Why Scientism is a Faith

[Anselm33]

No, my opinion applies to science, which is the best – and only – method of knowing what stuff is, what stuff is made of, and how stuff works. If you think that there is a better method to know things about what stuff is, what stuff is made of, and how stuff works, please state the method and demonstrate how you know that is better.

Sure. What I want to eat and what I want to do on a Saturday night are a heck of a lot more important to me than how many subatomic particles we can identify.

Which, again, demonstrates that knowledge is not absolute and that our petty little brains may not be able to figure out every last thing about the universe.

But the fact that knowledge is not absolute doesn’t mean that we are justified in taking claims on faith, which is what your OP is trying to say.

If science can only go up to a point, then that tells us that science can only go up to a point. It does not imply that there has to be some other method of knowing that is superior to science.

Again, if you think that there is a method of knowing that is superior to science, let’s see you demonstrate it and how you know that it is superior.(emphasis added)

It would take more than a single post to respond to the bold-faced question, but if you’re really interested here are some books and articles that will broaden your horizons:
“On Physics and Philosophy” Bernard d’Espagnat
“Laws and Symmetry” Bas van Fraassen
“Issues in the Philosophy of Cosmology” George F R Ellis Handbook in Philosophy of Physics, Ed J
Butterfield and J Earman (Elsevier, 2006),arXiv:astro-ph/0602280v2,
Anselm
PS–you should have waited until I finished editing my previous posts, but thanks for your comments.

 

[Anselm33]

And in response to this edit, I can only repeat that almost no one thinks that science can give “the only truth.”

The term “scientism” is a huge strawman. Science can only ever tell us things about what stuff is, what stuff is made of, and how stuff works. And even then, as you’ve noted, it may have its limits.
But so what? That doesn’t mean that there has to be some other method of knowing stuff that is superior, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we’re justified in accepting claims on faith.

Referring to the bold-face remarks I don’t think you understood my original post. There are lots of people who believe that the only truth that is to be revealed is that which science confirms. That I (and many philosophers and scientists) call “scientism”. And that belief relies as much on faith as does the faith in God. There is no way to confirm that belief by science, and to argue about it, you have to go to disciplines of philosophy and metaphysics.

Anselm
And, as I pointed out in my previous post, there are ways of knowing that will find truth when science is barred, so that means science has its domain (limited) and other disciplines–philosophy, esthetics, religion–have theirs, over which science has no sway.
Anselm.\\

 

[AntiTheist]

Referring to the bold-face remarks I don’t think you understood my original post. There are lots of people who believe that the only truth that is to be revealed is that which science confirms.

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to assume you mean “the only truth about the world around us that is to be revealed is that which science confirms.”

That’s not a “faith,” a belief without evidence. We know – thanks to evidence – that science is the only method that we know of so far that provides a consistently reliable understanding of the world around us.

There is no way to confirm that belief by science

There’s a way to confirm it by evidence – there is a ton of evidence that the inquiries of science and evidence have yielded an insight into the world around us. Take, for example, the computer that you’re reading this message on – it is tangible evidence that we have a fairly accurate understanding of how electrons work.

Again, if you think there is a better way of knowing the world, present some evidence that tells you that there are better ways of knowing. I could make up some quaint stories about the world, but if I wanted to claim that my stories were better ways of knowing things about the world around us than science, I’d have to provide some pretty darn compelling evidence.

there are ways of knowing that will find truth when science is barred

So how about providing some evidence that these “ways of knowing” actually do reveal truth about the world around us?

 

[AntiTheist]

if you’re really interested here are some books and articles that will broaden your horizons

Just to be clear, I’m not looking for a lengthy exposition of your chosen brand of philosophy. I’m looking for tangible evidence that your other way of knowing things about the world around us is better than science in that regard.

For example, I pointed to the computer, which tells us that our understanding of electrons must be fairly accurate. Please point to some specific piece of evidence that reveals that your “other ways of knowing” reveal accurate information about the world.

 

[The_Exodus]

Just to be clear, I’m not looking for a lengthy exposition of your chosen brand of philosophy. I’m looking for tangible evidence that your other way of knowing things about the world around us is better than science in that regard.

For example, I pointed to the computer, which tells us that our understanding of electrons must be fairly accurate. Please point to some specific piece of evidence that reveals that your “other ways of knowing” reveal accurate information about the world.

Science cannot prove the law of contradiction, identity, or causality. Neither can it prove an epistemology or the realiability of sense perception. It rather assumes these things. The study of these first principles is what metaphysics and philosophy are. Science just cannot rise to such a level, much like the tools in the toolbox can never take the place of the person using them.

