“The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.”
– Claude Lévi-Strauss

But are scientists asking themselves enough questions about scientism? We have asked a science graduate (of MIT) who is interning with us, Sarah Ackley, to write a series of posts on this question, not straightforwardly channeling Tikkun’s editorial stance but wrestling with it from her own point of view. I told her I would try to set the scene. I should say up front that I have come to think that this is one of the two or three most critical intellectual issues of our time. But I didn’t think so before I came to Tikkun and I don’t expect others to come any more quickly to this view than I have done.

I don’t recall hearing the word “scientism” before reading Michael Lerner’s books in the last few years (and I find science prof Lawrence Krauss writing in my favorite science mag in 2008 that he had only heard it in the previous two or three years so I’m not alone). But consulting Wikipedia I discover that it has been used “by social scientists like Hayek or Karl Popper” and “sociologists in the tradition of Max Weber, such as Jürgen Habermas.” Wikipedia says this is what it means:

Reviewing the references to scientism in the works of contemporary scholars, Gregory R. Peterson detects two main broad themes:

1. It is used to criticize a totalizing view of science as if it were capable of describing all reality and knowledge, or as if it were the only true way to acquire knowledge about reality and the nature of things;

2. It is used to denote a border-crossing violation in which the theories and methods of one (scientific) discipline are inappropriately applied to another (scientific or non-scientific) discipline and its domain. An example of this second usage is to label as scientism any attempt to claim science as the only or primary source of human values (a traditional domain of ethics) or as the source of meaning and purpose (a traditional domain of religion and related worldviews).

Krauss, in the piece referred to, thinks scientism is nothing much to worry about, at least compared to “religionism … which describes the philosophical position that God exists and therefore all progress in science, and everything else for that matter, must be interpreted in light of this reality.” He explains in part:

I once spoke at the Pontifical Academy of Science in the Vatican to a meeting that included theologians, biologists and cosmologists. I was discussing cosmology and I said, partly to be provocative, but also because it was true, that the theologians had to listen to me, but I didn’t have to listen to them. Indeed, for modern theology to make any sense, it must take into account what we have found to be true about the physical universe. But as a cosmologist, theological revelations are irrelevant.

I agree with the last two sentences if he is only talking about doing science, because science by definition is looking for naturalistic explanations and measurable results.

But if we are talking about doing what scientists tell us we have to do to save innumerable species and keep climate change to manageable proportions, then I find scientism much more worrying than religionism, and Krauss should also. All the hubristic abuses of religion have never been enough to cause a mass extinction of species or the flooding of great cities and coastlines, still less to threaten human civilization itself (I am assuming that Noah’s Flood did not actually take place!). As pre-scientific animals we were capable of great cruelty to each other but we were not powerful enough to change the world’s climate, pollute its oceans and all our bodies, etc.

It is not science, exactly, that has done this, but the misuse of science. (I hear an echo of “it’s not handguns but people that cause handgun deaths” and that’s only a half truth; but the fact is that we might want to get rid of handguns but we certainly don’t want to get rid of science).

If Krauss was asking the right questions about science and scientism, I believe he would start with asking what can keep our misuse of science in check, once religion has lost authority, as it has among the real rulers of our world today: the corporations and the legislative bodies of the wealthiest countries. The answer I would expect of him, or of any liberal rationalist, is that a rational pursuit of human interests will protect us. But this doesn’t cut it. Quite apart from the fact, increasingly accepted as fact by the relevant sciences, that humans are not notably driven by rationality, there is the issue of how we come to determine our interests and the values that we will pursue. How rational is it for any of us to ditch our short term interests in favor of our unborn descendants’ interests?

It all comes down to “why should I care? “There are good reasons to care and good reasons not to care. Most of us would say the reasons to care about our unborn descendants and threatened species outweigh the reasons not to care, but we continue to act most of the time as if the reverse was true. It’s not ultimately a matter of reason but of the heart. It’s a question of what gods or values our reason will serve. Its about what the real meaning of life is, and how we come to embrace the idea that all people, all species and all living beings are worthy in themselves. It is about how we value the interdependent whole as much as our own individual selves. I don’t have a better word than “spiritual” to describe this search and sensitivity.

The question about scientism, then, is whether it helps or hinders us in choosing values and in treating these chosen values as imperatives in our lives: values that can act powerfully enough in our lives to get us to behave as if we loved the whole planet’s biosphere. We have to cultivate that love, through prose, song, ritual, imagination, art and all the ways humans develop to create strong cultures. Scientism as I understand it is an emotionally cold kind of rationalism that says the search for and embrace of meaning in the heart and spirit and artistic imagination is less important or less authoritative than the scientific kind of search. But clearly it has to be much more important. It has be dominant in our lives if we are to work out how to use the godlike tools science has given us to beneficent effect. If we can’t embrace each other and all species in love, then science will continue to be used to such dangerous effect that the rump of humanity that will be left after our civilization crumbles will reject it out of hand. It will be back to the worst kind of anti-science religion. For true science to flourish and be as beneficent as we wish it to be, we have to dethrone it from our minds as the highest source of authority, and work out how to locate that authority in spiritual imperatives that do not replicate the worst aspects of traditional religion. That isn’t an easy task. It involves studying the nature of cultism and so on, but with a view to recreating science-compatible religion that is strong enough to make science the servant of love and not its judge.

I don’t expect Sarah, our scientifically literate intern, to agree with me about all this. But I hope we have a good time batting the ideas back and forth and hopefully we will all learn something in the process.

Later: Sarah’s first post is here. You can find the rest by clicking on her name under her post’s title.


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