
The Folly of Scientism - gruseom
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism
======
tokenadult
A reply under the title of "The folly of 'The folly of scientism'" by
Professor Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago, who frequently reads and
comments on issues related to the philosophy of science:

[http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/the-
folly...](http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/the-folly-of-the-
folly-of-scientism/)

". . . . Hughes is an evolutionary biologist with wide-ranging interests, and
I’ve really liked some of his papers."

. . . .

"The big problem with Hughes’s essay is that despite his claim that there are
other ways of apprehending truth beyond science—ways that involve the three
areas of ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology—he gives not a single example
of a question that those disciplines have answered."

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Wonder if Coyne realizes the circular and non-responsive nature of his reply.

To rephrase this, science is the only thing we know. Show me something that's
not science that we know. Of course, you can't. You've given yourself the
answer before you begin to ask the question.

Effective science and humility have to go hand-in-hand. Otherwise you're just
creating a new religion with the rubric "science" stuck on it.

~~~
webnrrd2k
Maybe we are thinking of "scientific" in different terms, but I know lots of
things that are not scientific.

I'm speaking broadly here, but qualia are not scientific. My internal
experiences aren't scientific. So I'd say that, on one sense, at least half of
what I experience is not scientific.

No one actually knows what is going on inside of my head at this moment. Yet I
know my own thoughts, emotions and experiences. Science may know that I can
experience love, for example. But it can't tell me that I am experiencing love
at this moment, as I write this comment, or who I fall in love with.

~~~
inavat
That science can't yet know you're experiencing love at this moment (if indeed
that's the case) isn't a reason to think it never will be able to. I know it's
common to think of our internal thoughts and experiences as metaphysical
things, but I know of no evidence that they're anything but chemical and
physical processes. You know, science.

~~~
webnrrd2k
Oh, I'm not saying that thoughts and experiences _aren't_ physical things -- I
didn't mean to imply otherwise.

The question I was responding to was: "Show me something that's not science
that we know". My response is that there are lots of things that we, as
people, actually know but can't study scientifically.

~~~
rohern
Love and emotions are being studied scientifically. The neurotransmitters
behind love and affection are extremely well studied. One could quite easily
construct experiments to see if exiting fMRI technology can determine the
difference between a brain experiencing love and one not. These questions are
in every way within the domain of science.

~~~
MrScruff
While this is all true, it wouldn't tell us much about the actual experience
of feeling the emotion. That would remain metaphysical.

~~~
rohern
I do not see any reason to suppose this is true. I grant that this is question
that is not being tackled by current research (as far as I know, as
neuroscience and theoretical neuroscience are in a period of boom right now),
but that does not make it scientifically intractable. There is little I can
say about this as I do not know what you mean by "the actual experience".

~~~
MrScruff
As in, the difference between the neurological processes that govern ones
mental state, and the subjective experience of having that mental state.

For example, if I'm hungry and eat a good meal the changes in my brain
chemistry that induce the sense of well being that follows are well
understood.

That doesn't tell me anything at all about the actual subjective experience of
feeling pleasure though. That is something distinct.

~~~
rohern
Is it? The signals in your nervous system that give you the sensation of pain
are pain.

Let me make an argument by analogy.

You are saying that understanding the chip architecture and the instruction
set of a computer does not allow you to understand what it is like for that
chip to run a given program. Is that a fair analogy? Can you improve it?

If this is a fair analogy, then I think it is clear that you are wrong. We
absolutely can understand what running a given program is like. We may need to
use a different vocabulary and abstract away detail in order to efficiently
communicate the idea of running the program (say, talk about a data structure
rather than the individual bits that compose it), but that is true in every
field. This is basic tool of reasoning.

If that is not a good analogy, please let me know how. I am not satisfied at
all that I understand what you mean when you write "the actual subjective
experience". I understand what those words mean but I cannot match them with
an object.

~~~
MrScruff
Essentially your argument is that consciousness doesn't exist. That we are
equivalent to highly sophisticated computers running a program, is that
correct?

The problem with this argument is that your conscious perception is actually
the _only_ thing you can know to exist. Everything else is sense data fed into
that consciousness. You assume that the external world that manifests itself
via sense data exists because it appears consistent.

But as I sit here typing this the only thing I can know _with certainty_ is
that 'I' exist and am conscious (by definition).

This process of being conscious, of perceiving the world, is what I am arguing
is outside the realm of science.

Now I know a number of people are of the opinion that if you have a
sufficiently complicated machine, biological or otherwise, consciousness will
become some emergent property. And maybe this is so. But just saying 'it
emerges' is not science. It's hand waving. So instead we have to just accept
that for the moment we cannot speak of it.

------
gnosis
This essay should be required reading for anyone who thinks science is or
should be the only legitimate way of understanding the world.

For more information, I strongly recommend:

"Naturalism and the Human Condition: Against scientism" by Frederick A.
Olafson

and

"Scientism" by Tom Sorell

