/lit/ - Literature

>Science is an activity that seeks to explore the natural world using well-established, clearly-delineated methods. Given the complexity of the universe, from the very big to very small, from inorganic to organic, there is a vast array of scientific disciplines, each with its own specific techniques. The number of different specializations is constantly increasing, leading to more questions and areas of exploration than ever before. Science expands our understanding, rather than limiting it.

>Scientism, on the other hand, is a speculative worldview about the ultimate reality of the universe and its meaning. Despite the fact that there are millions of species on our planet, scientism focuses an inordinate amount of its attention on human behavior and beliefs. Rather than working within carefully constructed boundaries and methodologies established by researchers, it broadly generalizes entire fields of academic expertise and dismisses many of them as inferior. With scientism, you will regularly hear explanations that rely on words like “merely”, “only”, “simply”, or “nothing more than”. Scientism restricts human inquiry.

>It is one thing to celebrate science for its achievements and remarkable ability to explain a wide variety of phenomena in the natural world. But to claim there is nothing knowable outside the scope of science would be similar to a successful fisherman saying that whatever he can’t catch in his nets does not exist (15). Once you accept that science is the only source of human knowledge, you have adopted a philosophical position (scientism) that cannot be verified, or falsified, by science itself. It is, in a word, unscientific.
https://www.aaas.org/programs/dialogue-science-ethics-and-religion/what-scientism

https://www.iep.utm.edu/sci-ideo/

https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/03/1174/
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism
https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/scientism_the_limits_of_science_and_religion/
https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/scientism_the_limits_of_science_and_religion_-_part_2/

>>15616875
4º and 5º in your pic are contradictory.
2º, 3º and 4º are not scientism

>>15616875
The more I see people try to define scientism the less convinced I become that it exists

>>15616875
>>15616985
This whole discussion is retarded. Stop whinging about how to define various "ism"s and directly address a particular text by a particular person.

>>15617742
>>15617688
>>15617652
Do any of you interact with other people in real life? Every time I go to a bar I deal with the type of faggots OP is talking about. It’s everywhere.

>>15617777
>the type of faggots OP is talking about
As in, retards who unsuccessfully try to define "scientism"?

>>15617777
C H E C K E D

>>15617777
You talk to people who think that the only type of truths are scientific every time you go to a bar?

>>15617819
unironically yes, I’ll hear them talking loudly and I’ll jump in for fun

>>15617777
Those
FUCKING
D I G I T S

>>15617826
Sounds like that bar has a smart clientele, apart from yourself.

>>15617826
sounds like u got the ‘tism

>>15617777
Look at the digits boys, his argument is impenetrable

>>15617826
Roll

>>15617826
Rolling

>>15617777
Scientism BTFO

>>15617855
Dubs confirm the truth; scientism btfo

>>15617900
>>15617855
>>15617777
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I mean, what other method of acquiring knowledge that isn't schizophrenic mystic revelations or untestable psychoanalytic/philosophical claims do you have?

>>15617919
Phenomenology you fuck, it’s a presuppositionless science of investigation

>>15617855
>>15617893
>>15617900
>>15617915
Antiscientism tards confirmed as /x/-tier numerologists.

>>15617931
Take your meds.

>>15617937
>implying aleatory distribution isn’t the best distribution
Clearly you’ve never been a part of the Babylonian lottery

>>15617946
Read Husserl

>>15617937
>didn't even get dubs
Not worth my time

>>15617931
>untestable psychoanalytic/philosophical
Try again

>>15617937
>singles

>>15617955
THOSE
FUCKING
DUBS
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

>>15617988
Aww fuuuuuuuck

>>15617777
>Every time I go to a bar I deal with the type of faggots OP is talking about. It’s everywhere.
>>15617652
this

ITT: ridiculous digits proof that science is a hack job

>>15618088
F U C K

>>15618072
Nice singles faggot

>>15617953
>>>/x/

>>15617826
Rolling for that 8 ofc.

