Stephen Law on scientism

November 3, 2015 • 2:30 pm

On his eponymous website, writer/philosopher Stephen Law has a new post called “Scientism!“. I reproduce it in its entirety:

SCIENTISM: here’s the final paragraph of the chapter I just finished which will appear in Massimo Pigliucci and Maarten Boudry’s forthcoming tome Science Unlimited.

I have provided three illustrations of how the charge of scientism is made in a baseless and indeed irrelevant way against some critics of religious and/or supernatural beliefs. It is not difficult to find many more. In the hands of some – including many theologians – the charge of ‘scientism!’ has become a lazy, knee-jerk form of dismissal, much like the charge of ‘communism!’ used to be. It constitutes a form of rubbishing, allowing – in the minds of those making the charge – for criticisms to be casually brushed aside. No doubt some things really are beyond the ability of science, and perhaps even reason, to decide. But there’s plenty that does lie within the remit of the scientific method, including many religious, supernatural, New Age, and other claims. However, because the mantra ‘But this is beyond the ability of science to decide’ has been repeated so often with respect to that sort of subject matter, it has become heavily woven into our cultural zeitgeist. People now just assume it’s true for all sorts of claims for which it is not, in fact, true. The phrase has become a convenient, immunising factoid that can be wheeled out whenever a scientific threat to belief rears its head. When believers are momentarily stung into doubt, there are those who lull them back to sleep by repeating the mantra over and over. The faithful murmur back: ‘Ah yes, we forgot – this is beyond the ability of science to decide…. zzzz.’

A kindred spirit! I’m looking forward to that book, and to Law’s chapter in particular. I’m hoping I can find some humanist who can engage me in a written debate about whether the humanities and arts are “ways of knowing” (I say “no”). I still have not found any fact or observation about the universe that can be sussed out by the humanities but not by science. (By “science,” I mean “science broadly construed”: the combination of reason, empirical testing, and replication described in Faith versus Fact.

106 thoughts on “Stephen Law on scientism”

  1. After enjoying (is enjoying the right word for a book on philosophy?) The Philosophy of Pseudoscience, I’m looking forward to this as well. It’ll be interesting to see who the other authors are.

  4. I would have thought that art appreciation is more accessible to someone with training in the humanities than in science.

    2. But that does not mean the art itself produced knowledge. A person trained in the humanities might know how to better appreciate the art because she has studied the life of the artist, the artist’s creative philosophy, the cultural context in which the art was created. Studying facts surrounding the artwork led to greater appreciation. That’s not the same thing as art being a way of knowing.

      There should be no wall between science and art. If, in the process of creating art, an artist makes and observation and uses some system verify it, that artist has done science. Even in the context of creating art, it’s still science that produces the objective knowledge.

    3. It’s words like ‘appreciation’ that gum up the works of ‘knowing’ when it comes to the arts. It doesn’t have a stable meaning or even range of meaning. What is it to ‘appreciate’ a piece of music? Engagement of emotions? Sure, but what sorts of emotions? Maybe you cried at the conclusion of the ‘Ode to Joy’ of Beethoven’s 9th symphony; maybe your seat mate was in awe; maybe I, listening at home, heard bombast and felt negatively. And, in any case, we really can’t know what every hearer hears and feels. Even if we could, and had some facts to work with, it’s impossible to distill knowledge out of this potluck stew of responses.

      And note that this is only the beginning of our troubles in seeking knowledge from the arts and the study of the arts. Why did we choose to listen to Beethoven’s 9th instead of Lawrence Welk and his wunnerful band playing the Beer Barrel Polka? What principles of aesthetics, what methodology, allow the conclusion that ‘Beethoven is better than Welk’ to be taken as an empirical truth?

      The academic study of the humanities in the modern era has tried and failed to provide anything like ‘science broadly construed’ for its subjects. And, over the past few decades, the humanities have self-immolated on the pyre of postmodernism, relativism and so-called cultural studies.

      Humanistic study is a limitless ocean, with each contributor pouring in or bailing out his or her measure of thought. The level will spread, because there is no limiting shore, but it never rises. Whereas science is a mountain range, slowly further upthrust by the grinding tectonic plates of research and theory.

  5. Along with a desire to protect religion, people who express concern over “scientism” seem to fear scientists or other “experts” telling them what sort of art, hobbies, or lifestyles they “ought” to pursue according to the laws of science.

    It’s not a completely baseless fear, in that overbearing critics of people’s preferences sometimes do resort to language or even concepts borrowed from reason. These are the folks who invoke things like Natural Law to condemn homosexuality or claim that one composer is rationally better than another. Matters of personal taste are not really right or wrong: dragging in science won’t prove one side over another.

