Merged Is Scientism Really Justified?

[JayUtah]

I found the "authentic frontier gibberish" of Blazing Saddles to be a great deal more convincing than Boaz.

"You know—morons."

The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) was co-founded by Edgar Mitchell, one of the first men to walk on the moon, who used part of his time in space to conduct ESP experiments with some of his friends on earth. IONS is notable for its contributions to the science behind several of Dan Brown's novels.

And, as long as we're dropping names, someone I considered a dear friend. Mitchell, not Brown.

I think we can all drink to that.

Way ahead of you.

 

[Dave Rogers]

You are doing everything possible to avoid the actual question: How does strict scientism logically justify its own premise that empirical science is the only source of valid knowledge, without relying on circular reasoning?

Is that, then, the actual question you're trying to ask in this thread? Because, if so, you've taken the devil of a time getting round to asking it.

And that's where I think you're wrong to invoke the genetic fallacy in terms of your use of AI to compose and to interpret posts in a language that is not one you speak fluently. The issue is that you have a particular understanding of the nuances of what you are trying to say, which may or may not be transmitted correctly via your AI tool -and, I have to say, due to the idiosyncratically stilted form of your language, I strongly suspect not - and the rest of us have a corresponding one of ours, again which may be lost in translation. The issue, then, is deeper than the effect of the source on the content of your posts; it is whether anyone even knows what that effect even is. If your AI is losing nuance in both directions, we might expect to see that small changes in message to react to new information might simply be lost, leading to a repetitive sequence of posts that endlessly re-cover the same familiar ground, with no actual communication taking place. Since that's exactly what we are seeing, it has to be a serious possibility. So on some level you don't actually know what your AI is saying to us, and we don't know what your AI is telling you we're saying in return.

There's an old joke that most people pretend that conversation consists of alternately speaking and listening, whereas in reality it's alternately speaking and waiting. This thread is one of the finest illustrations of it that I've seen, and I strongly suspect your AI is the cause.

Dave

 

[EHocking]

How were you posting here before AI when your account details say you joined 1st April 2026?

Socks?

 

[arthwollipot]

If 'strict scientism' is indeed a straw man, then the solution is simple: state clearly whether empirical science requires non-empirical philosophical premises to validate itself or not.

What non-empirical philosophical premises would you suggest? I can't possibly say whether science requires them unless you tell me what they are.

 

[Dave Rogers]

An amusing juxtaposition has occurred to me.

Gubiosak is using AI translation technology as a methodology for conducting a discussion. He feels that we should be bound to accept this methodology without question, despite its only achievement so far being nearly 500 posts of unproductive and repetitive deadlock.

Human society is using the scientific method to develop technology in every sphere of endeavour. Gubiosak feels that we should be forbidden to accept this methodology without a philosophical underpinning that is demonstrably impossible to achieve, despite its major achievement being modern civilisation.

I'm not even sure how to describe this stance. Anti-empiricism?

Dave

 

[Darat]

Anti-reality.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Inasmuch as @Gubiosak has been having so much trouble naming any proponents of scientism, to the point that the names he drops most regularly are either uninterested in scientism or opponents of scientism, I looked to the most obvious secondary sources (because I'm intellectually lazy).

Merriam-Webster:

scientism noun​

sci·en·tism ˈsī-ən-ˌti-zəm​

1. methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist
2. 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)

Every single one of Merriam-Webster's "Recent Examples on the Web" illustrates the second meaning and casts scientism in a negative light.

On to Wikipedia:

Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.[1][2]​

​

While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientists", some scholars, as well as political and religious leaders, have also adopted it as a pejorative term 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)".[2][3]​

Wikipedia's overview starts by saying

With respect to the philosophy of science, the term scientism frequently implies a critique of the more extreme expressions of logical positivism[6][7] and has been used by social scientists such as Friedrich Hayek,[8] philosophers of science such as Karl Popper,[9] and philosophers such as Mary Midgley,[10] the later Hilary Putnam,[10][11] and Tzvetan Todorov[12] to describe (for example) the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methods and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measured or confirmatory.[13]​

​

More generally, scientism is often interpreted as science applied "in excess". This use of the term scientism has two senses:​

• The improper use of science or scientific claims.[14] [....]
• "The belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry",[16] or that "science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective"[11] with a concomitant "elimination of the psychological [and spiritual] dimensions of experience".[17][18] Tom Sorell provides this definition: "Scientism is a matter of putting too high a value on natural science in comparison with other branches of learning or culture."[19] Philosophers such as Alexander Rosenberg have also adopted "scientism" as a name for the opinion that science is the only reliable source of knowledge.[20]

In short, scientism has come to be a pejorative defined by its opponents.

Wikipedia does devote a couple of paragraphs to pro-scientism, but the pro-scientistsm intellectuals they cite are not so much proponents of scientism in the pejorative sense as opponents of using the word in its pejorative senses.

