I actually tend to think of it as much the same as the stuff described in the corresponding Wikipedia page. Here are a few:
=> Scientism is the use of the style, assumptions, techniques and other => attributes typically displayed by scientists.
=> Scientism was a common ideology in the 19th and 20th century which => places its trust only in scientific progress.
=> As a form of dogma: "In essence, scientism sees science as the => absolute and only justifiable access to the truth."
I think Russell has some excellent things to say on this matter in "The Impact of Science on Society" as does PKF (needless to add, perhaps?) in various texts.
But you are right in that I do have a particular idiosyncratic understanding or use of the term. That is somewhat obvious from my describing the Western Left as scientistic.
I would describe it, imperfectly, thus:
a) A sort of thorough-going Platonism regarding what is true or real and an "assertions and refutations" approach to describing this truth or reality. This is typically coupled with thorough-going reductionism and the recognition of contingency of results only in the face of irrefutable contrary argument or data.
b) Which leads to the sort of certainty that backs the contempt and arrogance that one sees in posts such as the recent ones in the Heidegger thread. It is not surprising therefore to me to witness the sure-footed (not tentative mind you!) jumping between positions: first you are a member of a left-wing radical student organization, a few years later you know absolutely surely how much harm liberal professors are causing the world. First you are canvassing for Republican candidates, shortly thereafter you are none other than the surest voice of the liberal blogosphere.
c) The need and attempt to "scientifize" any endeavour (which is not just to apply the methods of science or make rigorous, but to enumerate, tabulate, and reduce even at other cost, and also in situations where the system being replaced is not demonstrably weak as an alternative), to create experts and to appropriate knowledge. Things like morality (from a humanist angle) are *only* either wolly-headed nonsense or actually oppressive.
I will wager that the first responses you will see will be those pointing out how incoherent, silly, incomprehensible, etc, etc, my comments are. Perhaps that is so, but there is also this I am reminded of from mathematician Gabriel Stolzenberg defending pomo philosophy from attacks by scientists and analytical philosophers:
[footnote 17, Reading and Relativism, talking about "generous reading"]
=> Victor Brudney’s exhortation to beginning law students about how to => read a legal text. He is alluding to How to Read a Book (1940: 14), => where the author, Mortimer Adler, writes, “When [men and women] are in => love and are reading a love letter, they read for all they are worth. => They read every word three ways; they read between the lines and in => the margins; they grow sensitive to context and ambiguity...Then, if => never before or after, they read.”
Jerry Monaco correctly bemoans that there is a lot of contempt (among left intellectuals) for Christian fundamentalists, but fails to note that the same complaint holds for contempt among left intellectuals for any other form of understanding, describing or appreciating the world or humanity. The ill-effects of physical bullies was made obvious to us in high school (or earlier). Russell spoke of science (and the related way of thinking) as a liberating force but he was also cautious about it. Recent authors have used an analogy to the Jewish mythical creature called a "Golem". Without humanity, the analytical left is often no more than intellectual bullies.
This whole thing was made clear to me at Bell Laboratories, once the premier research institution of the entire world, where ridicule was heaped on practitioners and believers of homoeopathy (and other forms of "pseudoscience" as it was called) by a character named the "Amazing Randi", with much appreciation and support from the gathered bunch of Ph.D's.
A decade ago I would have written this stream of consciousness post with trepidation on a general public forum, but with the naive certainty of sympathetic hearing on a left-leaning list. Not any longer.
--ravi
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