    But few of the people being accused of ‘scientism’ are doing anything of the sort. By coupling criticism of religion in with such nonsense, however, the implication is that yes indeed, the atheists ARE doing this — or, perhaps, that atheism will lead to this. I think this tactic or (as Stephen Law would call it) immunizing strategy grows out of the general tendency of the religious to conflate claims about the supernatural with values and virtues.

    1. You make an interesting point there. In my talks with theists, I get the impression that a):they are tired of atheists not talking values, and b) the extraordinary beliefs are the implications of holding to those values. It’s strange being asked “why are you so fixated on immaculate conception?” at the same time as the claim that theism isn’t about literalism despite holding to the belief in it. They can have either one or the other, but not both. If literalism is a mistake, the immaculate conception goes. If you hold to the immaculate conception, no amount of talk of values will square that circle.

      2. Don’t think so.

        Art connaisseur: this painting is a masterpiece!

        Shopping bag lady: I don’t like it!

        AC: Well, you’re wrong!

        Lesson one: category error

        1. I was sort of making a joke. The commenter’s swapping out “appreciation” with “knowing” isn’t enough.

    4. I think there is such a thing as good art, and knowing how to recognize it is real and it is knowing but it’s knowledge that’s only applicable to the human mind, not some universal aspect of nature. (Therefore I agree that art appreciation doesn’t really count for this “humanities vs science” comparison.)

      1. I think there is near universal agreement that there is such a thing as good art. The problem is that most people don’t agree with each other about which is the good stuff and which isn’t.

      2. But “knowing how to recognize it” is not knowledge that is generated by the art itself. People are taught the criteria for judging art, and the criteria are, in turn, developed over time based on observing what most people find compelling. It’s, if not scientific, at least based in empiricism.

        NB – I’m not saying science decides what is good or bad art, I’m saying we quasi-scientifically derive criteria for determining whether a high percentage of people will find the art compelling.

  9. The arts are not, and never have been, a “way of knowing.” They’re a “way of playing,” and they discover not propositional truths, but expressions of human feeling. So let’s put that nonsense to rest. A human endeavor can be immensely important without being a “way of knowing.”

    1. Although Humes Fork is often criticised in philosophy I think it is useful to consider the two tines: the world of facts and the world of concepts. I’d argue that science explores the world of facts and the humanities explore the world of concepts.

      ‘Ways of knowing’ cannot apply to the world of facts since all factual knowledge is provisional (although very nearly certain in many cases). ‘Ways of knowing’ cannot apply to the world of concepts because different people hold different concepts to be certain when others don’t. Tricky stuff, ways of knowing, but exploration is an easier activity to comprehend.

      1. No, Hume’s Fork says that the only justifiably true statements are empirical [“matter of fact”] or a priori [“truth of reason”]. In Hume’s system, the latter were pretty much restricted mathematical and logical axioms.

        I don’t see how either “tine” falls outside Jerry’s concept of science.

  10. There are things we can “know” in the sense of “learn” from the arts and humanities. We can glean histories, attitudes and points of view that appear alien to us from time or culture or individual experience. And, most importantly, we can strive to empathy. This is why we suspend doubt in an attempt to immerse ourselves in other imagined lives.

    Science is what we observe and test and verify against the universe. Art is how we feel about the experience of being alive.

    1. But I don’t see how this works.

      We can see the arts and humanities as “play”, as has been said; and no less important for that.

      To the extent that the arts and humanities can also impart knowledge, what kind of valid knowledge can ever be gained except scientific knowledge in the broad sense, i.e. the kind that is tested objectively against reality?

      You say “we suspend doubt in an attempt to immerse ourselves in other imagined lives”. But if you want to categorize this as “knowledge” rather than “play”, more is required. I can see that there may be unconventional ways to gain empathic skills that grant insight to obtain cultural or anthropological data. But once purported knowledge is obtained by such a method, unless its validity is tested objectively against reality, it is not knowledge.

      To give a specific example, my sister has described a process that sounds almost word-for-word like “we suspend doubt in an attempt to immerse ourselves in other imagined lives”. Her conclusion from this experience is that Jesus speaks to her directly and that she is going to heaven.

      1. As a former experimentalist I would have loved to have an artists’ eye for color and detail, it would probably would’ve helped me immensely, especially early on. As such, I can see such classes as helping scientists (and others) learn valuable skills.
        Is that ‘knowledge’? No. But then again, neither is 101 lab courses knowledge; everything you do is already known by both others and by you via book learning. The practical education of lab courses is about learning techniques and skills of observation. If a fine arts or humanities class teaches you equivalent or perhaps better skills of observation, then its equally as valuable, no?

        Likewise philosophy and similar subjects for analyzing arguments. If it teaches you skills that then directly apply to your job or further studies, then its valuable, no?

        1. Yes, of course I agree that things other than knowledge can be valuable. Skills, techniques, and of course experiences & feelings. Life is not just about the acquisition of knowledge, it’s about having fun.