In all reality, science is nothing more than executing a very basic form of perception: repeatable observation of phenomena. But, we have no guarantee that nature is uniform, and that effects will always follow the same from causes, all things being equal. There are metaphysical claims that must be assumed for science to even get off the ground.

 

[abucs]

I see Western science as emanating from the Christian worldview. We created science to do its job in investigating the material world. In investigating the material world there is no equal of science because that is the best tool we created to do that.

So in looking at the material world there is no better tool. But science does not stand alone. It is part of the traditional religious worldview of the West.

Now true, in the last 200 years non religious have also accepted this tool. They accept it so much that they now make the mistake of believing that it tells us everything because their own philosophy is that there is nothing but the material world.

It is an interesting philosophy they have, but i think science itself invalidates that philosophy (through scientists such as d’Espagnat and Bell mentioned above and many others). The traditional worldview of the West has science as part of its worldview, not the totality of that worldview.

The non religious of the last 200 years of course have their own view which they would like everyone to believe should be the default view instead of as the traditional scientific philosophy would see it - a contrary philosophical addition.

 

[Anselm33]

Just to be clear, I’m not looking for a lengthy exposition of your chosen brand of philosophy. I’m looking for tangible evidence that your other way of knowing things about the world around us is better than science in that regard.

 

[Spock]

Thesis D2: Testable physics cannot explain the initial state and hence specific nature of the universe. A choice between different contingent possibilities has somehow occurred; the fundamental issue is what underlies this choice. Why does the universe have one specific form rather than another, when other forms consistent with physical laws seem perfectly possible? The reasons underlying the choice between different contingent possibilities for the universe (why one occurred rather than another) cannot be explored scientifically. It is an issue to be examined through philosophy or metaphysics

Well, these are examples of questions, which are not relevant for the materialists.

But obviously they are relevant for those who posit them, and ponder them. And so the question arises: “how do they plan to tackle these questions?”. What epistemological method do they use to find answers to such questions? How do they separate the “correct” and “incorrect” answers to these questions? That is what AntiTheist asks, and so far I have not seen any answers.

What is the “meaning” of a Lunar eclipse? What is the “meaning” of leprosy? What is the “meaning” of a sunset? I have this sneaky suspicion that no one can asnwer these questions, since the questions themselves are meaningless and stupid.

 

[Anselm33]

QUOTE=Spock;7271595]Well, these are examples of questions, which are not relevant for the materialists.

But obviously they are relevant for those who posit them, and ponder them. And so the question arises: “how do they plan to tackle these questions?”. What epistemological method do they use to find answers to such questions? How do they separate the “correct” and “incorrect” answers to these questions? That is what AntiTheist asks, and so far I have not seen any answers.

What is the “meaning” of a Lunar eclipse? What is the “meaning” of leprosy? What is the “meaning” of a sunset? I have this sneaky suspicion that no one can asnwer these questions, since the questions themselves are meaningless and stupid.

incredulous stare: You have it all wrong. The answers ARE given by philosophy and religion.
In the case of Ellis, if you read his full article, no observations can be made to decide between various theories. so he says we turn to philosophy/metaphysics to get answers.
. In the case of Townes, who knows considerably more about science and the scientific method than either you or I, it means that not all the answers to things we’re concerned with can be given by science.
The faith of the devout atheist is unshakeable!!! (by logic, facts or ???). I’ve said all I’m going to on this thread. I think at this point the atheists are using the tactic of invincible ignorance (similar to that used by geocentrists), so there’s no point in further discussion.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_ignorance_fallacy
Anselm

 

[hatsoff]

However, this parallel postulate is valid for Euclid’s geometry, but not for that of Reimann or Lobachevsky. so it is faith that would determine which parallel postulate we choose (or the application to a physical situation–just think of the angles of a triangle on a sphere).

But the parallel postulate isn’t taken on faith, but rather it is taken as a foundation to do axiomatic geometry. As you have yourself pointed out, we take it as true in certain contexts, and false in other contexts, depending on our purpose. But whatever we conclude within an axiomatic system is understood to be conditioned on the axioms. We do not take the parallel postulate, for instance, to be true in the same sense that “the sun rose this morning” is true. Rather, we understand it to be true insofar as when we do Euclidean geometry, the parallel postulate holds.

To all the above, the devout believer in scientism might reply, “so what, that’s all abstract mathematical stuff—it doesn’t have anything to do with the real world, like science does”. And to that assertion I will reply, the belief that science explains everything about the world is itself an article of faith; it can’t be proven by science. You can’t do a scientific experiment to show that everything is explained by science. That statement about what science can do is, in fact, a metaphysical argument

You could make that argument, and I would agree to some limited extent (I do not subscribe to “the belief that science explains everything about the world”). However, that argument would not support your original claim that everyone must have faith in something.

