Lecture 5.5 - Arguments against scientism

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Philosophy, Science and Religion: Philosophy and Religion

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The University of Edinburgh

Philosophy, Science and Religion: Philosophy and Religion

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Philosophy, Science and Religion mark three of the most fundamental modes of thinking about the world and our place in it. Are these modes incompatible? Put another way: is the intellectually responsible thing to do to ‘pick sides’ and identify with one of these approaches at the exclusion of others? Or, are they complementary or mutually supportive? As is typical of questions of such magnitude, the devil is in the details. For example, it is important to work out what is really distinctive about each of these ways of inquiring about the world. In order to gain some clarity here, we’ll be investigating what some of the current leading thinkers in philosophy, science and religion are actually doing. This course, entitled ‘Philosophy and Religion’, is the second of three related courses in our Philosophy, Science and Religion Online series, and in this course we will ask important questions about the age-old debate between science and religion, such as: • What kind of conflicts are there between religion and science? • Does current cognitive science of religion effectively explain away God? • If there is a God who has made us so that we can know him, why do some people not believe? • Is belief in science also a kind of fundamentalism? • What makes us good at getting, giving, or sharing, knowledge? Is this different when it is religious knowledge? The first course in the Philosophy, Science and Religion series, 'Science and Philosophy' was launched early in 2017 and you can sign up to it at any time. The third course —‘Religion and Science’—will be launched early in 2018. Completing all three courses will give you a broader understanding of this fascinating topic. Look for: • Philosophy, Science and Religion I: Science and Philosophy https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy-science-religion-1/ • Philosophy, Science and Religion III: Religion and Science Upon successful completion of all three courses, students will: (1) Understand the main parameters at stake in the current debate between science and religion. (2) Have some familiarity with the relevant areas of science that feature in the debate—including cosmology, evolution, and the neurosciences—and will have begun to engage with them conceptually. (3) Have encountered key philosophical approaches to the interface between science and religion, and will have had the opportunity to engage them in practice. (4) Have embarked constructively in cross-disciplinary conversations. (5) Have demonstrated an openness to personal growth through a commitment to dialogue across intellectual and spiritual boundaries. You can also follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/EdiPhilOnline and you can follow the hashtag #psrmooc

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Religious and Scientific Fundamentalism

In this series of lectures Dr. Rik Peels considers religious and scientific fundamentalism. Scientism is the currently popular thesis that only natural science gives rational belief or, alternatively, that there are no principled limits to science. In this lecture, I give several examples of scientism, such as scientism about free will. After that, I present seven reasons that have been given for scientism. Subsequently, I outline three arguments against it. Finally, I explain some crucial similarities and differences between scientism on the one hand and fundamentalism on the other. I argue that, even though some varieties of scientism resemble fundamentalism, most of them are more similar to religions or worldviews.

Lecture 5.1 - What is scientism?10:36

Lecture 5.2 - Varieties of scientism9:26

Lecture 5.3 - Arguments for scientism10:57

Lecture 5.4 - Arguments for scientism (continued)10:22

Lecture 5.5 - Arguments against scientism15:29

Lecture 5.6 - Scientism, religious belief, and fundamentalism13:03

Rencontrer les enseignants

Dr Orestis Palermos
Research Explorer
School of Philosophy
Dr Mark Harris
Senior Lecturer in Science and Religion
School of Divinity
Professor Duncan Pritchard
Professor of Philosophy
University of Edinburgh
Dr J Adam Carter
Researcher
Epistemology - Philosphy
Dr Mog Stapleton

All right, let's move on.

Let's get to the arguments against scientism.

These are actually not that easy to find in

the literature so I've been working on them myself.

And what I'll do is present three versions

of, three different kinds of, arguments against scientism and then,

also, have a look at what kinds of replies adherents of scientism could give to them.

So, here we go. Here's the first argument and

I've called it the fundamental argument unpretentiously,

and we will see in a minute why it's called the fundamental argument.

The basic idea of the argument is that,

sure we can do science and surely it provides knowledge but science

itself is based on things that are not science.

And science can provide knowledge only of

those things from which it starts, count as knowledge.

So the things I have in mind here are such things as perception of course.

So I know that there is a microscope over here because I see one but also memory,

so I remember that this DNA sample is the same one that I used yesterday.

There's introspection, so I know that I intend to carry out this experiment tomorrow.

I know what I believe about my previous experiments.