          So it’s not the value that I’m disputing. It’s the characterization of “other ways of knowing” as knowledge. I think there’s a bright line – a very bright line – between “knowledge” and, well, everything else. Knowledge is that which we test objectively against reality, using the scientific method, broadly construed.

          1. I guess my quibble is against a better choice of terms. Artistic “knowledge” as an epistemology? No. As gaining new experiences and insights? Yes. And, of neccesity, subjective? Of course. Knowledge is a very broad term. By definition.

            And although I wouldn’t mind seeing Professor CC debate a humanities professor on “ways of knowing,” i think the terms ought to be well delineated at the outset.

            PCC is certainly one of the finest and most lucid writers I have ever read, on any terms, but I would hate to see the humanities conflated with religious “ways of knowing.”

            That being said, I know there are post-modern, post-structuralist, post-thinking intoxicated semioticians and such. And… F them. Go ahead. Tear em a new one.

            I have no problems with religious people telling me what they know or feel in their hearts. I put it down to poetry. I believe them and I believe it is a form of “knowledge” that is meaningful to them and can change them. Demonstrably. That being said, when they hold out their subjective experiences as claims about reality, I part company. I belive what you thought the angel said to you was new knowledge for you and perhaps quite meaningful, but I don’t believe in no freakin angels.

            That ya gotta prove.

          2. It comes down to what we think merits the description “knowledge”.

            I’d argue that “knowledge” should not be so broad as to encompass subjective experience, emotions, internal mental states. Emotions are the tools that my genes use to manipulate my behavior, so I don’t trust them! We know that different people subjected to similar stimuli can have totally different subjective experiences and claim contradictory insights. We know that recreational drugs can be used to manipulate and dramatically transform mental states, in some cases creating an illusion of profundity and deep insight. In principle, as we learn more about how our brains work, I think we may be able to generate mental states at will, through a combination of drugs, virtual reality, perhaps direct neural stimulation…

            All of this tells me that insight gained through subjective experience (including that of art) is inherently unreliable, and rarely as profound as it feels. The characterization of art as “play” seems apposite.

          3. Yes, and it can be very deep play, especially where music is concerned. I know folks with fine minds (and who shave daily with Occam’s razor [women too!] who are so profoundly moved by their special music(s) that they swear they’ve self-transcended. For a while after the experiences, they believe in subjective knowledge.

    2. A lot of this “knowing” is really scientific in nature, using the broadly construed definition of science.

      Take, for instance, empathy. We read about a character and her feelings, and we say “Hey, I’ve felt the same way.” These are two data points. We then hypothesize that other people experience the same feelings, and so we observe experiments in the real world to see if we get the results we expect if our hypothesis is true.

      1. But in your example, I think the knowledge we gain is of behavioral stimilus-response, similar to observing whether a dog drools in response the smell of meat. I don’t think it addresses the question of whether the subjective experience of the feeling constitutes knowledge.

    3. The problem is artists, film makers, writers etc often play fast and loose with the facts.

      And so we are back to square one, because in order to determine, for example, how close to reality the historical events depicted in a given piece of fiction are we need to fact-check them against the available historical evidence.

      1. Music (as heard) contains no facts.

        Abstract painting (as seen) contains no facts.

        Representational art (painting, sculpture) is often imagined, not based in history.

        Literary art (poetry, novel, drama) need not have any historical materials.

        Yet all of these forms of creative art are appreciated and may be studied as objects.

        Science broadly construed.

        2. Yup. There is an important distinction between productive activity (which aims to do) and theoretical activity (which aims to know). But that distinction runs through sciences as well — i.e., “applied math” (aims to do) and “theoretical physics” (aims to know).

          The fact that the arts are productive activities doesn’t all by itself disqualify them as ways of knowing, or bodies of knowledge.

    4. Art and other entertainment are very important for humans; it makes live more bearable, less boring and it can teach you some skills that make you and others happy.

      But it cannot produce reliable knowledge. We invented science for that.

      A human is an animal that makes things up to keep itself happy.

  11. An art professor friend of mine and I once got into an argument about post-modernism. I, in the possession of a completely worthless bachelor’s degree that is little more than a sigil of the four years of utterly useless post-modern theory I received while in college, argued that the humanities were completely dependent upon science. That without the advancements that science, broadly construed, made possible, there would not be any arts or humanities. Without an agricultural revolution, Ravel would’ve been to busy foraging to write Bolero.
    He, being an arbiter of that very same useless post-modern theory, did not agree.
    I think it was when I made the analogy that science is the engine, transmission, steering column, brakes and all of the other mechanical components of your car, while the humanities are your air freshener, that things turned ugly.
    I never did get the yellow paint out of that shirt.

    1. So science is to blame for ‘Bolero’!

      Just lost a smidgen of my respect for science, even broadly construed, since the world would be better off without ‘Bolero’ (and I think Ravel would have agreed).

