Scientism: what it is, how it understands science, and limitations

Science is, without a doubt, the most reliable way available to human beings to obtain knowledge, since it tries to demonstrate it empirically. However, it is not the only one: there are endless "truths", such as human consciousness or having a soul that cannot be scientifically proven, but must be somewhere.

Well, there is a position that considers that anything that is not scientifically provable is either an illusion or its existence is irrelevant: scientism. This position maintains that only the scientific method is capable of providing us with pure and objective knowledge, and any other form should be ignored.

Below we will delve into this position, its use as a pejorative term, its origins and some scientific exponents.

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What is scientism?

Scientism, also called scientism or scientism, is the belief that the scientific method can be applied to any problem of human knowledge, whether they are directly related to the positive sciences or but. this posture

part of the idea that the scientific method is the only path that allows us to achieve knowledge in a pure and genuine way. He claims that science is the only option available to obtain valid knowledge.

We cannot continue talking about scientism without talking a little in depth about what positive science is. Positive science is one that is oriented to study an empirical reality, that is, based on experience, on facts. Experimentation makes it possible to confirm or refute a hypothesis and, based on the results, make interpretations about the phenomenon studied. Many natural sciences are considered positive, some examples being biology, mathematics, physics, and chemistry.

Due to its rather inflexible conception that science is yes or yes the only way to obtain valid knowledge, scientism It has been a highly criticized and debated current, being outlined as a radical and extremist line of thought. In fact, the term "scientism" is used on many occasions as something pejorative, referring to an inappropriate use of the scientific statements and using it as a criticism of the fact that there are aspects of science that interfere in matters of a religious, philosophical and metaphysical.

A derogatory example of the term is when, for example, the theory of evolution is explained and someone from the doctrine of creation questions the facts that are stated in this theory. demonstrate, saying that there are things that science cannot demonstrate and that affirming that the human being is the product of millions of years of evolutionary adaptations is a position scientist. It is quite common for the term to be used inappropriately, especially when science refutes an own knowledge of some pseudoscience or fundamentalist doctrine.

It is important to note that scientism itself It is neither a science nor a branch of knowledge, much less a set of scientific statements or demonstration of facts., but a position, a philosophical position on how human knowledge should be obtained. Scientism consists of statements related to and in favor of science as the only way of obtaining knowledge, being related to epistemology, that is, the search and validation of knowledge.

origins

The origins of scientism can be traced back to the times of the Enlightenment in the mid-16th century. with the scientific revolution experienced in Europe. It was a time when new sciences were emerging, including modern mathematics and physics, which used empirical methods, avoiding philosophical conceptions and metaphysical interpretations of reality.

This era was characterized by being the moment in which hundreds of scientific discoveries were made, discoveries that overthrew some of the most solid foundations of religiosity and spirituality that until relatively recently, just a few centuries earlier during the Middle Ages, were understood as truths unquestionable. Since religion was wrong on many issues, science began to impose itself as a new way of seeing the world, more based on facts.

As a result, between the 16th and 17th centuries, science acquired a new way of being conceived. Nature, understood as the phenomena that occur in our reality, was no longer seen under the vision that the Greeks had, highly mixed with philosophical conceptions, and gives rise to science understood in its most modern sense, which had a clear functionality in favor of improving the society.

Another aspect that contributed to changing the vision of nature has a lot to do with changes at the educational level. Abstract reasoning began to be seen as a new form of common sense, and nature began to be seen more as a mechanical entity., a perfectly calibrated machine, rather than an organism with a soul.

But the most important aspect of this era is the rise of experimentation and the consolidation of the scientific method. If one wondered about what a certain phenomenon was like, the best thing to do was to verify it empirically, give answer to the questions and theories that the scientist made by means of the verification and the obtaining of facts. The new criteria for explaining the world did not focus on the why of things, a question typical of philosophical and Aristotelian thought up to that time, but on the how.

And it is in this context that the ideas that would give rise to scientism arise. For example, it was even affirmed that mathematics, as an exact and positive science that it was, could serve as a model of science that would serve the others to conform as sciences properly said. It is also at this time that the idea arises that any conception of reality that is not accessible through the scientific method it cannot be taken as important or, even, it is no more than a mirage, a meaningless abstraction.