And, if to many of you metaphysics is a dirty word (or nonsensical), let me ask, if you believe that science tells us everything about the physical world, how many of you have actually confirmed this, rather than taking the word of others? How many of you have done measurement to prove that the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between two masses? How many of you have done the double-slit experiment with individual particles to show the strange superposition principle of quantum mechanics. And I don’t say that it is wrong to take the word of others as evidence for something. That is how our belief system operates. As a scientist, a physicist 57 years in the field, I believe, along with Galileo that “The Laws of Nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics”, and that theories that are confirmed by repeated measurements reflect the nature of the real world, although possibly incompletely.

Actually, a lot of folks (e.g. myself) have done plenty of basic experiments in high school and college which confirm much of what science teaches. Besides that, we have other reasons to trust scientists, namely their uncanny ability to produce tangible and marvelous results.

Besides taking the word of others in scientific matters, I take the word of others with respect to religious matters. I believe the writings of Alexis Carrel, a Nobel Prize winner (and prior to that observation, not a devout Catholic) that a miracle occurred at Lourdes. catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=2866&CFID=57620704&CFTOKEN=69694874
And as the Catholic Church does in rigorous canonization procedures, I believe in verified miracles, even though these, unlike scientific experiments, are not replicable or controlled. Most importantly, I believe in the greatest miracle of all, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as attested in the New Testament. How else would a bunch of semi-literate fishermen spread a religion that preached no advantage, other than the unverified prospect of salvation, throughout a cynical and materialist world?

See, I can’t find any good reason to trust any of that. Why should I think that the Catholic Church is rigorous in its investigation of miracles? I have no knowledge of that. I might point out that just because it fails to accept some percentage of miracle claims does not mean that it is rigorous. Why believe Alexis Carrel? Why trust the Gospels? Etc. If you can find reasons for these beliefs, great! But the fact that you have tried to defend blind faith suggests to me that you will agree at least some of these beliefs of yours are not founded on reason at all.

So you can believe in your faith, scientism, that science explains everything there is to know about the world, but don’t claim that it is more rational or rewarding than my religious faith. There is so much that science doesn’t explain and never will be able to explain in terms of values, morality, beauty and purpose, that I feel sorry for those who have only scientism to support them.

Perhaps scientism and Christianity are both flawed!

PS—the quotation in French was chosen, not for one-upmanship, but because it is the best definition of faith that I could find, and I wanted it to be in the original French so that linguists better than I could do their own translation.

As a student of French, it is appreciated! Merci pour votre message!

 

[Spock]

incredulous stare: You have it all wrong. The answers ARE given by philosophy and religion.

That is not an answer to my question. Assuming that philosophy and religion DO give an answer (what is the answer, btw? … is it… by any chance… 42??) I am asking about the method these answers are reached? I am asking about the epistemological method of separating right and wrong answers. Can you tell me about it?

In the case of Ellis, if you read his full article, no observations can be made to decide between various theories. so he says we turn to philosophy/metaphysics to get answers.

If two different theories would happen to have the same (precisely and exactly the same) predictive values (which is next to impossible), then it does not matter which theory is accepted. If the predictive value is not the same, then the one which gives better prediction is accepted as a tentative explanation.

. In the case of Townes, who knows considerably more about science and the scientific method than either you or I, it means that not all the answers to things we’re concerned with can be given by science.

Of course there are. So what? What is the “meaning” of an Earthquake? What is the “meaning” of a good dinner? Give me an answer, if you have one.

 

[Rocinante]

“Science wants to know the mechanism of the universe, religion the meaning. The two cannot be separated. Many scientists feel there is no place in research for discussion of anything that sounds mystical. But it is unreasonable to think we already know enough about the natural world to be confident about the totality of forces.”
quoted from Charles Townes, Nobel Prize Winner (Inventor of the Maser)

so we can better understand what you and Townes mean when you say that religion studies meaning perhaps you can clarify.

when you say that something means something, what does that mean?

when you can answer that question better than spock and antitheist, i suppose you’ll have something on them in being more in touch with “meaning” through religious inquiry–but only if you can answer that question.

i’d say that the question isn’t all that deep and dissolves when you stop thinking of it as a deep unanswerable question. “what does this mean?” generally cashes out to, “how is this used?” in those terms, the scientist and the linguist are lacking nothing that the theologians possess in understanding meaning.

rocinante

 

[Rocinante]

I don’t know exactly how many times I’m going to see the same nonsense argument trotted out as if it made any sense at all. It runs like this: “Knowledge isn’t absolute, we can’t be totally sure about every last thing, and there are some quaint philosophical conundrums that we can amuse ourselves with…therefore, I’m justified in believing a claim without sufficient evidence.”