      See, that’s art appreciation. . .

  12. Re
    Ways of knowing

    One can go with Carl Sagan’s dictum that a scientist has to have two somewhat antagonistic qualities:
    1) The ability to creatively generate hypotheses that may go apparently wildly contrary to received common wisdom.
    2) The willingness to rigorously TEST those hypotheses

    Then I suppose humanities can contribute to the first. One can gain tentative and provisional insights into the process of dying from Tolstoy’s story of Ivan Illich that might aid a counselor, but one would want to test that against a broader range of experience.

    So, no, I don’t think humanities necessarily provide an independent and separate “way of knowing” but they are, I think, a tenuous not-fully-reliable “way of knowing” that generally requires further verification, double checking, etc.

    Nonetheless, some of the time, intuition arrives at true results faster than analytic reason.

    1. Well said. Occasionally after reading great literature, eg, The Sound and the Fury, I’ve felt that I’ve gained some deep insight into reality but, on reflection, then wondered if my aesthetically triggered and satisfied feelings were actually accurate knowledge of reality. Without careful and thorough data, those feelings are little more than hypotheses and wishful thinking.

      1. And reading the next comment, I see Matt has said this more succinctly and clearly than I have.

      2. Faulkner’s ‘S & F’ may be ‘great literature’ (that’s one of the matters in dispute on this thread: what constitutes greatness in the arts), but I think you’re mistaken about the kind of response you had after reading the novel. It does not, because it cannot, provide ‘accurate knowledge of reality.’ What it can offer, and powerfully, is a particular representation of humans acting in the constrained world of human culture. This is human reality because it is made by humans. And to the extent that F.’s representation of the character and action of Quentin, Quentin, Jason, Benjy and Dilsey are artful, F. moves them toward the universal–not stereotypes but archetypes–where they can move us to tears and laughter and even toward a worldview: namely, that that’s the way we are and we’re worth thinking seriously about.

        Culture belongs to Homo sapiens, not to the cosmos or the microcosmos. We don’t yet understand it in whole, but I maintain that the arts can and often do help us understand it in part. Feel: think: analyze: try to know.

        1. “And to the extent that F.’s representation of the character and action of Quentin, Quentin, Jason, Benjy and Dilsey are artful, F. moves them toward the universal–not stereotypes but archetypes–where they can move us to tears and laughter and even toward a worldview: namely, that that’s the way we are and we’re worth thinking seriously about.”

          I feel the same way about Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa & Maggie. The problem is that in art, the “human condition” is represented in thousands of mutually contradictory ways. All of these deep insights can’t be right; or, if they are all right some of the time, are they really such deep insights?

          One lesson of the scientific method is that we have a great talent for wishful thinking and deceiving ourselves. Art, in the worst case, can lead us deeper into this trap: our wishful thinking seems more profound when there’s dramatic music playing in the background!

          I think art is best seen as mental play. At its best, art can certainly go far beyond mere entertainment. Artistic imagination can help us to generate novel ideas and hypotheses about the real world. But art itself does not impart reliable knowledge, any ideas that it yields must be tested against reality if they are to be more than flights of fancy.

  13. Even our feelings and intuitions are observed empirically by us and then used in reasoning out an action. They are a piece of evidence like any piece of evidence but they themselves do not constitute knowledge.

  14. The arts, to take an example, usually involves personal expression. Someone has an experience of life and works out a way – by writing a play or painting a picture – to convey that experience. The process usually engages the emotions. We come to a new understanding of ourselves, typically, when we experience art. In a way we could say this is a way of knowing in that we come to know the diversity of experiences that we would otherwise not be aware of. But this kind of knowing is not much like scientific exploration. We may explore some aspect of life scientifically but the communication of that knowledge will attempt to exclude the emotional and personal aspects and stress the quantitative aspects.

  16. The most legitimate use of the arts is to elicit emotional responses in the audience. This is why I am ambivalent about literature. Literature is the author’s opinion about what certain types of people would do under certain circumstances. Too often they seem to be to be twisting their characters’ behaviour to fit the plot, and too often they are just wrong. See for example “The Lord of the Flies” in which Golding offers his ideas about how two groups of boys would behave if stranded on an island. It’s very intense, moving writing, but scientific investigation of similar circumstances have shown that he was quite mistaken about how they would behave. Here art has misled millions of people about the behaviour of teenage boys. People do argue about the truth of literature, but there is no way to decide who’s right, and when it plays to our prejudices (such as the innate evilness of teenage boys without adult supervision), it is unlikely to receive much push-back.

    Music however can’t be wrong, it just creates a pure emotional response. The visual arts can be misleading, showing people as they are not especially in the era of Photoshop.

    1. >Music however can’t be wrong, it just >creates a pure emotional response.

