Why Scientism is A Dead End for Science As Well As Philosophy

In 2019, Canadian scholar and journalist Patrick Keeney offered a look at atheism and scientism at C2C Journal. He chose as his focal point the then-recent fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Now that it has reopened, his essay is worth another look five years on:

Western culture developed through the mingling of Judeo-Christianity, Greek philosophy and Roman law. Yet for the past 50 years, western nations have seen the retreat of Christianity from the public square and the general loss of religious faith among its citizenry. The conflagration at the Cathédrale leads us to ponder what we risk losing in a fully secular, post-Christian world. How did we arrive at this historical juncture, when the spiritual truths and ancient verities upon which our civilization has been built have crumbled before the tribunal of reason and science?

“Atheism, Scientism And The Lingering Of The Numinous,” (May 13, 2019)

English Common Law derived originally from Roman law, which is why we still use so many Latin legal terms like “habeas corpus” (you must have the body, i.e., evidence) or “ultra vires” (it is beyond the scope of his authority).

He discusses the way that the 18th-century Enlightenment introduced scientism, the idea that all valid knowledge derives from the sciences:

The Enlightenment understanding has become deeply entrenched in our hyper-scientific age. Post-enlightenment progressivism regards natural science as the logical outgrowth of reason and the paradigm of knowledge. There is a pervasive, if frequently inchoate view that any form of human understanding that either does not or cannot conform to the norms of scientific inquiry is suspect. “Lingering Of The Numinous”

The key flaw in scientism

Of course, an absolute monopoly for science on truth conceals a fatal flaw. If scientific inquiry becomes corrupt or useless, we can find help from no other quarter.

Thus he goes on to say,

Clearly, not all questions are scientific ones. Probably not even the majority. We have, for example, endless questions dealing with the human spirit and therefore considerations lying outside the experimental purview of science. Likewise, we struggle with questions of morality and ethics, queries which simply don’t admit to scientific answers. Similarly, vast swathes of ordinary life are not merely outside the scope of science, they’re areas where scientific methods are unnecessary and irrelevant. Most of the significant questions we face in our life – Should I go to university or pursue a trade? Should I get married to this person, or at all? What are the risks and benefits of accepting this job? – demand practical judgement, perspicacity and discernment rather than scientific precision. The scientistic thinker, however, always attempts to create the appearance of a scientific question, and employs the methodologies of science to provide an ersatz exactitude and illusion of rigour. As Aristotle famously advises in the Nichomachean Ethics, “Our account of this science will be adequate if it achieves such clarity as the subject-matter allows; for the same degree of precision is not to be expected in all discussions.”“Lingering Of The Numinous”

Much of the pop psychology we encounter is an attempt to scientize questions that are actually philosophical ones.

On the other hand, Keeney notes, some scientists and philosophers acknowledge the problem:

But there are dissenting voices to scientism among scientists themselves. “Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will serve only to undermine the credibility of science as a whole,” writes Austin L. Hughes, Carolina Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina, in his essay The Folly of Scientism. “One longs for a new Enlightenment to puncture the pretensions of this latest superstition.” In like fashion, the mathematician and scientist David Berlinski has taken to task the so-called “New Atheists” – the likes of the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. Berlinski is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle.

In his book, The Devil’s Delusion, Berlinski suggests that, “Confident assertions of scientists in their labs that God does not exist have nothing to do with science, and even less to do with God’s existence.” Berlinski sees the scientific atheists as united by a simple (and simple-minded) message: “Because scientific theories are true, religious beliefs must be false.” Besides failing a basic test of logic (again, logic being a branch of philosophy, not science), this fundamentally misconstrues science and its limitations and is therefore a species of scientism. As Berlinski notes, “If science is opposed to religion, then it is not because of anything contained in the premises or the conclusions of the great scientific theories.”

“Lingering Of The Numinous”

Atheist philosophers often understand that. Keeney cites Thomas Nagel, for example:

In his recent book, Mind and Cosmos, the philosopher Thomas Nagel challenges the standard assumptions of the scientific consensus. For Nagel, the modern scientific desideratum – a quantified understanding of the world, expressed in mathematical formulae — can never bring anything beyond a partial understanding of nature. For it omits mind and consciousness. Nagel points out that current models of physical science leave no conceptual place for cognition, desiring, valuing, appreciating or all those other subjective mental activities that define our lives. He maintains we can only arrive at a reasonably comprehensive view of nature if we find a way of putting mind and consciousness at the centre of our understanding of the natural order. In order to do so, we will need to revive the discredited idea of teleology in nature. We need to ascribe a purposiveness to the natural world. “Lingering Of The Numinous”

The whole essay is well worth revisiting. Especially so if you need both intellectual and emotional support when you find yourself discussing a popular question with someone who insists that “The real answers are to be found in science!” — without any agreement as to what the real questions are.