It just doesn’t become a good argument no matter how many ways you try to say it or new examples you try to give.

Yes, math relies on postulates. Yes, we determine history through the best evidence available, and there are some areas in history that we know more about than others. Yes, we can come up with amusing philosophical problems like, “How do we know reality is really real?”

All of the above is completely and totally irrelevant to the fact that we use evidence-based inquiry to determine whether claims are likely to be true. The more valid evidence we can assemble that supports a claim, the more likely the claim is to be true.

You can’t get around this, no matter how hard you try to plug up your ears and convince yourself that everyone else operates on “faith” because knowledge isn’t absolute.

I just noted in another thread that “scientism” is a silly strawman. No one – materialists included – thinks “science can answer all questions.” Science deals with what stuff is, what stuff is made of, and how stuff works. Any subject that pertains to questions outside of those subjects is outside of the domain of science. For example, science can’t tell me what I should have for dinner or what I should do with my Saturday night.

It’s not a “faith” to say that science is the best – and only – way to come to reliable conclusions about what stuff is, what stuff is made of, and how stuff works. We have tons and tons and tons of evidence that this is so.

well said. you have his number alright, antitheist.

 

[Betterave]

you quoted voltaire: “Faith is the belief in that for which reason gives no basis to believe.” (i think that definition is demeaning to faith) if so, then faith is at least nonrational. if someone believes something when reason suggests that belief is false, that would be irrational.

Yes…

scientism usually refers to science as a method and is the epistemological view that only that which is proven through the scientific method can qualify as knowledge. scientism is then hoisted on its own petard since the scientific method can’t be proven with the scientific method.

…and yes.

So *pace *Anselm, scientism is not a faith, it is an irrational superstition.

 

[Betterave]

That is not an answer to my question. Assuming that philosophy and religion DO give an answer (what is the answer, btw? … is it… by any chance… 42??) I am asking about the method these answers are reached? I am asking about the epistemological method of separating right and wrong answers. Can you tell me about it?

The question of method is a fascinating one. What do you think ‘method’ means, Spock? Do you think there is something called ‘the scientific method’ which is an example of ‘an epistemological method’? It sounds that way, so what can you tell us about these things? Do you have any other examples of ‘epistemological methods’ besides ‘the scientific method’?

 

[Rocinante]

The question of method is a fascinating one. What do you think ‘method’ means, Spock? Do you think there is something called ‘the scientific method’ which is an example of ‘an epistemological method’? It sounds that way, so what can you tell us about these things? Do you have any other examples of ‘epistemological methods’ besides ‘the scientific method’?

it is an interesting issue because while there is something defined as “the scientific method” a look at the history of science such as Kuhn’s reveals that this is not actually how science tends to work. those limiting scientific knowledge to that knowledge obtained through the scientific method are left with much less than what we usually regard as science. that is one reason why i prefer to think of science generally and pragmatically in terms of predicting things and getting consensus on how to do that rather than in terms of a particular set of concepts or tools or a particular method.

(anselm doesn’t like me for precisely this reason. he wants to reserve the word science for mathematical modeling alone whereas i see mathematical modeling as just one tool of science.)

 

[Spock]

The question of method is a fascinating one. What do you think ‘method’ means, Spock? Do you think there is something called ‘the scientific method’ which is an example of ‘an epistemological method’? It sounds that way, so what can you tell us about these things?

That is exactly what I mean. The scientific method consists of 1) observation, 2) hypothesis forming (a provisional explanation, based upon heuristics), 3) making prediction based upon the tentative hypothesis, and 4) examining the result of the hypothesis, comparing the prediction to the actual outcome. At that point, if the prediciton is “good enough”, the hypothesis is accepted, if the prediciton is not good enough, the hypothesis is discarded or modified. A chi-square test with a 95% probability is an excellent way to test the relability of the predictions.

Do you have any other examples of ‘epistemological methods’ besides ‘the scientific method’?

Sure. Suppose one is asked many yes/no questions. Unbeknownst to the questioner the respondent tosses a coin for each question, and when heads show, he answers “yes”, and when tails is the outcome, he answers “no”. About 50% of the time he will give the correct answer. Not a very reliable method, for sure, but it can be qualified as an epistemological method. Or one may base the answer based upon how correct it “feels”. Or one may base the answer on what he learned from a textbook. Or maybe what other people say about it… There are lots of ways. The question is here: “which one of these methods gives the best results on the long run?”. And how do we know if the method gave the correct result? Is there something else besides the “prediction - verification” to ascertain that the hypothesis was correct? I don’t have any. Do you?

