In defence of scientism

Yes, I’m a scientismist… a science-ist… whatever. The point is: bad arguments cannot undermine scientism.

I won’t claim that scientism is infallible — that wouldn’t be very scientific. But when wannabe philosophers start pitching forth horsehockey that is not even wrong, then my hackles rise.

For your consideration, I offer a recent Medium article by Nino Padilla called “Why Scientism Is Wrong”. This unfortunate attempt to undermine scientism is so rife with errors that I couldn’t just point them out as comments on Padilla’s article.

Thus, here is a list of some of the more egregious errors I noticed in Padilla essay.

Rebuttals to Padilla’s claims

Here’s the first paragraph:

“Scientism claims that science is the only objective means by which we can know anything. Science does tell us a lot about nature. It allows us to develop new technologies, solve technical problems and make informed decisions. But believing that it’s the only source of knowledge feels incorrect.”

First off, the link to “scientism” leads one to a single person’s opinion piece, not endorsed by the AAAS platform in which it is published, and which is itself a jumbled mess of subjective rhetoric and fallacious arguments. There are many other possible definitions of scientism besides Padilla’s. Many of those definitions are just tools used by various religious, political, and other special interest groups keen on discouraging rigourous critical thinking. How exactly we should define scientism isn’t the point; the point is Padilla’s is very faulty. Padilla doesn’t even define what he means by “know”, which remains an open question in philosophy.

Secondly, his use of the word “feels” makes clear he’s really just complaining about his own cognitive dissonance. I don’t deny him the right to “feel” whatever he wants; I do deny him the right to claim that his “feelings” are sufficient evidence of anything at all beyond his own subjective experience.

His second paragraph:

Has there been any scientific experiment that proved that the only source of knowledge is science? I don’t think so. There are things we can know without appealing to scientific inquiry.

The question he asks is incoherent. It implies that someone has claimed that science is the only source of knowledge. Where is that claim? Nowhere; well, not in the world of those who actually understand anything about science. Everyone else is misinformed. The link Padilla provides is to a source of science for children and amateurs, and is correspondingly naive, ignoring centuries of work from cultures all over the world. Indeed, the article Padilla links to does not even address the claim he makes — that there are things we can “know” without appeal to science; all the article does is draw some naive boundaries around the scope of the kinds of science that school-children are taught — which is something else entirely.

Padilla’s third paragraph:

Scientism has staunch defenders that disregard any non-scientific assertions. They believe that science holds the answer to everything, but I argue that this is untrue. Though it helps us with several things, over-exalting it leads to more harm than good.

This is a strawman argument. It’s easy to find “staunch defenders” of all kinds of ridiculous claims. The nature of the defenders is irrelevant; what matters is the quality of the defences they present. Let’s be clear: Padilla isn’t really writing about “staunch defenders” here; he’s talking about extremists. That’s why he claims they believe science can answer any question. And the evidence he provides is a link at the Catholic Resource Education Center, so we know what that’s about.

Padilla’s claim is as senseless as claiming that anyone who refuses to be vaccinated against COVID-19 is an anti-vaxxer. There are, in fact, many reasons an individual might refuse a vaccination that are strongly supported by science.

Padilla then makes three claims of specific aspects of everyday life that are outside the scope of science. Spoiler alert: they hold water about as well as a colander.

Claim 1: Science cannot answer everything.

Actually, we don’t know whether science can answer everything, because we don’t know what “everything” means. It’s an incoherent question.

However, Padilla then limits his interest to the supernatural, which immediately brings us to notions of non-overlapping magisteria and the like — which are themselves incoherent. Simply put, if there is some alternate aspect of reality that humans can experience, then there would ample robust evidence of it by now, but there isn’t; and if these “magisteria” truly are non-overlapping, then humans could not experience any of them but the one that science describes.

Padilla writes: “…[science] doesn’t have the complete answers to nature’s questions.” Firstly, nature doesn’t ask questions; humans do. Secondly, the claim is another strawman because only the most naive understanding of science could be used to suggest that science has complete answers. Science is just more reliable than any other way of knowing.

He also writes: “Moreover, scientific studies sometimes contradict the findings of other scientific studies.” Yeah, that’s what makes it science; we don’t take anything for granted, including what we think we know. We accept the possibility that we may be wrong. Knowledge ultimately expands by trial and error. This is what makes science hard; there are many possible sources of error, and we can’t know what they are ahead of time. We’re in a dark room, with a flashlight, but the room is filled with mist. We can only see so far; we learn by exploring, by moving forward, and by carefully examining everything we come across. We’ll make mistakes; and if we’re any good, we’ll learn from them.

Padilla then cherry-pick’s a single rather ludicrous example of how science doesn’t work: the lack of a “cure” for acne. He should have stuck to the science of acne. It would have still been cherry-picking, but at least the argument would have been more sound. As it is, however, he refers to aspects of the problem relating to business, capitalism, politics,…. This conflation of non-scientific issues just obscures the matter and helps no one.

Claim 2: Knowing the Science Is Different From Understanding It

This claim is rather opaque in that the difference between “knowing” and “understanding” is not at all clear.

