geo wrote:So what is it about being scientistic (besides being a rather awkward word)? Can we have too much confidence in science? Does it reduce our perspective of the human experience? Does science rob humanity of its soul? And what exactly does this mean?
I am not an expert on the use of the term "scientism", but I have gathered some idea of it. Scientism stretches the confidence we should all have in science, to do a good job of resolving objective questions of fact, into a faith in its supporting social processes that is borrowed from admiration of its intellectual prowess.
Scientism tends to discount doubts about the ultimate goodness of scientific endeavors, for example. Is repackaging opiates as opioids really such a good thing? Of course it is! Science did it! The presumption of innocence that allowed opioids to be shamelessly promoted, and defended by lies, for a decade was abetted by scientism. Nuclear energy will be harmless. Geoengineering will solve climate change. To paraphrase the Beatles, all you need is science.
Can we have too much confidence in science? Yes, of course. Scientists tend to assume that because they follow protocols for ethical science, that their research will lead only to further experiments which follow the protocols for ethical science. No one with an authoritarian or militaristic mindset will ever get hold of them. Mengele was a one-off, never to be repeated. Umm, right.
I really don't know if science reduces our perspective on the human experience. I am keeping on open mind on the subject. I have a high degree of confidence that power gathers more power, and so bringing more power into existence is an activity that we should reflect on and not just assume it will be harmless. It's at least possible that creating more power led mainly to checks on concentrated power for the last 100 years but is now turning on us and will instead mainly enable concentrated power, as Tyler Cohen has suggested. More subtly, it's possible that more power is turning all of our attention onto empty questions of accumulation and away from the arts of mutual support which contribute more happiness at this stage of affluence. I have seen the calculations of marketing take precedence over issues of meaning which had formerly been decisive, and it gives me reason to worry.
Soul is the relationship of a relationship to itself. The ability to go get more information to learn more about decisive issues, not just about the world out there as a cat goes to investigate new scritchings in the woodwork, but crucially about the inner world that relates objective fact to goals and strategies. This includes the ability to choose from a range of possible strategies, and to consider the choice reflectively. Also the ability to construct inner tools, such as categories and priorities, and to evaluate these tools for possible improvement. And so, ultimately, the ability to weigh different goals and decide what we "really" value most. Animals don't go on vision quests, or fast to strengthen devotion to a principle. A soul is a charged process.
There is no way that science robs humanity of its soul. But it has the potential to reduce the scope of humanity's soul, by pushing ahead issues of capacity without reflecting on issues of purpose. Just watch Putin in action, pushing the creation of new cybercrime methods and new espionage techniques and new abilities to manipulate the common people. Consider what happens if such an orientation begins to feel inevitable, as when the U.S. felt it had to develop nuclear weapons to prevent someone else from developing them first. Can the spell learned by the sorcerer's apprentice get out of control? Does anyone really need to ask?
geo wrote: But I also think science has become a a rather broad term that includes technology, which itself is driven mostly by economics and politics. Science itself is a tool that we use to learn about the natural world. And it works to that end, better than any other tool. We should not confuse knowledge with meaning.
Yes, I think this is well put. Reason is a whore, going with whatever priorities show the money. Scientism is a confusion of knowledge with meaning, taking the fact that we value knowledge for its own sake as a sufficient reason to give it priority over other values. Or perhaps it is just a tendency to discount questions of meaning in a kind of blind faith in knowledge.
geo wrote:If our complaint is that we've become too materialistic, is that really the fault of science? Joseph Campbell once spoke of the symbolism of the tallest buildings. . . . So the tallest buildings today are not science labs and universities but the centers of commerce.
No, not the fault of science. But possibly a side effect of technological improvement, which is a side effect of scientific investigation. I like Joseph Campbell's observation, though I must say religion in its heyday was not a comprehensive source of meaning or even a reliable guide for society whenever it did bother to quest for meaning. "Religionism" (if I can coin the phrase) was surely as much of a problem before 1900 as scientism is today.
The argument that is taking hold among educated progressive Christians, from my limited observation, is that religion offers something that materialism doesn't, and we should be unapologetic about creating communities which tap those benefits. You can see it in David Brooks' work, which is not particularly Christian. We continue to engage with the modern world and seek to ask questions that will lead toward wisdom, but that isn't the primary goal of communities of meaning. Rather it is an aspect of such communities that keeps them from the extremes of Orthodox Judaism or the Amish.