One definition of Scientism reads,
Unlike the
use of the scientific method as only one mode of reaching knowledge,
scientism claims that science alone can render truth about
the world and reality.
This means that the empirical scientific
method requires that an experiment’s result (a fact or truth
claim, such as, “When you mix hydrogen with oxygen you get
water”) be testable by a third, disinterested
party. The experiment has to be replicable.
Where scientific theorists make a major
leap and become
Scientismists is when they try to explain events
that are
not replicable. For instance, when scientists
are proposing a
story of origin.
The physical scientist can make claims about
ascertaining and estimating the timeline delineating when the first
atoms appeared—even describe the chemical make-up of the universe
at the “beginning of time”— but his work becomes
an act of Scientism when he creatively imagines such
a story of origin as the “Big Bang” theory
or asserts what the driving force in the “Primordial
Soup” was. Such language and imagery is as mythic as
in the Biblical stories. In sum, scientists can reason backwards
in their minds but they cannot travel through time
and conduct “ancient experiments.”
Continue—Scientism