Now I saw several times that a one-shot event, which is impossible to reproduce is immediately “exempt”, and sheer speculation is the one and only way to go, and any speculation is “equally good”. Obviously it is a naive way to look at things. We cannot reproduce the exact circumstances of abiogenesis here on Earth. But that does not mean that any “explanation” (read speculation) is acceptable. The exact circumstances cannot be duplicated, but similar circumstances can be.

 

[Betterave]

it is an interesting issue because while there is something defined as “the scientific method” a look at the history of science such as Kuhn’s reveals that this is not actually how science tends to work. those limiting scientific knowledge to that knowledge obtained through the scientific method are left with much less than what we usually regard as science. that is one reason why i prefer to think of science generally and pragmatically in terms of predicting things and getting consensus on how to do that rather than in terms of a particular set of concepts or tools or a particular method.

In general I think that’s helpful. But here is where I’d differ: I think we can and should limit ‘scientific knowledge’ to that knowledge obtained through ‘-]the/-] scientific method’; we just need to recognize that most people’s conception of what ‘scientific method’ actually is is essentially based on the simplistic model they learned in elementary school, rather than on the way in which real science works (or real sciences). The stories we all learned about the uniform mode of ‘justification’ for scientific theories tend to disconnect from the reality of scientific ‘discoveries’.

The upshot: we need to try to think a little more carefully (than perhaps Spock does, for example) about what ‘scientific method’ really is.

 

[Betterave]

That is exactly what I mean. The scientific method consists of 1) observation, 2) hypothesis forming (a provisional explanation, based upon heuristics), 3) making prediction based upon the tentative hypothesis, and 4) examining the result of the hypothesis, comparing the prediction to the actual outcome. At that point, if the prediciton is “good enough”, the hypothesis is accepted, if the prediciton is not good enough, the hypothesis is discarded or modified. A chi-square test with a 95% probability is an excellent way to test the relability of the predictions.

Do you think a chi-square test (or some such statistical instrument) is always an excellent tool for assessing scientific hypotheses? Why or why not?

Sure. Suppose one is asked many yes/no questions. Unbeknownst to the questioner the respondent tosses a coin for each question, and when heads show, he answers “yes”, and when tails is the outcome, he answers “no”. About 50% of the time he will give the correct answer. Not a very reliable method, for sure, but it can be qualified as an epistemological method.

I can see that this is a ‘method,’ loosely speaking, but what makes you say it is ‘epistemological’?

Or one may base the answer based upon how correct it “feels”. Or one may base the answer on what he learned from a textbook. Or maybe what other people say about it… There are lots of ways. The question is here: “which one of these methods gives the best results on the long run?”. And how do we know if the method gave the correct result? Is there something else besides the “prediction - verification” to ascertain that the hypothesis was correct? I don’t have any. Do you?

Yes. Basic apprehension. Without this, prediction and verification are not possible. More generally, no assessments of any hypotheses or of any methods for assessing hypotheses are possible.

Now I saw several times that a one-shot event, which is impossible to reproduce is immediately “exempt”, and sheer speculation is the one and only way to go, and any speculation is “equally good”. Obviously it is a naive way to look at things. We cannot reproduce the exact circumstances of abiogenesis here on Earth. But that does not mean that any “explanation” (read speculation) is acceptable. The exact circumstances cannot be duplicated, but similar circumstances can be.

I’d say that sheer speculation is not even a way to go; it’s certainly not the one and only way to go.

 

[Spock]

Do you think a chi-square test (or some such statistical instrument) is always an excellent tool for assessing scientific hypotheses? Why or why not?

I just used the chi-square as an example. The point is the prediction-verification.

I can see that this is a ‘method,’ loosely speaking, but what makes you say it is ‘epistemological’?

Don’t forget, you are the questioner in this example. All you can see is that the respondent gave you correct answers 50% of the time. You are not privy to the method he used.

Yes. Basic apprehension. Without this, prediction and verification are not possible. More generally, no assessments of any hypotheses or of any methods for assessing hypotheses are possible.

Would you explain this in more detail? It seems to me that you deny that there is any way to separate the wheat from the chaff. But I may be misunderstanding your position.

I’d say that sheer speculation is not even a way to go; it’s certainly not the one and only way to go.

Cool. So what is the way to go?