      I disagree. Every time you write parallel 5ths, God kills a kitten.

          4. Spoken word to music, or a beat at the very least. There’s a sliding scale there, sure, but to categorically deny that rap is music isn’t correct IMO.

            I’m speaking as a musician if that means anything to anybody!

          5. Well, I guess this is correct in that rap is a vocal style rather than a musical style.

            A very old-fashioned vocal style, too. Even Milton took the piss out of the insistence on rhyming couplets.

    2. Funny, LotF has come up before here in exactly this context. I suppose it’s because it’s the nearest thing to a scientific “experiment” to be staged in a novel: put a group of teenage boys on an island without adult supervision, and see what happens. I would be curious to know what the “scientific investigation” consists of. After all, no scientific experiment can be compared with another unless the variables are carefully controlled. LotF is fiction (so the variables are made up), while the “similar circumstances” does not smack of scientific rigour (understandably: it would be – let us say – unethical to stage such an experiment deliberately. So while I accept that Golding is not scientific in his story, I’m not sure that the science is either. Quite apart from the fact that Golding’s novel can be read at multiple levels, from simple story (a kind of dark side of the novels for teenagers popular at the time, such as “Swallows and Amazons”) through to an allegory that continues to resonate today, for example in the conflict between “Enlightenment values” and the dark and nihilistic irrationalism embraced by fundamentalists of all stripes. In that respect, it is not a “way of knowing” but perhaps a “way of revealing”.

  17. [“Scientism!”] has become a lazy, knee-jerk form of dismissal, much like the charge of ‘communism!’ used to be …

    That charge may well have carried some weight in America. In Britain, only the far right wing (e.g. many newspaper editors or proprietors) every considered “communist!” to be an effective insult.
    Many people took it as evidence that their arguments were being effective, and the red-fearer had resorted to ad hominium, and so could be finished off and left for the crows.

  18. Law’s book “The Philosophy Files” was the first book I ever read on philosophy. It’s a great introduction to many important philosophical ideas (including whether or not god exists). I’m glad to see that he’s still out there do good work.

  19. I think I disagree to some extent with most of the ideas expressed here. I hold to a more broad definition of science where science is just the most precise, rigorous and rational way to analyze a problem. The cognitive tools scientists use aren’t much different than what many use and what distinguishes science is the topics that are studied and the degree of rigor. If this is the case then many in the humanities already are doing science- they just don’t call it that.

    1. Actually, I think most people here would agree with that. That’s why you’ll often see the phrase “science broadly construed”.

      There are some circumstances, however, when pushers of woo use the “scientism” criticism to push a more preposterous agenda. Their argument amounts to – “Because science doesn’t know absolutely everything, we should behave as though we know absolutely nothing”. This gambit is designed to open the door to utterly implausible ideas, and to characterize those who include plausibility as a criterion as “closed minded” or “unimaginative”.

  20. Books, music, films and paintings are not ways of knowing because they can’t be trusted on their own because they are subjective human expressions. We don’t say “Why Evolution Is True” is evidence of evolution. We say fossils are evidence of evolution and they are communicated to us through the book “Why Evolution Is True”.

    These wacky theologians say the subjective expression of the message is evidence of the truth of the message. That’s ridiculous. The message could still be true though, but we can’t say things are true because they are communicated to us through an emotional painting/film/book or piece of music. The message still has to be tested against the evidence.

    Art is not objective. To say art is a way of knowing is just an attempt to smuggle subjectivism through customs.

    1. Since no two people ever interpret books, music, films and paintings (or dance, sculpture, etc.) the same way, it is clear it is not communicating a specific concept or truth.

      1. -no two people ever interpret books, music, films and paintings (or dance, sculpture, etc.) the same way-

        Two points: 1)You couldn’t possibly know this to be true; and 2)it is false on its face to experience, since I’ve taught or sat in on countless seminars of art and literary criticism where careful analysis resulted in a near-consensus on a work’s affect and meaning.

        1. It’s not convincing to suggest that the validity of “knowledge” obtained from art derives from consensus. Polls showing what the majority of humans believe about scientific ideas are rather embarrassing for the species, why would “knowledge” derived from art (if there is such a thing) be any different?

        2. I think Ralph is right. Consensus reached among art/literary critics can not be considered “knowledge”. It is simply agreement. A room full of theologians might be in complete agreement that Jesus really did rise after being dead for three days. Calling this “knowledge” of a resurrection would be a misuse of the word.

  21. How about ways of perceiving instead of ways of knowing? After spending hours in the Picasso Museum in Paris, or the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the world can really look strange for a while, as if one is looking at it differently or seeing aspects and details previously ignored. The effect wears off, but it seems good (to me) to experience this disturbance and expansion of normal perception.

  22. Before about 1800, I think the arts could give science a run for its money. Shakespeare vs Newtonian Mechanics is at least a fair fight. In other words, the human imagination was generating stuff that was at probably at least as entertaining and interesting as science.