Padilla attempts to explain it with “…knowing the answer to something is different from integrating that knowledge into real life. Knowledge does not always translate into practice.”

I guess we’re left to assume that “understanding” in Padilla’s view is equivalent to integrating knowledge into practical matters. This isn’t really a view of “understanding” that maps onto any definition I’m aware of or could find. It might be better to rephrase Padilla’s second claim as something like “knowing science is does not necessarily help one apply it to real life.”

But that depends on what one means by “science”. If one takes science to include all aspects of the process of science — including critical thinking, evaluation of alternatives, evidence-based decision making, etc., then one must disagree with Padilla. The point of the general methods of science is to provide a framework to make good decisions based on the best evidence. That it’s typically applied to matters like whether the Higg’s Boson exists is missing the point.

Even if one ignores the process of science and restricts oneself to only scientific knowledge, one must still admit that science may not be sufficient to deal with real life, but it is certainly necessary.

Padilla uses the example of mask-wearing and physical distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19. He writes:

Another example — scientists tell us that wearing a face mask and maintaining social distance prevents the spread of the COVID-19 virus. However, a lot of people still deny this fact.

Just because we know the answer, it doesn’t mean we know what to do.

His second paragraph doesn’t follow from his first.

In the first paragraph, he identifies that some individuals deny the fact that mask-wearing and physical distancing help prevent the spread of COVID-19. This kind of denial bears not at all on the legitimacy of scientism; it is a matter for psychiatry (which is a kind of applied science, by the way). If anything, the correct claim to make for an individual who denies a fact is that the individual knows that the claims are not facts and knows exactly what to do; i.e., to not wear a mask and to not maintain physical distance from others. However, such people are delusional.

The second paragraph appears to draw an inference that any individual who knows an “answer” may not be able to act upon it. Presumably “answer” here equates to “fact” in the first paragraph. There is an implication in this paragraph that the factual nature of the claim being considered is not disputed.

The first paragraph is about denial of facts, the second is about actions taken having accepted the facts. These are utterly disjoint matters that cannot be used together in any meaningful way.

Padilla wraps up this section with:

The answer is just one part of the problem. Doing and maintaining it is more crucial. So how do we go about it? It’s not a problem science can easily solve. Understanding is deeper than knowledge. It entails integrating the truth in our lives and taking action.

Again, I must assume that by “answer” he means “knowledge”. His second sentence is particularly concerning. He seems to be saying that application of a principle or belief is more important than than principle or belief being applied. This is absolutely not the case. Doing based on undisciplined, unprincipled, or irrational beliefs will lead to greater harm in the long run for many people. At best, one may claim that knowing and doing are equally important. Indeed, I would argue that the best way to ensure that one’s actions are the best possible ones is to ensure they are based on the best possible principles.

I’ll also note that one kind of knowing is knowing how to do things. I get the impression that Padilla has no idea that science isn’t only a bunch of facts; it is also a bunch of processes by which one can help ensure that decisions are as robust and reliable as possible. Which is one of the reasons that scientism is a useful and beneficial way to think.

The one external reference that Padilla provides is again just a link to an article in the borderline extremist left publication New Republic that captures not much more than the opinion of a single person. That’s not a reasonable way to support one’s claims.

Claim 3: Science can be abused.

So what? Everything can be abused. This is another strawman argument. Padilla would have been far more convincing if he could demonstrate clearly that, for instance, science has been abused more often than, say, religion. But as he’s presented it, his claim is vacuous at best and misleading at worst.

Padilla then writes:

For political reasons, some claims are made not to expose the truth but to advance one’s interest. When a person appeals to scientific claims, he can justify that his conclusion is objective. However, we are all aware that people can manipulate the data and its conclusions.

Here, Padilla is just making my point for me. When science is abused “for political reasons”, the abuse is occurring outside the scope of the science being abused — i.e., it’s being abused within the scope of politics. The blame for the abuse here lies with the abusive discipline(politics) not the abused discipline (science).

Indeed, this kind of abuse is precisely one of the behaviours that scientism can, if properly implemented, dampen. The process of science is open; all data and methods are available for scrutiny. Replication is essential. If political decisions were made in a similar way, then they could be checked and validated in principle by anyone. It would be very difficult to obfuscate one’s political machinations if all relevant information and processes could be scrutinized by everyone else.

The same argument can be made to counter Padilla’s claim that science is abused in advertising.

Padilla writes:

They can resort to presenting one-sided truths instead of saying that the results are inconclusive and ambiguous. It’s crucial to acknowledge this fact. There will be times where our findings are indefinite. Our scientific hubris can make us biased, thus merely going with the answers we want to believe.

This is precisely what scientism can provide: a framework to help ensure that inconclusive or ambiguous results, and “indefinite” findings, are declared as such.

In summary

I won’t even bother explaining the things wrong with Padilla’s summary, because the claims he makes there are completely disconnected from, and unsupported by, anything preceding it.

My summary is simple: Padilla’s arguments hold no water and do not in any way establish his claim that scientism is “wrong”. Whether scientism is a better or worse way of living isn’t the point. The point is: if you’re going to try to argue against scientism, you need to do a better job than Padilla did.