Talk:Scientism

Third kind of scientism?

Isn't "We are academia, we are right, all others are crackpots." called scientism, too? TBH, this is more near to fascism. --VictorPorton (talk) 04:15, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

No, not if the academic subject isn't related to science. Only those subjects that are scientific can have a relation to scientism. Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 14:59, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Proposing a more accurate opening sentence

Currently the opening sentence makes scientism sound virtually the same as science. It does not explain why people use the term to criticize limits of science. As is, the sentence also assumes that "objective" means are the only means to every form of "truth." Only the second sentence attempts to explain the difference between scientism and science. The second sentence, however, emphasizes "religious scholars." By doing so it makes it sound like the criticism of scientism generally comes only from those of faith.

The two sentences read as follows: <<Scientism is the view that science is the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values. While the term was originally defined to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist", some religious scholars (and subsequently many others) adopted it as a pejorative with the meaning "an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)".[1]>>

As the very first thing a reader sees, the first sentence should at least allude to the difference between science and scientism. It should also rely on an authoritative source.

The second sentence, then, should make the best case for criticizing the kinds of science that show a belief in scientism.

Here is a draft revision of both:

Scientism is "The belief that only knowledge obtained from scientific research is valid, and that notions or beliefs deriving from other sources, such as religion, should be discounted." While it originally meant merely "A mode of thought which considers things from a scientific viewpoint," the term "scientism" came to refer more specifically to "an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)." [this requires the Webster's citation already posted]

[1 new citation] Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). "scientism, n.". https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/172696?redirectedFrom=scientism

Because I am not skilled at the insert reference footnote functions, I have made an even simpler revision. It maintains the Webster's reference, shortens both the first and second sentences to make them more accurate and inclusive of the criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rtorosyan (talk • contribs) 16:18, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Disagree, stable version is more nuanced than your edit. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:59, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you @Tgeorgescu for your specific edits to the the page -- I appreciate the accuracy and nuance you brought to it! Roben Torosyan, Ph.D. (talk) 00:55, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Demarcation problem

The distinction between science and scientism is also a kind of demarcation problem. Over the coming months and years we should try to elaborate on this in this article (I'm now motivated to go over cited reliable sources for such info). For now I'm just going to add a link to the Demarcation problem Wiki article into this article's 'See also' section. Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk)

For many scientists, scientism is a polemic term applied by the WP:FRINGE.

Scientism is a term I only ever hear from homeopathists and creationists. It's an understandable reaction to the fact that the scientific debate is over and they lost.
— User:JzG

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 17:22, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

OK, that is a rather polemic statement itself. Criticisms:

1) Wikipedia has a Scientism article, this article. It quotes a definition by Karl Popper, among others. Scientism therefore exists and is a valid subject for Wikipedia. If you want to bring up the subject of fringe beliefs that misappropriate the concept of scientism then please add a section documenting such to this article. Otherwise, your concern if valid is grounds for the deletion of this article, and therefore you should nominate this for deletion. There is no honest third option.

2) Not all persons who purport the existence of scientism are homeopathists and creationists. This article documents several, again including Karl Popper.

3) Several major world religions define and criticize scientism. Are they 'fringe'? Remember, scientism is a philosophical subject, one does not need to be a scientist to understand it.

If anything it may be that those who deny the existence of scientism are also a fringe.

In conclusion science is real, scientism is real, and so it stands to reason there is a demarcation line between them. I see a long term project here to cull already cited sources for evidence of a demarcation line, which I would like to help. This subject cannot be waived away.Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 19:00, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

You conflate WP:N with WP:DUE. That means we tell how fringe pushers use the term in order to bash real science, but we don't endorse their POV in the voice of Wikipedia. Speaking about religion: the existence of the Holy Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, and such, are unknowable. So, science cannot affirm or oppose such dogmas, since there is no way to know if such dogmas are true or false. These dogmas are devoid of alethic value, from the perspective of objective knowledge. I.e. such dogmas are subjective opinions, hierarchically imposed upon some communities of believers. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:36, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

The fact that some opinions are subjective is immaterial. In fact arguably all philosophy is subjective, including the philosophy of science. There are in fact schools of philosophy that argue that the postulate "the universe is comprehendible to human reason" cannot be proven true, that we merely accept it as so without proof [Note: these are not my opinions, I merely note that it can be so argued]. What is material is that we have an article on scientism and I've proposed an area of improvement. I fail to see how a rigorously researched and cited assessment of the overlap of the demarcation line and scientism can be in error, let alone supportive of fringe beliefs. Do you seriously think that if I come back in 3 or 6 months with cited references to works already cited in this article regarding the demarcation line problem (assuming I can find them) that it will subvert this article? Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 21:41, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

