Pseudoscience/Scientism
Scientism
Scientism is getting a lot of play these days. It's a difficult word to pin down because it takes on a wide range of meanings depending on who is throwing it around. According to Merriam-Webster online, scientism is:
"an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)."
Thus, scientism is the "science can explain everything," (or, at least, "science explains everything important"), kind of position some folks take in arguments about religion, philosophy, the value of the humanities, etc.
It's hardly mentioned the role clergymen sanctioned by the institutional Church played in initiating the sciences. Copernicus the priest initiating the scientific revolution at the urging of the Cardinals in the Roman Curia. Mendel the monk initiating our concept of genetics. George Lemaitre the priest helping develop the Big Bang theory. You have the Islamic Golden Age which was enormously positive to the development of the sciences. You have the Babylonians who developed astronomy in order to construct their religious calendars.
A lot of modern clashes between religion and science are really clashes between scientism and fundamentalism. Scientism is a reductionist interpretation of science that says the only thing that's real is what can be verified or falsified by science. Fundamentalism is a reductionist interpretation of religion that says the only thing that's real is a literal, concrete interpretation of a sacred text. Both of them are influenced by the ideology of positivism.
Positivism is a view point that emerged in the 19th century and it is at this time that scientism and fundamentalism also emerge. So what we really have is scientific reductionism and religious reductionism clashing against each other. From my perspective this is a modern socially constructed conflict and these are modern socially constructed ways of viewing scientific and religious epistemology that are completely unnecessary.
“A scientist, my dear friends, is a man who foresees; it is because science provides the means to predict that it is useful, and the scientists are superior to all other men.”
–Henri de Saint-Simon (Freemason)
When searching for the modern definition of Scientism, seems all you'll find is quotes from Jesuits and Freemasons. The definitions carefully avoid the obvious conclusion that scientism is a belief system, similar to a religion, that focuses all it's philosophy on science and attributes righteousness among the priests who preach scientism. Seems Scientism and the Occult are happily wed, and fervently defended by the indoctrinated masses and troll alike.
Definition
Scientism is associated with many other “isms” with long and turbulent histories: materialism, naturalism, reductionism, empiricism, and positivism. Rather than tangle with each of these concepts separately, we’ll begin with a working definition of scientism and proceed from there.
Historian Richard G. Olson (Jesuit) defines scientism as “efforts to extend scientific ideas, methods, practices, and attitudes to matters of human social and political concern.”
Philosopher Tom Sorell (Jesuit) offers a more precise definition: “Scientism is a matter of putting too high a value on natural science in comparison with other branches of learning or culture.”
History
The roots of scientism extend as far back as early 17th century Europe, an era that came to be known as the Scientific Revolution. Up to that point, most scholars had been highly deferent to intellectual tradition, largely a combination of Judeo-Christian scripture and ancient Greek philosophy.
"belief in the omnipotence of scientific knowledge and methods and in their applicability to everything," a derogatory term.
- G.B. Shaw 1870
In 1825, an earlier variant of the word was scientificism which meant "restriction of analysis or explanation to what is scientifically demonstrable."
In the 19th century and got its negative emphasis when “scientific” spiritism on the one hand and Catholicism on the other were struggling against the “exaggerated” claims of natural science.
Today “scientism” is a pejorative concept (Disparaging; belittling; Implying or imputing evil; depreciatory; disparaging; unfavorable.) in every language.
Scientific imperialism
Scientific imperialism is a term that appears to have been coined by Dr. Ellis T. Powell when addressing the Commonwealth Club of Canada on September 8, 1920. Though he gave a definition of imperialism as, "the sense of arbitrary and capricious domination over the bodies and souls of men," yet he used the term 'scientific imperialism' to mean "the subjection of all the developed and undeveloped powers of the earth to the mind of man."
In modern times scientific imperialism more often means "the tendency to push a good scientific idea far beyond the domain in which it was originally introduced, and often far beyond the domain in which it can provide much illumination". It can thus mean an attitude toward knowledge in which the beliefs and methods of science are assumed to be superior to and to take precedence over those of all other disciplines. "Devotees of these approaches are inclined to claim that they are in possession not just of one useful perspective on human behavior, but of the key that will open doors to the understanding of ever wider areas of human behavior."
It is also apparent in "those who believe that the study of politics can and should be modeled on the natural sciences, a position defended most forcibly in the United States, and those who have dissented, viewing this ambition as methodologically unjustified and ethically undesirable."
Critique of power
Scientism has also been defined as the "pursuit of power through the pursuit of knowledge," and its pejorative use arguably reflects the frustration felt by some with "the limitations of reductive scientism (scientific imperialism)." And "the myth that science is the model of truth and rationality still grips the mind of much of our popular and scientific culture. Even though philosophers of science over the past few decades have gutted many of the claims of this scientific imperialism, many thinkers, knee-jerk agnostics, and even judges persist in the grip of this notion." Such critics of science even question whether we should "automatically assume… that successful scientific theories are true or approximately true models of the world," and periodically express a desire to "dethrone science from an imperialistic stance over philosophy and theology."
Religion of intellectuals
Scientific imperialism, "the idea that all decisions, in principle, can be made scientifically - has become, in effect, the religion of the intellectuals," for it is doubtless "a natural tendency, when one has a successful scientific model, to attempt to apply it to as many problems as possible. But it is also in the nature of models that these extended applications are dangerous."
This attitude can come to involve power, coercion and domination over other disciplines. In its most virulent forms it can seek to intimidate and subordinate 'non-believers,' or those it perceives as being insufficiently educated in the ways of science. It can thus involve some zealotry, an over-adherence to strict dogma and a rather fundamentalist belief that science alone stands supreme over all other modes of inquiry. In this it may come close to gangsterism and cultural imperialism. It may then be seen as a rigid and intolerant form of intellectual monotheism.
Marginalized
People who do not stress this absolute domination of science or who are more laissez-faire in their attitude, perhaps displaying insufficient science zeal, may find themselves marginalized, deviantized, and even demonized as wimps, as religious romantics, and as irrational. Only those who adhere strictly to the dogmas of the science 'mother church' are accorded the greatest credibility and reverence. Such behavior clearly seeks to extol the virtues of the scientific paradigm over all other viewpoints and modes of interpreting Nature, the world, and human behavior. This attitude tends to foster a patronizing and arrogant notion that scientists belong to an elite class of people who deal with matters of much greater importance than the average person.