But despite the fact that the idea of ​​scientism itself seems to emerge in the middle of the Enlightenment, the popularization of the term is much more recent, specifically at the beginning of the 20th century. Many consider that the merit of having spread this term belongs to the French philosopher of science and biologist Félix-Alexandre Le Dantec, in addition to being the one who associated scientism with empiricism and positivism and the use of the scientific method as the only valid way to demonstrate theories and find the truth.

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limitations

Although the idea that the scientific method is the preferable way to obtain new knowledge, it can be said that the radical position and extremism that scientism implies has been diminishing since, in itself, it is nothing more than an arbitrary way of establishing that method as something that is above any other process of obtaining knowledge, although those forms have also turned out to be effective.

The curious thing is that scientism has run into its greatest limitation in its own claim that experimental and empirical science is the only way to obtain objective knowledge. Based on this same argument, any idea or theory that comes from a scientific position would have to be subjected to scientific experimentation to find any validity. If you claim that science is the only way to obtain valid knowledge, then you would have to prove it, which leads us into a paradox..

Another limitation of scientism is its argument that knowledge can only be achieved through empiricism, that is, through factual, “physical” experience. If a phenomenon or cause cannot be experienced then its existence should be denied according to this position. However, it could really happen that experience tells us that there are certain issues that cannot be captured by experimentation, but that does not mean that they do not exist.

For example, the idea of ​​consciousness. Many thinkers with a scientific vision consider living beings as machines whose operation does not depend on any metaphysical entity. as is the soul, since since it has not been possible to extract or analyze such a thing experimentally, that subjective experience could not exist. In this way, scientism "invalidates" the concept of mind understood as a subjective entity, a properly human idea.

scientific representatives

Basically, any scientist who says that only the scientific method is capable of demonstrating knowledge as true can be considered a scientist. However, we can single out two great thinkers who consider themselves scientists and talk about their perspectives in particular.

Mario Bunge (1919-2020)

Mario Bunge was an Argentine-born philosopher, scientist, and physicist whose perspectives could be considered scientificist., being he one of the best known defenders of these ideas in contemporary times. In his book "In Praise of Scientism" he affirmed that this position represents a preferable alternative to the humanist one, since science is capable of giving more results.

According to Bunge humanism grants alternatives based on tradition, hunches and trial-error, while the more purely empirical science allows objective truths to be obtained. In addition, he highlighted that science has the capacity to grow exponentially through what he called "the positive feedback”, a process that allows the results of a scientific procedure to be reused for new experiments.

Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794)

Marie-Jean-Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, was a French mathematician and philosopher whose works were closely related to highly debated issues in the Enlightenment, including politics, morality, and economy.

In his writings he spoke of progress within the world of science and stated that it contributed to progress in other sciences related to morality and politics, less empirical aspects. He considered that evil within a society was the result of ignorance.

Conclusions about scientism

Scientism is the philosophical position around science that defends that the scientific method is the only way to bring valid knowledge. This position values ​​the natural sciences above all other disciplines. Although he is in favor of the scientific method and is an advocate of science, his statements, in themselves, are not scientific.

His purpose is to promote the scientific method as the only way to obtain knowledge, otherwise such knowledge should not be taken into account.

Its origin is related to the birth of modern and positive sciences between the 16th and 17th centuries, within the framework of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. Being a time when religion ceased to have so much weight as many beliefs were shown to be false, the idea of that any explanation from the spiritual, metaphysical and religious, if it was not empirically demonstrable, should be refused.

Bibliographic references:

• Agassi, Joseph, and Robert S. Cohen (eds.) (1982). Scientific Philosophy Today: Essays in Honor of Mario Bunge. Dordrecht, D. Reidel. doi: 10.1007/978-94-009-8462-2
• Bunge, Mario (2002). Dictionary of philosophy (2nd edition). Mexico: 21st century. p. 75. ISBN 9682322766.
• Burnett T (2019). What is Scientism?. Embodied Philosophy. Retrieved from embodiedphilosophy.com
• Mario Bunge. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org.
• Marquis de Condorcet. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org.
• Haack, Susan (2012). Six Signs of Scientism. Logos & Episteme. 3 (1): 75–95. doi: 10.5840/logos-episteme20123151
• Mizrahi, Moti (July 2017). What's So Bad About Scientism?. Social Epistemology. 31 (4): 351–367. doi: 10.1080/02691728.2017.1297505.