>>15617826
>imagine being this braindead

can your science explain THESE DIGITS?

>>15617962
This post was typed by phallic fingers and viewed through vagina-shaped eyes. I can surmise from your typing pattern and words that you are a neurotic pedophile necrophiliac homosexual with an Oedipal complex.

>>15618208
Got em

>>15618303
The best part of these threads are the posts like this one

>>15616875
Anything by Jung

>>15617777
I call it Baconism because it makes it sound even stupider.

>>15618423
The problem is, there is no coherent alternative to scientism.

>>15618430
There is but to the uninitiated it sounds woo woo.

>>15618430
There’s no coherent world views at all anon

Read Peirce, he's the arch science guy but also had an artistic side that he was mostly blind to when he wrote 'science rules' polemics, and a mystical aspect that was actually fully in sync with his scientism
But for honestly, you need to understand the historical circumstances that resulted in the schism between scientific and artistic inquiry.

>>15618439
what are they

>>15618504
Baudrillard

>>15618504
woo woo

>>15617777
Divine quads for a based post.
Say it with me boys
FUCK SCIENTISM

>>15618532
FUCK SCIENTISM
AND FUCK JANNIES TOO

>>15616875
>What are some books that critique contemporary Scientism?
Scientism: The New Orthodoxy

>>15616875
Scientism is a pathetic attempt to validate belief in science as a valid opposition to religion, when belief in scientific method already has no clash with the belief in religion. In short, it's just a confusing coping method for New Atheists.

Antifragile and Skin in the Game.

Science Unlimited: The Challenges of Scientism
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3R82HKZTG0KFU

>>15618208
Thank you vigilante anon, for keeping our streets clean.

>>15618463
No, materialism is quite coherent. Further, there is no evidence against it. Those two properties alone put it well ahead of the pack. I've never seen a coherent, worked-out account of how antimaterialism is supposed to work. Like, there is this immaterial spirit world that somehow interfaces with out physical brains and guides our behavior? But only in homo sapien sapiens, not in chimps or dogs? Other animals are fully material and all their behavior can be described mechanically, but humans need this whole other dimension of reality, because the cause-and-effect chains are broken by some mysterious ghostly force? Putting aside the sheer absurdity of believing such a theory without evidence, show me a version of it that is worked out in detail. Show exactly how the process of deciding to eat a banana is categorically different in humans versus apes. Show me on the doll where the spirit touches you.

>>15616875
I wonder how many of these scientists can agree on the number of human genders.

>>15618612
The repeatability is fundamentally non-tenable in the materialist hypothesis. I can take a photon, and my observation of it changes it’s position. Then, when repeating the experiment there’s no way to get the same results. And if you can’t repeat an experiment to get the same results, what’s the point? Here’s another example: sociology. If humans were reducible to materials, why do so many repeated sociological experiments result in different results? Hell, even polling, a basic experimental method, is ridiculously inconsistent. And yet all the things upon which we experiment are built from the same material, are of the same species
>implying I believe in spirit
Nope, I’m just not a massive fucking retard that reduces my existence to sub-atomic billiard balls dancing around

>>15618631
Only one gender and it’s men.

>>15618612
>materialist reasoning
god it would be nice to have a child's mind where it's all this easy.

>>15618645
*no way to guarantee the same results from the same set up of the experiment

>>15618645
If you would learn some basic physics, you could avoid spewing out a bunch of gibberish like you just did in your post.

>>15617777
>>15617855
>>15617900
>>15617915
>>15617937
>>15617955
>>15617988
>>15618058
>>15618088
>>15618101
Scientism btfo

My only problem with science is that scientism leads to a new priest class where pop science faggots can talk about whatever shit that psychologists who have failed to ever produce a repeatable study want to talk about to suit their agenda. Materialism on the whole is a perfectly fine worldview, but the problem I described has less to do with science itself and more to do with there being entirely too many midwits and low IQ people in the world, and that has nothing to do with science because low IQ people always need to have the world described for them, whether or not its true.