~~~
seiji
What are some [legitimate] examples of non-science ways of understanding the
world?

~~~
AffableSpatula
Consciousness/experience.

~~~
thirdtruck
How, specifically?

Given the incredible variance in available descriptions of "the conscious
experience", I would posit that "consciousness" itself exists only as a mental
grouping and nothing distinct.

As an exercise: explain what exactly constitutes a "car", including the point
where such an item officially "stops being a car" during the process of
disassembly. Show your work.

~~~
MrScruff
I don't think they are referring to the phenomenon of consciousness, rather
than the experience of consciousness itself.

~~~
thirdtruck
Where does that demarcation line fall? Is there anything to consciousness
besides the experiential phenomenon?

To illustrate: there is no such thing as the movie "It's a Wonderful Life",
just a series of individual frames that our eyes and brains perceive as a
whole unit only because of perceptual and cognitive limitations (basically,
compression). We know far less of anything beyond the present moment -
speaking of individual experience - than most believe. I posit that
"consciousness" exists as nothing more than a cognitive compression artifact.

~~~
MrScruff
Do you regard the subjective experience of being concious as a something that
can be adequately described by detailing neurological processes? As in, I know
you might argue that a specific combination of atoms will correspond to a
specific mental state. That doesn't really tell you anything about the
subjective experience of being in that mental state though.

------
return0
I thought we were done with Constructivism a long time ago. And scientism is
not the biggest problem in a world where climate change, stem cells and
creationism debates still exist.

Unfortunately philosophers alienated scientists with their postmodern
(de-)constructivism to the point of creating enmities (such as the Sokal
affair[1]). At this point, when scientists speak to philosophers, one gets the
impression that there's nothing to learn from them that they don't already
know (or even worse, that philosophers dance around subjects).

The author seems frustrated that philosophers are no longer the highest
authorities, but that's just the current state of philosophy.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair>

~~~
gnosis
This might come as a surprise, but not every philosopher is a postmodernist.
Postmodernists aren't even in the majority. They're a relatively small
minority in an ocean of different philosophical outlooks. Even many so-called
postmodernists deny the label applies to them.

As for who alienated who in the Sokal affair, it should be remembered that
Sokal was the original perpetrator of the hoax, and appeared to have initiated
it with the sole aim of discrediting philosophers he did not approve of.

~~~
return0
No doubt about that; yet postmodernists seem to be the ones most engaged in
what is perceived as a pursuit to discredit or trivialize science.
Unfortunately, they are loud people so it's hard to hear other, more
interesting views on the philosophy of science. I would be grateful if you
could suggest some good books.

~~~
gnosis
On the Analytic side, take a look at Balashov's and Rosenberg's "Philosophy of
Science: Contemporary Readings"

On the Continental side, the classic essay is Heidegger's "The Question
Concerning Technology".

I'd also recommend Jacques Ellul's "Technological Society".

And, while not dealing directly with science, I think Foucault's critiques of
power in discourse are very relevant.

Earlier in this thread I'd mentioned:

"Naturalism and the Human Condition: Against scientism" by Frederick A.
Olafson, whose critique comes from a phenomenological perspective.

and

"Scientism" by Tom Sorell, who's a neo-Kantian.

None of the above are postmodernists.

~~~
return0
Thank you

------
cs702
The author believes scientific inquiry should not 'overreach' into subjects
that have traditionally belonged to fields like philosophy, metaphysics,
epistemology, and religion, because, he explains in painful detail, science
can't have all the answers.

Regardless of whether one agrees with him or not, his argument makes NO sense
to me. _The relevant question is not whether science can have all the answers,
but whether science yields better or more accurate answers than those other
approaches._

~~~
droithomme
It has been asked whether science yields "better or more accurate answers"
than other approaches.

We know that most published scientific research results are wrong.

[http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124)

Therefore flipping a coin and always guessing "heads" yields more accurate
results than science.