    In the last 200 years, however, science has really just blown everything in the arts and humanities away. Reality, and our ability to access and understand it, turns out to be way more profound, weird and interesting than anything our imaginations can generate in art.

    I mean, Picasso is a lot of fun, but does it seriously compare to this:

    Space itself is bent by gravity. We have sent a telescope into orbit that has given us images of the light from distant galaxies that has followed the curvature of space around a nearer massive cluster (gravitational lensing) so that we see multiple images of the distant galaxies. The distant galaxies, incidentally, are so far away that the light we now see left them almost 10 billion years ago.
    http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/10th/photos/slide36.shtml

    That has to make any art historian feel a little insecure.

    1. This is not really relevant to the larger discussion, but I’d dispute that artists should be made to feel insecure by the kinds of things current science is discovering.

      Art, it seems to me, is not intended to fill the same role as science. Would you say auto mechanics must be feeling insecure because of science’s recent discoveries? Pastry chefs? Divorce lawyers? Art is about seeing what human creativity is capable of when at its best, most intelligent, and most skillful. I don’t see that a contest with cosmology is inevitable.

      1. If art is more than pretty pictures or entertaining drama, then what is it? A common claim is that art teaches us deep truths about the human condition, for example if I may quote Robert Bray’s comment about a Faulkner novel above

        “…the universal–not stereotypes but archetypes–where they can move us to tears and laughter and even toward a worldview: namely, that that’s the way we are and we’re worth thinking seriously about.”

        By such a measure, the arts and humanities have good reason to feel insecure about their importance relative to science. Evolutionary Theory, Cosmology, Quantum Mechanics – these have all given us far deeper insight into our origins and our nature, and raised far more profound and troubling questions about the very nature or reality.

        1. I think art is more than a pretty picture in the same sense that gymnastics is more than a back handspring. In the same sense that gymnastics is about appreciating what a dedicated cared and skilled human can do with her body, art is about what a dedicated and skilled human can do with her creativity. It’s about celebrating human achievement.

          I don’t think you’ve really addressed my point. Why would a pastry chef be made to feel insecure by theoretical physicists working on quantum gravity?

          Great novelists are great because they excel at describing human psychology in the context of a compelling narrative. They are better at it than others. They’ve achieved the ability to do that. When you say “wow” after witnessing a flawless parallel bar routine, it’s not first and foremost because the movements tha elves are just intrinsically awe-inspiring. Your awe is based in the knowledge that the gymnast has achieved an unusual level of skill, which is impressive.

          1. I’m not saying that art is worthless. We can come up with things that art does well – “describing human psychology in the context of a compelling narrative” would be one. (Although, this description could apply equally well to Shakespeare, The Sopranos or The Simpsons, and it seems little more than a paraphrase of “entertaining drama”.)

            But art is often claimed to be much more than this (and pastry chefs don’t make such claims). One claim is that art give us profound insight into deep universal truths. Another common claim is that art “challenges our preconceptions” in some way.

            My point is that, on these metrics, science has done far more. For example, evolution tells us far more about about the human condition than does Dostoevsky; QM challenges our preconceptions about the world far more profoundly than does a shark in formaldehyde.

            So, to be clear – I’m not saying art is worthless, any more than I’m saying we don’t need auto mechanics or divorce lawyers. I’m making a value judgement that art in the last couple of hundred years has been far less important than science. Art entertains us, but far deeper insights and challenges have come from science.

          2. “Art entertains us”
            I think that sounds a faint bit of praise. Art does entertain, but it also inspires, Beethoven as well as Darwin entertain and inspire. Art is not something you spend an hour enjoying and then go about your business. It can engage you more deeply and change your life. Happens all the time.
            But, as I said, I think the comparison of whose got bigger…importance is not a very useful way of comparing. They are both important and some may think one is more important to them personally, but it makes no sense to try to generalize the point.

          3. Oh, I didn’t think you were claiming art is worthless.

            I think we’re still talking past one another. I think art fulfills a different purpose than science. In my opinion, artists who try to claim some kind of equivalence between art and science are overreaching. Or perhaps just “mistaken” would be a better term.

        2. “importance relative to science”
          That’s really an odd way to compare two domains that perform very different functions in society. Listening to a symphony well played is a transporting and emotional experience which enriches our lives. We are moved to think of the composer, the conductor, the players, and the music itself.
          Scientific discoveries move us differently. We appreciate the curiosity and ingenuity of the researchers and gain inspiration from learning and knowing what the world is about in a physical sense.
          I would never say one domain is more important than the other. They are each, in their way, wonderful aspects of life. I wouldn’t want to be without either.

          1. I take your point that it’s an “odd way to compare domains”.

            And it’s a completely subjective question, of course, but “which is more important” is certainly a question that millions of students ask themselves every year when deciding what to do with their lives.