P.S. I must confess that until today I understood the demarcation problem to be limited to activities inside the scientific method, or to the pseudoscientific activities that mimic it. However, the Demarcation problem article itself is written to strongly imply otherwise. There is a great deal of overlap between the opening of that article and this article, which raises the possibility or likelihood of an outside demarcation line. This is what prompted me to begin this inquiry. I cannot believe that this would constitute original research on my part, that no one ever thought of it in these terms before. Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 22:09, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

@Tfdavisatsnetnet: I replied to an argument. Obviously, I cannot judge your edits before you make them some months later. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:11, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Heh. If your first reply was an attempt to assess my motives then it was crude and underhanded, since I originally posted nothing to bring up fringe views. You could have just asked what my motives are. I say your first reply was in bad faith. You assumed that my motive was likely to promote fringe views, without evidence. Fact is I have 40+ years of experience with teaching science in public settings, 15 years of them for hire. I have tangled with creationists, astrologers, and other purveyors of pseudoscience. I have always promoted Popperian definitions of science. I see no value in your approach with me. If I can find evidence to support adding a demarcation problem section to this article then I'll be back, if not then have a good life.Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 23:08, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

@Tfdavisatsnetnet: You take things too personally. Of course it was a comment, however it wasn't a comment about you. It's an abstract philosophical point, it has nothing to do with your own person. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:26, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

"Best or only"

Recently an IP editor wished to remove the words "best or" from the lead sentence: "Scientism is the view that science and the scientific method are the best or only objective means by which people should determine normative and epistemological values." This removal of "best or" is not acceptable because it is a fact that there are different views labeled by the term scientism: roughly, one view is that science is the "best" source of objective knowledge, and another view is that it is the "only" source. For example, the cited article in Metaphilosophy by Hietanen et al. (2020) divides epistemological scientism "into four categories in terms of how strong (science is the only source of knowledge) or weak (science is the best source of knowledge) and how narrow (only natural sciences) or broad (all sciences or at least not only the natural sciences) they are". Hietanen et al. cite many sources that make this distinction. As philosopher Maarten Boudry summarized it for the American Philosophical Association in 2020: "either you adopt a narrow or a broad definition of science, and either you believe that science is the only valid source of knowledge or that it is simply the best one available". An up-to-date definition of scientism today has to account for these subtleties in the mainstream philosophical literature. Biogeographist (talk) 21:35, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Should these distinctions be added to the body of the article? Are there criticisms of these distinctions that may also be cited?

Thanks! Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 23:37, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

The "best or only" distinction is a very general meta-level description. For example, a draft of a chapter by Amanda Bryant in the forthcoming book For and Against Scientism: Science, Methodology, and the Future of Philosophy (due to be published on 15 April 2022, so some people probably already have a copy of the book) says: "attempts to generate a specific and contentful formulation of scientism have produced vastly many substantively distinct theses, both of the inherently negative variety (Haack 2003, 2012, 2017; Pigliucci 2010; Sorell 1991) and of non-negative varieties (Buckwalter and Turri 2018, Ladyman et al. 2007, Mizrahi 2017, and Rosenberg 2011). This has, in turn, resulted in the need to catalog, compare, and taxonomize the various formulations (Hietanen et al. 2020, Peels 2018, Stenmark 2018). So at this complicated juncture in the dialectic, it is clear that there is no one thing, scientism, about which we can gauge overall philosophical sentiment. Rather, there are a range of scientisms, our attitudes toward which require much more directed and detailed sociological investigation." It would be wonderful if the body of the article explicated the detailed distinctions at the lower levels, but we are not there yet; currently the article is rated between start class and C class, which seems accurate. Updating the body of the article with recent taxonomies of scientisms should be on the to-do list if anyone cares to take up the task. Biogeographist (talk) 20:33, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, I care. Looks like I'll be getting a copy of For and Against Scientism: Science, Methodology, and the Future of Philosophy. Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Strong and weak added

Hi, I have added a "Strong and weak scientism" subsection to "Definitions", mostly because I heard the distinction made by JP Moreland and thought it might be worth noting. I have not yet read any of the sources with "broad" and "narrow", but I should. Thiagovscoelho (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Short description

We have been struggling to find a decent short description. The lead includes an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science ... which I have reduced and used as a short description of Excessive trust in the scientific method (40 characters) — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 20:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem with the short description "Excessive trust in the scientific method" is that it's not WP:NPOV compliant. "Excessive" is a debated POV (e.g. see the previous talk page section above, and the debates documented in the article). Per WP:SDCONTENT, short descriptions must comply with Wikipedia content policies including NPOV. Biogeographist (talk) 13:42, 11 September 2024 (UTC)