``...I am going to begin offering an idea of what scientism is by starting with the following: Scientism is like science, but is corrupted by dogmatic attitudes and practices that remove many if not all critical qualifications that go into defining science as a way of constructing aspects of our knowledge about the external world that are dynamic, local, at times intuitive, particular, open, subjective, social...'' .d. quoting Walker
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Just some random thoughts on this...
I don't know about using the word scientism. It currently seems to have several meanings and connotations. Ravi had one meaning in mind, but I've forgotten what it was---I think something about the arrogance of the science and tech crew. Here's another from wiki:
``Scientism is a term often used today as a pejorative[1][2][3] to describe someone who holds the view that science has primacy over all other interpretations of life such as philosophical, religious, mythical, spiritual, or humanistic explanations. It has also been applied to the view that natural sciences have primacy over other fields of inquiry such as social sciences. Today, the term is often used against vocal critics of religion-as-such.[4] Daniel Dennett, a prominent philosopher of science, recently said that "When someone puts forward a scientific theory that [religious critics] really don't like, they just try to discredit it as 'scientism'".[3] In contrast with this was its usage in the early 20th century, which was as a neutral descriptive and roughly synonymous with logical positivism.[5] Contemporary descriptive usage of the term is limited but found in some places. The Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer, for example, self-identifies as scientistic and defines scientism as "a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life appropriate for an Age of Science."[6]''
In contrast, I think the Walker quote has yet another intended direction, the misuse, misunderstanding, and abuse of a popularized view of science.
It's interesting some respects to consider just how integrated many of the sciences are with a completely humanistic world view---I mean the modernist-enlightenment project itself. In a way, I never understood the so-called conflict between the sciences and humanities.
Niether have had a clean history when it comes to their use by governments and societies to wage war, justify oppressions, shore up the class divisions, and generally suck up to the power--be willing to be made the tools of power.
I certainly feel the conflict in an intellectual and social sense, and have a general impression of the remarkably different sorts of people who seem to gravitate to one side or the other. But other than that, I can't quite put my finger on what the differences really amount to.
I suppose I would call it a cultural difference. But even that doesn't hold up very well around here. The founding groups of scientists at UCB were mostly from 1930s and created departments, labs and a general culture that had a fairly strong humanistic bend. I am thinking of the Oppenhiemer brothers, Seaborg and others of that era. Nevermind for the moment they invented ways to kill millions, pollute the earth beyond repair and so on, and much of their legacy ended up as the administrative core of the weapons of mass destruction industry in the US federal lab system...
Even so, they managed also to I don't know, communicate a certain humanistic attitude about the uses of science---probably as a result of seeing their work turned into a militaristic mass evil. Well, they did it themselves, of course.
I am not sure the bio-science crew has quite grasp where their work is taking them. I think they could use some serious history lessons from the physical sciences. And the computer crew sure isn't far behind being turned into stooges for the new age police state.
Still, I would be reluctant to start hammering away at the sciences in general, particularly in this righwing religious dominated political climate. It is just too easy to miss use political critiques of the uses of science for a kind wholesale science bashing contest that ends up putting creationism in public education, superstitious crap about genetics like stem cell research into public policy etc. etc. etc.
CG --