Now what? Has this insight taught us anything?

~~~
return0
That's a sweeping over-generalization. More like "many inferences based on
statistics are not as strong as they appear to be many are not even true".
That article is important (and well known) for a certain type of life sciences
publications; it's a problem that is being addressed already. That's another
good thing about science, you can measure how wrong you are.

------
freshhawk
So science showed itself to be a powerful tool for determining truth about
_some_ subjects and exposed the ridiculousness of most pre-scientific ideas
concerning those subjects.

Now that a higher level of certainty is available for some subjects people
have higher expectations about what level of confidence they demand from an
idea purporting to tell them something about reality. They also have a lot
more scientific knowledge about the ways in which and the reasons why these
other methods fail, often spectacularly.

I guess I'm guilty of scientism. I assume that if these "other ways of
understanding" failed nearly completely at discovering truth in every subject
that has been touched by science I assume this extrapolates to the subjects we
cannot apply science to.

I fail to see why accepting our current limitations about what it's possible
for us to know is anything other than the opposite of hubris.

Once another system of thought actually makes predictions that answer
questions about reality then I will happily change my mind. Until then I'm not
satisfied with the horrible levels of accuracy they have been shown to have.
I'll just stick with the humble scientific opinion: "We don't know yet, we
haven't figured out how to move beyond conjecture about this issue".

------
carsongross
In a world with the three body problem and godel, humility should be the
defining characteristic of the intelligent.

Should.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
I'm always suspicious of people who are think they've got it all figured
out...in _any_ area, much less the full extent of human knowledge. I've been
there, and I was always out of my depth; I just didn't realize it.

------
lotharbot
I was most struck by the line that _"It easily becomes an interpretive blank
check, permitting speculation that seems to explain any describable human
trait."_ This has long been a criticism "real" evolutionary scientists (like
geneticists) have leveled against the speculative nonsense often seen coming
from sociobiology/evolutionary psychology [0].

Science works to find scientific conclusions. But the trappings of science are
sometimes applied in ways that have little to do with actual science.

[0]
[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/09/17/12091...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/09/17/120917crbo_books_gottlieb?currentPage=all)
\-- note that sociobio/ev psych _can_ produce real science. In my experience,
though, most of what they produce is "just-so stories", as Gould's comment
points out.

------
aroberge
For too long, the vast majority of scientists have kept silent, keenly aware
of the limitation of their knowledge, and leaving it to idiots (e.g. Bill
O'Reilly's nobody can explain the tides...) to make sweeping and completely
false statements. We don't have all the answers yet (and never will) but that
should not stop scientists from voicing their opinion more vocally and more
frequently.

------
xd
Maybe it's just me, but I all I see is the strong parallels of "Scientism" in
HN.

------
mnemonicsloth
This is an article on the limitations of science, but it contains no science.
Isn't that interesting?

For example the author concedes, in the first half of one paragraph, the
existence of "genuinely scientific" evolutionary psychology. Then he spends
the second half on the abundance of unserious -- not just philosophically
unserious, but _scientifically_ unserious -- material in the same field. And
that's all he has to say about the actual content of evolutionary psychology.

But good science speaks for itself:

"""The left side of the [neanderthal] skull had a large dent, apparently from
a ferocious blow, and the rib cage -- also on the left side -- had the head of
a spear lodged in it.... [He] had died roughly 50,000 years ago, the earliest
known homicide victim. His killer, judging from the damage to the skull and
rib cage, bore the lethal weapon in his right hand.

The fossil record of injuries to bones reveals two strikingly common patterns
(Jurmain et al, 2009; Trinkaus & Zimmerman, 1982; Walker, 1995). First, the
skeletons of men contain far more fractures and dents than do the skeletons of
women. Second, the injuries are located mainly on the left frontal sides of
the skulls and skeletons, suggesting right-handed attackers. The bone record
alone cannot tell us with certainty that combat among men was a central
feature of human ancestral life. Nor can it tell us with certainty that men
evolved to be the more physically aggressive sex..."""

...and even if they could, our ancestors habits offer limited guidance on how
we should act today. Stabbing people with pointed sticks is now frowned upon.
Do we need to be told this by a tenured philosophy professor?

But note how much clearer the prospects and limits of science become when you
know something about what it has already told us in the here and now. When
your knowledge is limited, all you can talk about is the limits of knowledge.

------
a_bonobo
Strangest part:

>What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe
need a creator? ... Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but
philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in
science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch
of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

>Though physicists might once have been dismissive of metaphysics as mere
speculation, they would also have characterized such questions as inherently
speculative and so beyond their own realm of expertise. The claims of Hawking
and Mlodinow, and many other writers, thus represent a striking departure from
the traditional view.

It's weird that the author takes a non-scientific introduction to a pop-
science book that is aimed to appeal to the layman's understanding of the
world, and makes it out that Hawking and Mlodinow are departing from
traditional views in their science.

------
andrewcooke
the magazine itself looks great - never seen it before. there's a nice article
on ray bradbury at [http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-dark-and-
star...](http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-dark-and-starry-eyes-
of-ray-bradbury)

and it's currently half price for subscriptions and only $10 delivery
international. i just signed up for two years :o) thanks for posting this.