>>15618697
The "gibberish" in question is probably some frivolous, unimportant point he made, like we being "sub-atomic billiard balls dancing around." All of this to maintain the illusion of you having refuted his entire post (he needs to read more!) without having addressed anything he said. It's not even a specific book or type of physics, just "basic physics." Narrow your aim next time you post is you want people to take you seriously

>>15618727
Fair enough. I agree the Bill Nye types who try to "scientize" their political dogmas are a cancer. I also have a problem with Neil deGrasse Tyson types who lack respect for philosophy. They can both get fucked.

>>15618612
Materialism has been falsified

>>15617826
Roll

"Scientism" isn't a real thing. It's a strawman argument and an arch-cope from bottom-tier philosophers who can feel themselves becoming more irrelevant with every passing day. They're desperate to carve out a niche in which they can survive, so they pretend that there is such a thing called "scientism" coming for their jobs.

The only threat to their employment is their own stunning lack of insight. Everything important that science could teach us about our own moral reasoning, we already know and have known for centuries. The fundamental principles of human social organisation are not complicated: reciprocity and empathy. What is happening in the science of morality now (evolutionary psychology) is like the early doctors who started applying the scientific method to alchemy - except that these doctors are discovering that alchemy was right all along.

Where the debate lies, and where science cannot really help us today any more than it could in the past, is in the application of these fundamental principles to specific issues in specific contexts. We will never discover the inherent biological ethic that prescribes the correct balancing of interests between freedom of international navigation and state sovereignty. That was never "evolved" into us. It is a matter of logical argument and reasoning - informed now better than ever by data and statistics, but still ultimately a question of the application of principle.

>"but in conceded that philosophical truths and scientific truths are the same, you're ceding that the only kinds of truths are scientific truths"
No, fuck off. There is only one truth and can only be one truth - the system in which we live can only be completely and accurately explained in one way, because to completely and accurately explain something means exactly that. Science is one way of approaching the whole truth and philosophy is another, and it only makes sense that as our tools improve we will start seeing some overlap. In God's good time we will eventually arrive at a place where all of our tools are unified into one all-encompassing Method, and this Method will give us the means to understand the whole truth.

>>15618697
Okay I’ll dumb it down for you. The materialist dialectic is based off the repeatability of experiments. However, they constantly run into experiments that are fundamentally non-repeatable. Additionally, it’s completely unable to provide investigations into human behavior, which is composed of human material. How can it provide a cogent worldview when faced with this?
>basic physics
Fun fact, my initial post referenced quantum physics, sociology and political science.

>>15618749
There was no other substance to his post. What he said about physics is just false. And yes, of course social science is mostly a pseudo-science. That doesn't justify conjuring up a world of ghosts and spirits.

>>15618785
started strong but then turned >>>/x/ at the end

>>15618808
If you have cloudy glasses does that mean there's no detail beyond that which you personally can discern?

Human tools are imperfect, but there's no reason to believe that what we can't yet see is any different from what we can.

>>15618809
>social science is mostly a pseudo-science
But anon, if they’re investigating the material of human culture, which is human beings as a material existence, how could they end up as a pseudo science? They’re using materialism after all.

>>15618820
I never said anything like that, only that materialism is a non-tenable worldview. Which is to say it fundamentally cannot explain the entirety of the world. If you’re saying it can but it hasn’t yet, that’s pointless.

>>15617826
role

>>15618785
Scientism is just people treating science like a religion. Sure, science is just a fine and dandy tool that we use to understand and perfect something that'll eventually go to shit eventually. The problem is treating science as an infallible consensus when there are so many disagreements and corporate influences on research are so palpable. It's as if scientists cease to be humans and become information-processing robots, free of biases and moral taboos (usually against homophobia, racism, or transphobia, and not some "sacredness" of the human or human fetus, leave that to non-scientists).

>>15618820
The issue isn’t the tools but that the actual objects (photons) under investigation fail to produce repeatable results using materialist investigations.