For instance, I know that I believe that I should redo this experiment.

If all those sources that science is based

on do not count as knowledge then natural science itself cannot provide knowledge.

So that's why it's called the fundamental argument.

If science provides knowledge it can only do

so because non-science can provide knowledge.

What response could one give to this?

Well first response is to say this is kind of

a partial defence is to say this may be true for the five senses,

so vision for instance and also memory and maybe introspection as well,

but it's not true for morality and it's also not true for

religion because we do not appeal to moral beliefs,

we don't use moral beliefs and we don't use

any religious or supernatural beliefs in doing natural science.

I think that's definitely going to be true for religious beliefs

but it's also true for moral beliefs is an interesting issue.

I'm not going to debate it today but I just

wanted to point out that this is the reply adherents of scientism could give.

Another interesting reply that one could give is the following;

it appeals to an example that's often used in philosophy which is the Ship of Theseus.

So it's often used as an example in metaphysics.

Theseus has a ship that consists of

365 wooden planks, and he set sail and he leaves Harbor,

and he has another 365 planks on board.

And what he does when he is out there at sea is he

replaces one plank of the ship every day and by the end of the year,

every plank of the ship has been replaced with a new plank.

So in a way, we have an entirely new ship.

And you can imagine that the old 365 planks are

destroyed or a new ship is made out of them or whatever you like.

The question is, is this still the same ship or is it a different ship?

So this is a topic that is discussed in metaphysics.

It has to do with identity over time.

But the interesting thing is that this example can be used for the issue at hand.

So to meet the fundamental argument and people like Noyer Atom,

I think I mentioned earlier,

have actually used it in defence of scientism.

So what they say is this,

look you can't replace everything at once,

you can't replace the whole basis,

the whole fundament of science at once,

but you can replace one particular nonscientific thing with a scientific thing.

So here's a believe that science is based on.

Let's scrutinize it by way of natural science,

and if it's not correct, let's replace it.

And if it's correct then it has passed it

the natural scientific test, and then let's move on to some other place.

And if we do that long enough,

we can verify or if necessary replace all the fundamentals,

all the other bases of science.

So natural science is indeed based on certain nonscientific things,

but if we do thorough checks all the time in the end it will no longer be the case.

So this is a reply that one could give,

well this raises lots of philosophical questions.

For instance, one can't start from nothing right.

One has to use something,

one has to rely on one's memory and one's visual perception when one starts.

Of course one can return to that memory and to

that visual perception later on but isn't it the case

that if the beliefs that one started with were

irrational that that property is conferred to those later beliefs?

That's a question that needs to be addressed.

So there's a lot to be said here.

But I just wanted to point out this is an important argument

that opponents of scientism have leveled against scientism,

The fundamental argument, at least that's how one could call it.

Let's move on to the second argument that

is often called the argument from self-referential incoherence.

Arguments from self-referential incoherence are often found in philosophy.

So you will find them for instance when it comes to certain kinds of reductionism

or when it comes to certain kinds of foundationalism in epistemology.

I leave the discussion of those for another time.

I just want to apply it to scientism in this particular case.

So the basic idea is that scientism is in trouble because the thesis of scientism,

so the thesis that only natural science provides knowledge, is itself

not an instance of, a product of, natural science.

So the thesis doesn't meet its own criteria.

It's not something that we believe on the basis of natural scientific research.

Hence we cannot rationally believe and we cannot rationally embrace,

we cannot know that scientism is true.

But if we cannot know that scientism is true then

why should we believe it in the first place.

That's the move one could make here.

Now I believe that there are several responses available to the adherent of scientism.

Those responses are going to be controversial but I want like to mention them

here because I think these are options that the adherents of scientism needs to explore.

First, one might think that there is scientific evidence for scientism.

So one might think that while there is the success of science that I mentioned and

then there is also science that supports debunking explanations that I mentioned earlier,

of nonscientific sources of belief.

So there is enough evidence to think that science

provides knowledge whereas nonscientific sources of knowledge do not.

So one might think,

"Looks scientism itself in the end is supported by scientific evidence."

There's a lot to be said about here because scientism is still is a claim

about knowledge so one needs to have

a certain idea about what knowledge is or what rational belief is.

But rather than delving into those epistemological questions,

I will move on.

Second one could say, "Look scientism works."

It's just a really good theory and really helpful theory in carrying out science.

And here again discussion is possible.

