Indeed, that science is even a rational form of inquiry (let alone the only rational form of inquiry) is not something that can be established scientifically. The claim that scientism is true is not itself a scientific claim, not something that can be established using scientific methods. Indeed, the culture at large seems beholden to an inchoate scientism-“faith” is often pitted against “science” (even by those friendly to the former) as if “science” were synonymous with “reason.”ĭespite its adherents’ pose of rationality, scientism has a serious problem: it is either self-refuting or trivial. It is evident even in secular conservative writers like John Derbyshire and Heather MacDonald, whose criticisms of their religious fellow right-wingers are only slightly less condescending than those of Dawkins and co. There is at least a whiff of scientism in the thinking of those who dismiss ethical objections to cloning or embryonic stem cell research as inherently “anti-science.” There is considerably more than a whiff of it in the work of New Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who allege that because religion has no scientific foundation (or so they claim) it “therefore” has no rational foundation at all. Scientism is the view that all real knowledge is scientific knowledge-that there is no rational, objective form of inquiry that is not a branch of science.
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