A note on scientism and reductionism

Last updated on: August 30, 2019 at 11:35 am by Dan Peterson

A note on scientism and reductionism 2019-08-30T11:35:28-06:00 Dan Peterson

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I have occasionally used the term scientism here on this blog.

Some of my critics claim that, by scientism, I mean science that has come to conclusions of which I disapprove, or that conflict with my religious beliefs.

This isn’t even remotely accurate.

Mistaken science is still science. Unpleasant scientific discoveries are still scientific discoveries.

Scientism, as I use the term, isn’t science at all. It’s an ideological position about the scope and ability of science. It is, strictly speaking, metascientific. In at least some cases, one might say that it’s parasitic upon science and that it attempts to wrap itself, quite illegitimately, in the mantle and prestige of science.

Scientism claims that all questions can and should be answered by science, that all questions are, in the end, reducible to scientific questions.

But this is, fairly plainly, a proposition that cannot be established by science or tested scientifically. No soil sample will ever demonstrate that all questions can and should be answered by science. No principle of physics entails the conclusion that ethical quandaries are, in the end, resolvable by scrutinizing elementary particles. No amount of chemical analysis will prove or disprove the existence of God. Exact data on the functioning of Napoleon’s vital organs, were such data available, wouldn’t take us very far toward grasping his strategy at Austerlitz. And it isn’t even remotely obvious that precise measurements of the depth and mineral composition of Rembrandt’s paints would fundamentally affect our understanding of his 1658 Self Portrait.

Yes, the material world around us is made of elementary particles. But that doesn’t mean that particle physics displaces chemistry as a legitimate field of study. A significant subset of chemical activity occurs within living organisms. But that in no way entails the conclusion that biology—including such subdisciplines as plant ecology and ichthyology—must surrender its territory to chemists. Moreover, some of those living organisms are humans. But studies focused on humans and human activities—in fields such as art history, anthropology, comparative literature, sociology, archaeology, history, economics, and psychology—retain their legitimacy and their autonomy. While all human enterprises depend upon underlying biology, chemistry, and physics, they aren’t reducible to biological processes, chemical reactions, or the behavior of quarks and gluons.

Plainly, scientism (in my view) is connected with reductionism. But another way of looking at it is to see it as a form of imperialism. As the old saw has it, to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail. So, too, an occasional scientist will insist that his discipline offers the key to the entire universe. (Attempts to seize moral behavior and ethical theory for evolutionary biology seem a fairly obvious example of this.) More often, though—at least in my experience—it isn’t scientists who engage in the most flagrant examples of scientism. They’re too busy counting caribou in the Canadian Rockies, monitoring fruit fly genetics, peering into telescopes, and clambering about in the Grand Canyon—that is, doing actual science—to engage in such fantasies. Rather, it’s typically non-scientists, amateurs, who, in their understandable enthusiasm for the achievements of science and the marvels of technology, go much too far. Hammers are very useful tools, but they’re not equally useful for all purposes. Science is powerful, but its power comes, to a large extent, from its precise and limited focus. Properly understood, it doesn’t claim to be able to do all things—and it’s exactly that modesty that enables it to do certain things extremely well.

Posted from Park City, Utah

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