Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology - Softcover

Moreland, J. P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1433556901 ISBN 13: 9781433556906

Verlag: Crossway Books, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

This book exposes the inadequacy of scientism by demonstrating its self-defeating nature and 7 important facts it can never explain, arguing that together science and theology have true things to tell us about the world.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

J. P. Moreland (PhD, University of Southern California) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Biola University. He is an author of, contributor to, or editor of over ninety books, including The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Scientism and Secularism

Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology

By J. P. Moreland

Good News Publishers

Copyright © 2018 J. P. Moreland
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4335-5690-6

Contents

Tables and Illustrations, 
Foreword by Dan Egeler, 
Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
1 The (Scientistic) Air We Breathe, 
2 Why Scientism Matters, 
3 How Scientism Changed the Universities, 
4 Scientism Is Self-Refuting, 
5 Scientism Is the Enemy of Science, 
6 Why Weak Scientism Is No Better Than Strong Scientism, 
7 The Availability of Nonscientific Knowledge, 
8 When Science Exceeds Its Reach: A Case Study, 
9 Scientism and First Philosophy, 
10 Examples of the Authority and Autonomy Theses, 
11 How Do We Explain Things?, 
12 Five Things Science Cannot In Principle Explain (But Theism Can), 
13 Methodological Naturalism, Theistic Evolution, and Intelligent Design, 
14 The Importance of Integrating Christianity and Science, 
15 A Plan for the Integration of Christianity and Science, 
One Final Plea, 
Glossary, 
Selected Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

The (Scientistic) Air We Breathe

I was in the middle of a nine-day stay in the hospital following the removal of a cancerous tumor in my colon on April 27, 2016. During that time, several different shifts of nurses had come and gone. On this particular day, a new nurse came to care for me and take my vital readings.

As we chatted, she asked me what I did for a living. I told her I was a philosophy professor. "Where did you go to school?" she asked. Working backwards, I explained that my PhD in philosophy is from the University of Southern California, my MA in philosophy is from the University of California at Riverside, my ThM in theology is from Dallas Seminary, and my BS in physical chemistry is from the University of Missouri.

A puzzled look came on her face. She mused out loud that I had taken two very unrelated, divergent paths.

Before she could explain, I asked if this was what she meant: I started off in science, which deals with reality — hard facts — and conclusions that could be proved to be true. But theology and philosophy were, well, fields in which there were only private opinions or personal feelings, where no one was right or wrong, or if they were, no one could know who was right. Science was cognitive, and theology and philosophy were personal and emotional.

Looking surprised, as though I had read her mind, she acknowledged that my understanding was exactly what she had in mind.

My nurse was expressing the view called scientism. Since scientism is so pervasive today — it is the intellectual and cultural air that we breathe — she could not have even named the worldview she was presupposing and articulating.

What Is Scientism?

Roughly, scientism is the view that the hard sciences — like chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy — provide the only genuine knowledge of reality. At the very least, this scientific knowledge is vastly superior to what we can know from any other discipline. Ethics and religion may be acceptable, but only if they are understood to be inherently subjective and regarded as private matters of opinion. According to scientism, the claim that ethical and religious conclusions can be just as factual as science, and therefore ought to be affirmed like scientific truths, may be a sign of bigotry and intolerance.

Before looking in more depth at scientism — the view that the hard sciences alone have the intellectual authority to give us knowledge of reality — let me show some concrete examples of it and how it is part of everyday common sense.

Scientism Illustrated

Example: Michael Kinsley

On June 25, 2001, Time magazine featured an article by journalist Michael Kinsley defending stem-cell research on human embryos. He wrote, "These [embryos] are microscopic groupings of a few differentiated cells. There is nothing human about them, except potential — and, if you choose to believe it, a soul."

Now the first thing to note about his conclusion is that it is bad science, claiming that there is nothing really "human" about human embryos, which is itself a scientifically absurd statement, contradicted by all of the standard textbooks of embryology!

But that's not my point here. Rather, I want to draw your attention to a part of Kinsley's sentence that you may not have noticed. Reread it carefully and note what he presupposes: we know scientific facts about human embryos, but we only believe things about human souls. For Kinsley, belief in a soul is not an item of knowledge. In his view, there is no evidence for it. He would probably put it in the same category as a unicorn. You can believe it if you want, perhaps because someone told you that it exists or because you wish that such a creature is out there, but you've never seen or heard or touched a unicorn and therefore it does not really count as knowledge. Kinsley undoubtedly thinks this kind of belief belongs in the pages of fantasy literature, not in the items of what we can truly know and be justified in believing. But Michael Kinsley is not advocating science. He's expressing scientism.

Example: Marilyn vos Savant

For a long time, Marilyn vos Savant (listed in five editions of the Guinness Book of World Records as the human with the highest recorded IQ) has written a column in Parade magazine titled "Ask Marilyn," where people submit questions and Savant provides answers. In one post, a man explains that his parents raised him in a certain religion. Now an adult, he still likes the religion, but his friends are trying to get him to rationally consider others. He wonders if Savant thinks he should consider his friends' arguments or just go on accepting his parents' religion.

Here is Savant's response: "You're smarter than those friends. Religions cannot be proved true intellectually. They come from the heart — and your parents — not the mind. In my opinion, you have behaved wisely [by not listening to your friends' "arguments"]."

Marilyn vos Savant has no problem with this man holding to his parents' religious beliefs —"No harm, no foul," she might say — but she's critical of his friends for trying to reason with him or to persuade him that other religious beliefs are more compelling or truthful or best accord with the evidence.

From reading her columns over the years, I assure you she would not say that science comes from the heart and not the mind, or that it comes from what your parents told you. Scientific claims can be proved true. But in her worldview, religious claims cannot. This is not science but scientism.

Example: Scientism in School

Scientism is found not only among those writing columns in popular magazines. It is also the required dogma in our schools, where it directly challenges Christianity's claim to be a knowledge tradition. For example, consider the "Science Framework" issued by the state of California in 1989, designed to guide its public schools' science curricula. The document offered teachers advice about how to address students who expressed reservations about the theory of biological macroevolution:

At times some students may insist that certain conclusions of science cannot be true because of certain religious or philosophical beliefs they hold. ... It...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Crossway Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1433556901
• ISBN 13: 9781433556906
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Crossway; https://www.crossway.org/books/o-sacred-head-now-wounded-cob/; ; 1300 Crescent St.; Wheaton; IL; 60187; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar