusiastic and moral support for his vision and logic, and religious objects never needed... well, they did. That's why scienticism smells badly of religionism: blind faith in something that the believer can't comprehend.

[-1-]

Those who are opposed to scientism appear to have an irrational fear of it... their response is more emotional than rational.

I can only conclude that this is because they fear its power to overturn their long-cherished beliefs.

If scientism is really so bad.. what are its logical flaws? No one has yet presented evidence of any logical flaw.

I think science is different from scientism, and from scienticism, and we are all talking about it as if we had already come to a concensus as to what they mean, whereas we have not.

Science is a human endeavour of enquiry. Scientism -- I have no definition for it. Scienticism is the explanation of the importance of science and moral and emotional support for it. It is replete (in most cases) with dramatizing in terms of human perspective, and/or anthropomorphizing nature and natural forces.

[-1-]

1 Care to explain how science leaves nothing to speculation when it is dependent on mathematics, which simply assumes axioms are true? Care to give us the solution to the problem of induction that haunts science and places it firmly on a circular-reasoning foundation? Care to provide a single scientific experiment that could ever verify the validity of any scientific method? (You won't be able to do it, which makes the existence of a scientific method or methods a philosophical question, and not a scientific one.) I can go on, but your claim that science produces knowledge while philosophy does not is an excellent example of scientism.

If you are talking to me: I said science produces empirical knowledge. That I stand by.

If you oppose that, then conduct this experiment (not merely a thought-experiment):
1. Science provides no knowledge (your claim).
2. Science has established by empirical observation that arsenic is a poison. You reject this, since it is knowledge that science has established. Therefore according to you, arsenic is a poison in terms of scientific knowledge, and scientific knowledge ab ovo does not exist, therefore arsenic is not a poison.
3. Please consume a quantity of arsenic, and then, and only then, after that, pick up on replying to refute this argument.

[-1-]

Care to give us the solution to the problem of induction that haunts science and places it firmly on a circular-reasoning foundation?

What IS the problem of induction? I am unfamiliar with that term or expression or idea.

[Science Fan]

1: Circular reasoning is generally considered as a flaky method of grounding a system. Take for example, religious people who claim God exists? How do they know? Some claim because the Bible says so. How do they know the Bible is reliable? Because it contains the word of God. How do they know God exists? Because the Bible says so....And on and on they go, which seldom convinces any atheist to believe in a God, because of the circular nature of the argument.

Science rests on the same circular foundation. How does science know something? Because of induction. How do we know we can rely on induction for knowledge? Because induction has worked before. So, science ultimately rests on a claim that induction can be used to justify induction, which is entirely circular.