An ID view of scientism (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, January 15, 2010, 20:24 (5222 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: What the ID advocate is doing is phrasing an extreme faith of scientific materialism as scientism. -There are two very different definitions of scientism. One is: "use of the scientific method of acquiring knowledge, whether in the traditional sciences or in other fields of inquiry." No-one could possibly object to that, could they? But the second, as indicated in the article and often used pejoratively, is based on "the conviction that the material world is all there is". That's where the trouble begins. One of my dictionaries, in the context of the second definition, contains a quotation from Brian D. Josephson and Beverley A. Rubik, The Challenge of Consciousness Research, 1992: "We feel that the attitude that predominates in science at present is arrogance, which has fostered dogmatism and scientism." Note their field of study.-This form of scientism is indeed an extreme faith, as embraced by writers like Dawkins, because it categorically attributes life, consciousness and every phenomenon connected with consciousness, to material sources that have produced them by accident. I would argue (and George will disagree!) that there is no scientific evidence that life and consciousness are ... or even can be ... a D-I-Y product, and anyone who thinks they are has no more and no less evidence than anyone who thinks they aren't. Nobody knows. I need to put that more emphatically. Nobody KNOWS. It's a matter of belief.-And this is the problem, as I see it, with your next argument, Matt: "Reliability of a system of gaining knowledge is in my opinion, the utmost in important criterion in using it. [...] If science is the best, then I don't know a better argument for what could be more valid, knowledge gained from an unreliable system, or knowledge gained from science?" -I don't think anyone would deny that there are certain types of knowledge for which science is incomparably the best system. Whatever makes the material world tick is the province of science, and no matter how imperfect scientists themselves may be, they are no more imperfect than any other branch of humanity. We shouldn't judge science, any more than we should judge religion, by its practitioners. But science can only 'know' these material realities, and if nobody 'knows' whether all realities are material, the so-called reliability of science becomes irrelevant to other types of knowledge. These MAY (only may) include the origin of life and the nature of consciousness.-In no way does that invalidate the scientific approach. But it may very well invalidate the claim that science is the only reliable approach. How could it be, if reality should turn out to have dimensions beyond the material ones we know? It can only be reliable if scientism's (2nd definition) basic, absolutely unproven premise is correct. David's post quotes John Lennox, who says "that if Atkins's assertion were true, it would at once render philosophy, ethics, literature, poetry, art, and music irrelevant for our understanding of reality." He might have added emotions such as love. Science is supreme in its own field of material reality; it has no authority in the fields listed by John Lennox; and in my opinion it has neither more nor less authority in the territory where those fields overlap.-*** I've just read your latest post, in which you have put on your agnostic hat and argue very much along my own lines. I'll keep this post as it is, though, and leave you and your brother in law till tomorrow!