            Ideally, I’m all in favor of the broadest possible education – everyone should gain at least a basic grasp of both arts and sciences before they specialize. What does trouble me is that ignorance of science (and mathematics in particular) is worn almost as a badge of honor by some in the arts and humanities.

            To some degree, my perspective is actually based on conversations with college kids (and adults who are lost to science…!). For example, ask an art student who eschews science so set a metric of their choosing, “why do you think art is important” – and showing them that, in some cases, the Magisteria are not Non-Overlapping. As in, for example – “art challenges my preconceptions”. Ok – then let’s try Bell’s Theorem.

  23. I challenge the terms of the challenge about humanities being a way of knowing. Why should humanities have to show that it yields knowledge that science cannot? The bar should be set to show that science confirms something that humanities yields. Conversely, we wouldn’t say science is not a way of knowing only if it can’t demonstrate something that humanities cannot.

    I do not think that their is any knowledge that humanities can give us insight into that science cannot either independently determine or confirm, but the question as to whether humanities provides real knowledge is less clear. Unless we want to declare shared subjective experience as devoid of real knowledge, I don’t see how we can say humanities doesn’t impart useful knowledge in say the area of personal fulfillment or ethical guidelines.

    1. Interesting link. Wittgenstein’s analysis bothers me. Maybe I’m too much a materialist, but he seems to be extolling the virtues of a vague, interpersonal hunch, over scientific understanding. He equates philosophy with ideas floating in the medium of culture which he says is a form of understanding. Fine, but it seems to me after some scientific analysis in the future, we may very well come to a better understanding which makes our first hunch wrong. It seems he advocates his kind of truth as if it were stable, but it seems to me just a working hypothesis which requires time and testing to become verified.

  25. Back when I had recently deconverted from Christianity to nonbelief/atheism/whathaveyou, I found and shared a lot of memes on my FB wall that criticized Christian ideas (many of which I had once believed myself) and was told that it was all “scientism” and to, of course, stop sharing such things there. I eventually did stop and took them all down (mainly just in case any new job looks me up there).

    I knew the claim of “scientism” was BS, but I couldn’t explain why. So, thank you for sharing this. 🙂

  26. Just a report from a dissatisfied user of WordPress. After a half-hour spent composing a truly magnificent response to a truly benighted poster, with name and email properly filled in, the system ate my deathless prose as if it were the merest midmorning snack–an error message (said I hadn’t given name/email) and wouldn’t let me go back to repost. Would need to start all over and now lack the heart.

  27. When some theist makes such a silly claim, I respond with:

    Me: Science has already answered that question.

    Theist: Oh? What is the answer?

    Me: Chocolate.

    Theist: No, that’s not right.

    Me: You used the Scientific Method to determine that you feel “chocolate” was not the correct answer, thus demonstrating that Science can indeed assist in answering your question.

    It doesn’t sway anyone, but it certainly has caused a few to ponder how they might prove Science wrong without using the scientific method.

  28. I think the humanities can be a “way of knowing,” only not in the way it is usually presented by those throwing out accusations of “scientism” normally intend. I’ll give two examples:

    History: I can read the about the death of George Washington; obituaries in various newspapers, the number of people that assembled at his funeral procession, etc. But, that doesn’t give me a true sense of how much he would continue to be esteemed as the work by Constantino Brumidi in 1865, “The Apotheosis of Washington.”

    Psychology: I can read about peoples’ reactions to the death of a spouse; the stages of grief, the recovery process, etc. But I don’t get a true understanding of it the way I do by reading Poe’s, “The Raven.”

    I believe that both history and psychology fit the definition of “science broadly construed.” And in both cases, I believe I have gained knowledge from the humanities that is not better available through other methodologies.

    Having said that, I think that those in the humanities who like to use the word scientism tend to take it to the extreme. Beyond giving me insight into human thoughts and emotions (recognizing that one day neuroscience may give better information), the humanities tell me nothing about how the universe writ large works. The humanities provide useful information in understanding, well, humanity. Why they would want to discredit their craft by making unfounded claims is beyond me.

    1. It is unclear what you mean by “knowing” and “understanding”. What you get from the arts & humanities is just a warm fuzzy feeling. Only by the scientific method can we attain real, i.e. objective knowledge.

      1. Great point Arno.

        But, I think when you look at the example I gave in the case of Washington, it is an historical interpretation of attitudes of the time. That is a part of what historians do. The art and literature of the time could have painted a very negative picture of Washington. If it did, it still would have given an historical insight. So, it didn’t have to be a “a warm fuzzy.” Perhaps it would have been better had I used a negative example as well as a positive one.