>>15618834
>If you’re saying it can but it hasn’t yet, that’s pointless.
I'm saying it looks like our best shot so far. What's your alternative? New age woo?

>>15618843
There isn’t one, the world isn’t understandable in any complete sense.

>>15618825
retarded

>>15618838
Who actually thinks scientists are infallible? I’ve never met such a person.

>>15618852
>the world isn’t understandable in any complete sense.
Maybe not for you ;). I'm going to SIPP from the well of knowledge if it kills me.

But in all seriousness, that's an equally unsupportable assertion. Maybe the entire universe and all its complexity and everything in it can be expressed as a single mathematical formula which, if known, would allow you to generate any desired true piece of information in the universe from any time.

I'm not saying that's likely, but it's not impossible. We already have little universes that work like that - procedurally generated computer worlds that are just variations on a seed. The point isn't that this is what I think the universe is, just that this is a way that it could be which is understandable in a complete sense.

>>15618785
>t. sam harris
GTFO, you are not welcomed here

>>15618645
>I can take a photon and my observation of it changes its position
Jej

>>15618825
You can say the same thing about scientology or Christian Science. Just because the word "science" occurs in the name doesn't mean good science is guaranteed to be involved. Economic "science", for example, is almost pure ideology. It puts on a facade of scientific respectability with its equations and numbers, but it's hollow at its core. If that's the kind of "scientism" at issue here, I'm more than happy to toss it in the trash.

>>15618842
Simple repeatability does not apply to stochastic processes, obviously.

>>15618887
It’s not an unsupportable position. There is no dogma that fundamentally explains the world as it is.
>>15618871
Feel free to refute me faggot

>>15618910
Pataphysics is the only solution. The object has tired of us, and seeks to thwart us at this turn. The object has seduced us, triumphing eternally over the subject. Oh and you’re gay

>>15618917
>It’s not an unsupportable position.
I misspoke. I didn't mean "unsupportable," I just meant "unsupported." Your position is equally unsupported.

Ultimately it's a matter of faith, but I think the (very) limited evidence that we do have points towards materialism.

>>15616875
>Certainly, it requires the almost complete abandonment of any metaphysical or religious discussion
This is an absolute, immutable good

>>15616875
Scientism is neither a real school of thought nor a real sociological phenomenon, it's just a strawman made by christcuckolds, mudslime and unemployed humanities majors.

>>15618917
>Feel free to refute me faggot
Okay: the phenomenon you’re describing doesn’t seem to exist. I’ve never seen a person who thinks scientists are infallible data collecting robots immune to bias, or that no corporate influence exists in scientific research. If such people do exist they’re basically irrelevant to human affairs.

>>15618928
I’m not sitting in an unsupported position or in a place of faith. There is no verifiable position to explain all phenomena a human will experience subjectively, and the objective phenomena of the world.
Don’t get me wrong, materialism has brought forth plenty of great things, the internet, medicine, worldwide travel, a proliferation of music, the printing press and all sorts of great things. However, like any other method of investigating the world it is limited.
>>15618954
Huh I didn’t mean to reply to you, I agree that scientists aren’t infallible. Nothing is infallible.

>>15618937
>This is an absolute

>>15617919
> acquiring knowledge
tsk tsk tsk

>>15616875
Feyerabend or Kuhn.

>>15616875
Read some Lorraine Daston, and you'll be able to see how laughable those uneducated claims about the nature of science are.

>>15620500
https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/faces/ViewItemOverviewPage.jsp?itemId=item_2418713

Note down the names, and you'll have the initial set of books to read.

>>15617777
Quads of troof

>>15616875
Look at comfy feyerabend

>>15616875
>>15620711
forgot the link lul
https://archive.org/details/PaulFeyerabend

>>15617777
Fucking
CHECKED

>>15618430
literally anything slightly more honest and coherent is better. there are heaps of options. not being a religious fanatic is a good start.