#101 – What's wrong with scientism
Virtue signaling for social approval
Scientism is the idea that science or scientific knowledge alone is adequate to answer questions that in fact require knowledge from other fields.
There are plenty of examples of scientism. Since the social status of science presents a kind of social boundary from criticism, calling one’s field “scientific” has become a popular form of virtue signaling that lets people hide behind a label that shields their ideas from criticism.
Common tropes like “believe in science” or “follow the science” are all scientism. Virtue signaling can get you social approval, but it cannot get you any objective merit.
When you hear someone stress that they’re doing “science”, it’s usually a good indication they’re not. As Peter Thiel said,
“In the name of science we’ve done these rather unscientific things. I often think that when people use the word science, it’s often to tell of the opposite. The things that are actual science like physics and chemistry – you don’t need to call them ‘physical science’ or ‘chemical science’ because you don’t need to protest that much… But when you call things ‘climate science’ or ‘political science’, that’s sort of a tell that they’re not quite scientific.”
Scientism is basically applying authoritarianism to science. It is a derangement of science.
The tradition of criticism that the actual field of science so well embodies is such that if a physicist is asked a question at a conference and he says, “You’re not allowed to ask that. You have to trust me. I’m a scientist.”, then he would be laughed at.
As soon as an idea keeps itself from being refuted can you tell that its not scientific.
The weekly roundup
1. Book I’m reading
An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West by Konstantin Kisin
2. Podcast I’m listening to
Coleman Hughes interviews David Deutsch
My favorite highlight:
“Monkeys are famously curious. Puppies are curious. But what’s called ‘curious’ in those animals is different from what’s called curious in humans. It just has the same name because people have a wrong idea about what humans are. An animal which is curious has a genetically built-in impulse to investigate novelty in its environment. A thing that it hasn’t seen before. So if it has seen it before, it doesn’t go and investigate it… But humans are completely different. Humans are attracted to going out to investigate familiar things. The first things that humans tried to explain that we know of are the lights in the sky. The most familiar things in our environment. The most constant things in our environment.”
— David Deutsch
3. Apple Vision Pro
Apple launched its Vision Pro in the keynote that kicked off WWDC23. It was really fun to watch! I’m excited about this space.
4. Popper demarcating science from non-science
“Every scientist who claims that his theory is supported by experiment or observation should be prepared to ask himself the following question: Can I describe any possible results of observation or experiment which, if actually reached, would refute my theory? If not, then my theory is clearly not an empirical theory. For if all conceivable observations agree with my theory, then I cannot be entitled to claim of any particular observation that it gives empirical support to my theory. Or in short, only if I can say how my theory might be refuted, or falsified, can I claim that my theory has the character of an empirical theory. This criterion of demarcation between empirical and non-empirical theories I have also called the ‘criterion of falsifiability’ or the ‘criterion of refutability’. It does not imply that the irrefutable theories are false. Nor does it imply that they are meaningless. But it does imply that, as long as we cannot describe what a possible refutation of a certain theory would be like, that theory may be regarded as lying outside of the field of empirical science.”
— Karl Popper
"Scientism is the idea that science or scientific knowledge alone is adequate to answer questions that in fact require knowledge from other fields."
What other fields?
I am not aware of any questions that science alone cannot answer. I don't believe in objective or ultimate morality, but if it did exist it seems to me science would be required to prove that it exists.
I am also not aware of any better method of arriving at correct answers than science itself. Even when it comes to ethical questions, science can help us immensely (see Sam Harris's book "The Moral Landscape") and is actually essential for figuring out which actions cause good things vs bad things.
"calling one’s field “scientific” has become a popular form of virtue signaling that lets people hide behind a label that shields their ideas from criticism." This is ironic because a proposition is scientific to the extent to which it makes itself vulnerable to criticism and testing.