Wikipedia, like @Gubiosak, couldn't find any genuine proponents of scientism in the pejoratively extreme sense @Gubiosak insists upon using.

 

[JayUtah]

In short, scientism has come to be a pejorative defined by its opponents.

That's what others found. It doesn't seem to be a word used by anyone who advocates what the word means. Indeed, few if any such people seem actually to exist. It seems to be a word applied to an idea that some people oppose. When I say @Gubiosak's posts are rhetorically coded, that's what I mean. He seems to be using the language of advocates of the paranormal, who conversely decry science for rejecting their claims—improperly, they say. This is what others in this thread found by looking around at who was using it.

Gubiosak wants to remind us that dismissing an argument as a straw man rather than addressing its content is a fallacy—probably ignoratio elenchi. He seems to devolve to random fallacy-spotting when he gets in over his head. However, it's not a fallacy to dismiss an argument as a straw man when it is a straw man. In all his fallacy-spotting, he seems to forget that it's possible for him to commit one and for others properly to call him out on it. And when the argument really is a straw man, calling it out as such is all that's required to rebut it.

Methinks that someone who isn't secretly trying to foist a little paranormality on us wouldn't have any problem saying, "I agree that paranormal claims are justifiably rejected by science." Instead we get, "I don't want to talk about it." Hm...

 

[Gubiosak]

That's what others found. It doesn't seem to be a word used by anyone who advocates what the word means. Indeed, few if any such people seem actually to exist. It seems to be a word applied to an idea that some people oppose. When I say @Gubiosak's posts are rhetorically coded, that's what I mean. He seems to be using the language of advocates of the paranormal, who conversely decry science for rejecting their claims—improperly, they say. This is what others in this thread found by looking around at who was using it.

Gubiosak wants to remind us that dismissing an argument as a straw man rather than addressing its content is a fallacy—probably ignoratio elenchi. He seems to devolve to random fallacy-spotting when he gets in over his head. However, it's not a fallacy to dismiss an argument as a straw man when it is a straw man. In all his fallacy-spotting, he seems to forget that it's possible for him to commit one and for others properly to call him out on it. And when the argument really is a straw man, calling it out as such is all that's required to rebut it.

Methinks that someone who isn't secretly trying to foist a little paranormality on us wouldn't have any problem saying, "I agree that paranormal claims are justifiably rejected by science." Instead we get, "I don't want to talk about it." Hm...

Fair enough Let me be completely explicit so we can put this suspicion to rest: I agree that paranormal claims are justifiably rejected by science due to the lack of empirical, replicable evidence. I have no interest in defending paranormal claims or smuggling them into this discussion.My original question was purely epistemological—about the theoretical boundaries of strong scientism as a philosophical stance, independent of paranormal debates. However, I recognize that in this context, questioning those limits is easily read as a proxy for bad-faith arguments.Questioning the pressupositions and limits of any method isn't an attempt to destroy it, but rather the perspective of someone who favors its refinement and conceptual clarity. That said, I see this thread has reached its natural conclusion. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion.

 

[JayUtah]

Fair enough Let me be completely explicit so we can put this suspicion to rest: I agree that paranormal claims are justifiably rejected by science due to the lack of empirical, replicable evidence.

Thank you for clearing that up.

 

[Steve]

Nearly 500 posts to accomplish......what?

 

[turingtest]

Nearly 500 posts to accomplish......what?

A lot of "epistemological" hot air blown to keep aloft a feather of thought.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Nearly 500 posts to accomplish......what?

The absence of 500 more.

Dave

 

[Helen]

The absence of 500 more.

Dave

Are you sure?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Nearly 500 posts to accomplish......what?

Hounding the OP out of his own thread? Well done, 'skeptics'!

 

[Darat]

They weren't hounded out of the thread - several members engaged with Gubiosak but he ignored that engagement and merely repeatedly posted what their AI said.

 

[Mojo]

They weren't hounded out of the thread - several members engaged with Gubiosak but he ignored that engagement and merely repeatedly posted what their AI said.

But they weren't saying what he wanted them to say.

 

[Steve]

Hounding the OP out of his own thread? Well done, 'skeptics'!

Haven't read the thread, I see.

ETA Maybe you can explain Gubiosak's point, and then proceed to support it?

 

[EHocking]

For all intents and purposes it was yet another “you’re pseudosceptics with your heads buried in the sand. Science cannot explain X” thread.

… and X was never defined, beyond straw …

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Haven't read the thread, I see.

ETA Maybe you can explain Gubiosak's point, and then proceed to support it?

You are wrong, I read every post. Typical of a 'skeptic' to blithely assert something they don't actually know is true. Must be one of those 'other ways' of knowing.

I had prepared a response, but dropped it because the OP has given up and nobody else is listening.