    2. The knowledge of how highly Waahington was esteemed would not have been produced by either the writing or the reading of a history text. It was produced by the research done by, and verification methods employed by, those who write such history texts. That is, in the context and of a humanities project, the tool that is science was used.

      1. Exactly!

        And some of the tools in an historian’s box are the art, music, and literature of the period.

  29. Arts and humanities can be looked at two ways, as the product or as the study of a product. So we have (say) Shakespeare’s plays and the study of (say) Elizabethian English drama.

    It is the latter that in my view is of a piece with science, especially when systematic and general (i.e., philosophy). It thus must reflect appropriate “boundary conditions”. A literary critic who proposed that Shakespeare’s prolific output was due to a perpetual motion machine has a lot of work ahead of them.

    The former, however, are in my view not “ways of knowing”. However, they may *encode* (to speak) knowledge of various kinds, including scientific and ordinary and craft. If there’s such a thing as (for example) moral knowledge, matters may extend to that too.

  30. ‘Physics too is an interpretation of the world and an arrangement of the world, and not an explanation of the world…….we have measured the value of the world with categories that refer to a purely fabricated world’. Nietzsche.

    There is a danger of science aggrandising every human development which fits its criteria and undervaluing those which don’t by assuming the paramount importance of knowledge. Scientists can assume that – well they would wouldn’t they? Others may want to give paramountcy you to what Keats describes as negative capability. Others may think this a choice we don’t have to make.

  31. I wonder how Law would view Michael Sherman’s “The Shamans of Scientism” (http://www.michaelshermer.com/2002/06/shamans-of-scientism/) in which he seems to see scientism as a positive thing:

    “Scientism’s voice can best be heard through a literary genre for both lay readers and professionals that includes the works of such scientists as …Richard Dawkins…
    …
    Scientism is courageously proffering naturalistic answers that supplant supernaturalistic ones…”

    Have I got the completely wrong of the stick with Shermer’s piece (in light of this post of Jerry’s I did check in case Shermer’s was an April Fool!)?

  32. Hi Jerry, thanks for this post:

    I think the kicker is the last bit, tucked in a paragraph: (By “science,” I mean “science broadly construed”: the combination of reason, empirical testing, and replication described in Faith versus Fact. I suppose I’ll have to read your book (sly!) because the extension of the term ‘science’ seems to me the real sticking point.

    If ‘science’ means ‘knowledge’ (including mathematical and logical and ethical knowledge) then scientism is true by definition — everything that is known is known, nothing that is unknown is known. If ‘science’ means something more restricted than ‘knowledge’, such as some particular set of methods, scientism if false by definition — scientific methods are a subset of methods that produce knowledge. (But there are other methods that produce knowledge too!) Likewise, if ‘science’ means some particular set of conclusions about the world, scientism is false by definition — of all the things known, this scientific knowledge is a subset of all knowledge (but there is other knowledge too).

    So either scientism (the conviction that “every true fact about the universe is a scientific fact”) is true by definition (and hence trivial) or false by definition.

    I don’t see a way out of this dilemma. I take science in the oldest and broadest sense, therefore: science means knowledge and any method that works is a scientific method, including methods proper to mathematical, logical, metaphysical, and ethical domains.

    In other words, I take the “humanities and arts” to produce knowledge, and so to be consistent I must conclude they are sciences. As the Germans conceive it, “human sciences” are different than “natural sciences”, but they are both science.

    Hope you find the humanist you’re looking for — it’d be a good debate!

    Keith

    1. I mean using the methods of science, i.e. empirical evidence and replication of that evidence. That is not what humanities scholars mean when they say, “We get the truth about the effect of birth order on families by reading The Brothers Karamazov.”

  33. Hi, I’m honored by your response. And I really should read your book! But may I push back?

    Either the “methods of science” include the methods used in mathematics (esp. calculus), logic or they do not.

    If the methods of science excludes mathematical and logical methods then, reductio ad absurdem, the formulae and arguments upon which all quantitative science depends are not themselves scientific! I reject that disjunct.

    But if the methods of science include those, then not all scientific methods answer to the empirical evidence. The Wikipedia article lists math, logic, statistics, decision theory, game theory, computer science, etc. as “formal sciences”. This seems right to me. Formal sciences are not, by definition, answerable to material results. They are answerable to coherence, cogency, plausibility, truth, etc.

    It’s no use responding that math etc. can be empirically applied or that they will be empirically applied eventually. Even if it’s true, it’s irrelevant, for mathematicians prove a theorem and know it’s proven long before anyone discovers the “real world” applicability. (Rocket science was many years after Descartes!) Furthermore, it’s also true that even the most abstract metaphysics might be empirically applied eventually. So it’s beside the point.

    As I see it, the methods of science necessarily include some empirical methods and some formal methods; these are different but equally legitimate and equally useful in marching knowledge forward.

    Would you say that the methods of science includes methods proper to math, logic, computer science, etc, or no?

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