~~~
stfu
I wish more journals would follow this example. This is a really smart way to
widen the reach of their ideas.

------
gorrillamcd
I must admit, I haven't read the entire article, but he puts many of my own
sentiments into words better than I could myself.

------
thirdtruck
_"Likewise, many cosmologists have articulated various forms of what is known
as the “anthropic principle” — that is, the observation that the basic laws of
the universe seem to be “fine-tuned” in such a way as to be favorable to life,
including human life."_

Simple answers to this: (a) we have far too few examples of life (on a
galactic scale) to gauge the actual "Goldilock" range for life suitability,
and (b) we have a documented tendency to assume agency even in its manifest
absence, which renders all such anthropomorphic impressions highly suspect.

 _"In that case, we are still left without ultimate explanations as to why
that universe exists or has the characteristics it does."_

Begs the question of whether "why" even matters at such a scale. Like the
"then what created god?" question, the chain must either stop somewhere or
recede infinitely to a "bad question" asymptote.

 _"For a complete evolutionary account of a phenomenon, it is not enough to
construct a story about how the trait might have evolved in response to a
given selection pressure; rather, one must provide some sort of evidence that
it really did so evolve."_

Apply that same criteria to all other _non_ -evolutionary explanations, then
come back with their relative measures of predictive value. Who wins that
tournament of efficacy?

 _"For comparison, we know a quite a lot about the physiology of digestion,
and we are able to describe in great detail the physiological differences
between the digestive system of a person who is starving and that of a person
who has just eaten a satisfying and nutritionally balanced meal. But this
knowledge contributes little to solving world hunger."_

The discovery and implementation of a system that makes hunger more objective,
for example, would help address work hunger by freeing up overeaten food for
those in greater need. Unimpressed.

 _"Harris seems to think that free will is an illusion but also that our
decisions are really driven by thoughts that arise unbidden in our brains. He
does not explain the origin of these thoughts nor how their origin relates to
moral choices."_

What about the receipt of controlling, "unexplained" "unbidden thoughts"
contracts a _dis_ belief in free will? The claim that Harris leaves them
"unexplained" or unrelated to moral choices speaks more to the author's
ignorance of Harris's work than anything else.

 _"This view [emphasizing the impact of genes and circumstance on the
frequency of "moral behavior"] undermines the possibility of happiness and
moral behavior for those who are dealt a bad hand, and so does more to degrade
than uplift at the individual level."_

Try telling that to had their "moral" capacity demonstrably inhibited by
damage to their frontal lobes.

Any hope of addressing such organic damage to impulse control lies in the
advancement of neuroscience, which might provide an actual _fix_.

The alternative equates to expecting a computer user to search online for
their own answer as to why their Internet connection is down.

 _"Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will serve only
to undermine the credibility of science as a whole. The ultimate outcome will
be an increase of radical skepticism that questions the ability of science to
address even the questions legitimately within its sphere of competence."_

A straw-man, then begging the question. Given how much we know of the foibles
of human cognition, perception, and recollection, the responsibility for
taking something out of the sphere of science lies with those who would
attempt the removal. Best of luck doing so without hard data, i.e. science,
though.

tl;dr: a biologist reaches far outside her area of experience (and into, e.g.,
neuroscience) in order to try and fault the scientists actually in those
fields for finding scientific answers to once-philosophical questions in their
own fields. That, and the author's ultimate position boils down to an argument
from consequence.

------
derleth
I'd be interested to know if anyone actually holds to the ideas mocked as
'Scientisim', or if it's just another example of a strawman in the 'Darwinist'
mold.

