Against scientism
Worshipping science doesn’t do anyone any good, especially science
One of the never ending discussions I’ve been involved since I have shifted career from evolutionary biology to philosophy of science is the issue of scientism. Heck, I have even co-edited (with my friend Maarten Boudry) a book about the darn thing. So let’s put the matter to rest once and for all!
Just kidding. I’m under no illusion that this essay will be the last word on the topic. Still, I have to try. The impetus for what you are now reading came from a recent article by Moti Mizrahiis, associate professor of philosophy in the School of Arts and Communication at the Florida Institute of Technology, entitled Why not scientism?and published in Aeon magazine. It opens thus:
“‘Philosophy is dead,’ Stephen Hawking once declared, because it ‘has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics.’ It is scientists, not philosophers, who are now ‘the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.’ The response from some philosophers was to accuse Hawking of ‘scientism.’ … But what’s wrong with putting a higher value on science compared with other academic disciplines? What is so bad about scientism? If physics is in fact a better torch in the quest for knowledge than philosophy, as Hawking claimed, then perhaps it should…
