Science vs Scientism

[Guest guest]

Recently I posted extracts from an ebook which offered a critique of modern

science. The following website addresses what may best be described as a

comparison between Science and Scientism. Read the introductory extracts to

find out more about this distinction.

<http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/home.html#...>

The entire site devotes a great deal of space to the ongoing conflict between

creationism vs evolution, so that it undoubtedly will arouse a great deal of

passion coupled with extreme difficulty to balance reason, faith and

understanding.

QUOTATIONS

" We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads, but to find the truth

we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate,

but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. " - Carl Sagan,

Cosmos

" I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I

myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what my body

is, nor my senses, nor my soul, not even that part of me which thinks what I

say, which reflects on all and on itself, and knows itself no more than the

rest.

I see those frightful spaces of the universe which surround me, and I find

myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am put

in this place rather than another, nor why this short time which is given me

to live is assigned to me at this point rather than at another of the whole

eternity which was before me or which will come after me.

I see nothing but infinities on all sides, which surround me as an atom, and

as a shadow which endures only for an instant and returns no more. All I know

is that I must die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot

escape. " - Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1660).

" Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding; for

the gain from it is better than gain from silver and its profit better than

gold. " - Proverbs 3:13 ........

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CRITICAL THOUGHT AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

People throughout the ages, from every point of the earth, have sought

answers to why this astonishingly complex world of ours should exist at all.

Its overall immensity, and our smallness in comparison to it, stirs us

profoundly to the core. And when confronted with the universe's exquisite

beauty, its many mysteries, and all the elegant structures within, we cannot

help but to inquisitively ask: how did it all happen; why are we here; what

is our purpose in this life; (and of course, that irresistible question) why

is there something rather than nothing?

The questions emerge almost involuntarily. They always have, and ever since

the human species has been capable of pondering such mysteries, explanations,

naturally, have been ever numerous and ever diverse. Though now a troublesome

problem arises. How then do we distinguish the genuine facts of nature, from

those we have historically imposed upon it? If answers exist, by what path

shall we find these truths? Where may we look for guidance. Are the answers

to our deepest questions found amongst the world's religions; mysticism; or

the prophets of antiquity? And what of science, can that give us answers? Or

maybe they lie waiting somewhere else (or possibly nowhere at all). These

tantalizing questions rest at the heart of our present intellectual

inquiry.......

It is no doubt tempting to want to look upon this as merely replacing one

faith for another; a modernist faith in what some have called " scientism "

(Plantinga again). However this is tremendously unfair. Faith by its very

nature is a form of belief held without regard to empirical evidence and

rules of inference. Science on the other hand operates with these epistemic

standards in full force. Ideas are put forward and vigorously tested against

physical reality. Those ideas with the greatest external-consistency,

internal-coherency, as well as predictive-fertility, are held; those that

cannot compete are simply laid to the wayside.

With science, we have accomplished a great deal, from an ever growing

industry of technological advancements, global communication networks,

missions to space, the engineering of better foods and medicines, to the

exploration of other worlds wholly different from our own. So why then all

the controversy; why so much hostility towards science (and scientists)? This

question is much more difficult to answer. But whatever its causes, it must

be understood and properly alleviated.

In the deepest sense, science is a way of understanding the natural world

through natural processes. It is not the dispassionate nor unfettered search f

or Truth, as public opinion supposes, but rather a sincere hope to understand

nature on its own terms. It may not justify our ethics, our aesthetic

preferences, or statements of value, but who ever said it did? Those truths,

if it is fair to call them that, must lie elsewhere and therefore needn't

fear science, for they occupy separate realms of understanding. Nature,

revealed through science (as Jay Gould notes) is nonmoral; it cannot

give us solace, nor care in our anguish. But it can offer us something

mysticism cannot, verifiable answers, rigorously tested, to our most wondrous

questions: what is the world, and where did we come from. Only when these

questions are answered may we know our place in it....

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Dr Mel C Siff

Denver, USA

Supertraining/