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Introduction:

As ideology spreads, scientism (mostly soft) is slowly drifting into society, quietly altering how we interact with the world. Here are some of the many problems caused by over-elevating the scientific method.

Science vs Scientism

Before we start, we need to distinguish between science and scientism carefully; they are not the same thing and this is not a religious excuse to ignore science.

Definition of Science: Any system of knowledge concerned with the physical world, based on observation and experimentation.

Definition of Scientism: Believing that the scientific method is the only valid way to determine truth and that it gets applied to all areas of knowledge (e.g. philosophy, social sciences, and the humanities).

There are 2 types of scientism: hard and soft. Hard scientism is the most extreme version, which holds that only science can explain the world. Soft scientism is the most common version; these people believe that science is the main and most reliable way of finding knowledge.

The Problem of Orthodoxy:

The first problem is unchanging orthodoxy; this is when a certain view of science is forced onto everyone else. If your scientific view is defeasible, there is no need for censorship. There are 3 kinds of orthodoxy in science: social, state, and Institutional.

Social Orthodoxy: This is when a society disregards different scientific views exclusively based on bad philosophy, ideology, or social disagreements, as a result of somebody’s science rather than evidence.

Institutional Orthodoxy: This is when institutions like universities, scientific journals, or research organisations force a consensus for several reasons; it can take the form of peer review bias, withholding grants, and withdrawing publication if they endanger the established consensus.

State Orthodoxy: This happens when the state or a bigger governmental authority forces its ideology into science through funding, legislation or using their influence to turn the results in their favour. This can distort results, wanting a study to say one set of results while suppressing anything that disagrees with their narrative.

It’s relatively common for people who believe in scientism to treat conclusions as moral badges. Since scientism overvalues the importance of science, people often push other areas of knowledge and personal bias into “science”. Science should be connected with other forms of knowledge, but shouldn’t absorb them.

Authority and Oversimplification:

Overbearing orthodoxy isn’t the only issue. Many massive problems are often oversimplified, such as the environment and public health; this is done for two reasons. They believe their audience needs problems dumbed down, or the problem is extremely complicated, so institutions believe they can simplify reality. This approach isn’t always bad, but it can often be used to manipulate a situation.

As we already know, Scientism is a common contradictory ideology which can often be enforced by orthodoxy. When people say “the scientific method is the only valid way to determine truth”; this causes problems since not every question can be solved by science. This means people who follow scientism have to treat non-science as science, or ignore truths that can’t be proven by science. Ironically, this can be applied to scientism since you can’t prove scientism with science, only philosophy.

Theology & Philosophy:

Last of all, the biggest problem with society adopting scientism isn’t the conditions and excuses claimed by those “following the science”, but the lack of theology and philosophy. The problem with excising these sources of knowledge, especially basic philosophy, is that science arises only from a coherent belief in the world, and for science to work, we need sound presumptions. Such as objective truth, the rationality of the universe, a reason to discover, and the reliability of human senses.

Science on its own cannot justify its own existence without a rare type of view, which is why many didn’t have anything close to modern science without outside influence and seeing the importance of this area of knowledge.

This is also why the claims “I believe in science, not religion” or “science removes the need for a God” don’t work because science studies the natural world using observation and experimentation. Because of this, it can’t prove or disprove religion, since religion is based on theological and philosophical claims; this is one of the most common uses of scientism in society. It would be like saying “science disproves history because it can’t always be recorded, observed or repeated”.

Conclusion:

Overall, scientism is just a rigged ideology which is often hijacked by people to control knowledge and suppress debate. By claiming the scientific method is the only valid way to determine truth, you end up with both a contradiction and bad actors.