So one might say, "Well scientism works in

doing science but then other theories work equally well."

So if you have a theory that says science provides

knowledge but other sources of belief also provide

knowledge such as memory and introspection and moral intuition that works equally fine,

I can do my scientific research equally well if I don't embrace scientism.

So this reply is going to be controversial.

An equally controversial reply is going to be the reply that

says scientism is true and we should make an exception for scientism itself.

So something counts as knowledge only if it's based on

science except for the thesis of scientism itself.

That is a piece of knowledge,

an instance of knowledge even though it's not based on natural science.

That's what one could say,

but of course this is going to be controversial because it seems so adhoc.

Right? Why make an exception only for scientism itself?

On what basis?

So maybe the most promising reply is the final reply that I'm going to mention,

namely to treat scientism not as a claim or as as a statement but as a stance.

The idea of, or the concept of,

a stance has been developed in some more detail by Bas Van Fraassen,

the Dutch American philosopher of science who has written extensively about empiricism.

So he claims that empiricism is a certain stance and not so much a thesis or a claim.

A stance is a set of beliefs,

a set of attitudes,

a set of approaches,

a way of doing certain things.

So it's not merely a claim but it's

something broader and also something deeper than that.

And this is an idea that some adherents of scientism embrace.

An example is James Ladyman.

So James Ladyman has defended a restricted version of scientism,

namely scientism about metaphysics.

And he says, "Look,

we should treat scientism not as a thesis but as it stance,

as a particular attitude one takes".

And because it's an attitude that one takes it does not suffer from the problem of

self referential incoherence because it doesn't

claim that scientism itself is a case of knowledge.

This is an interesting suggestion but also a challenging one

because if it's not a case of knowledge itself but merely a stance,

then how are we going to judge whether we should adopt this particular stance

so that scientistic stance rather than another stance, a non-scientistic stance.

On what basis are we going to evaluate which stance we should take?

What are the criteria?

And it seems to me that this issue is not yet

developed enough in literature to see where this is going.

But it seems a potentially promising route to take for those who want to claim

that we should all embrace scientism

but that it does not suffer from problems of self-referential incoherence.

And this brings us to the final argument that I would like to mention against

scientism and I call it the argument for nonscientific values and principles in science.

And you will find certain aspects of this argument in

the work of Mikael Stenmark the Swedish

philosopher of science and Swedish epistemologist.

So he has written quite a bit on scientism,

he's one of the first philosophers I think to write extensively about it.

And the argument is basically this,

if we do science then we look at

different scientific theories and we compare them with each other.

But we do so on the basis of certain criteria.

So here are a few examples of those criteria,

one of them is precision,

how precise is this particular theory that we have over here.

Or how precise is that one.

Second, it's explanatory scope.

So how much does it explain?

We generally prefer a theory that explains more to a theory that explains less.

Third one is explanatory power.

So how well does it explain the phenomenon at hand?

Fourth, simplicity.

We generally prefer the theory that is simpler so that is committed to fewer entities.

So the simpler theory is the more likely it is that it is true.

A fifth one is of course coherence with background knowledge.

So we want theories that cohere with what

we already believe or what we already think we know.

Another one is fruitfulness,

so some theories can actually be fruitfully

employed in further research whereas other theories can not.

Unifying power, I already mentioned evolutionary theory that has great unifying power.

Right. So it takes all sorts of theories and ideas and observations

together and explains them in one grand unifying theory.

And the final one is elegance or beauty,

this is important for instance in mathematics.

So mathematicians say they often prefer a theory because it's more elegant,

it's more beautiful and have some trouble explaining out exactly what that amounts to.

But at least it's one of the virtues theories can have. Now here's the point.

So if you look at this long list of virtues of criteria for selecting theories,

then one makes a choice in favor of one theory and against

another theory based on this balancing those criteria.

But the balancing of those criteria is not something one can do on a scientific basis.

So there can be two scientists who have

the exact same data and the same background knowledge

but they come to embrace

a different theory because the one finds say simplicity more important,

whereas the other finds explanatory power more important.

And what this shows is that within science itself,

so within the scientific practice,

there are core values that are not themselves scientific

and that we can't judge on the basis of scientific research.

So this is a challenge for scientism itself given

that there are nonscientific values that play a crucial role in scientific research.

So these are three arguments against scientism and maybe they can be met,

maybe they cannot be met.

I think this is a topic that will receive much more scrutiny in the nearby future.

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