What Causes or Motivates the Anti-scientists?

[Audie]

I have no problem with science — my own background is scientific — but I have considerable problems with scientism. So long as there have been scientists like Dawkins, Hawking, Sagan, etc who set themselves up as prophets of atheism and dishonestly (or at best ignorantly) claim that their scientific background confers some sort of authority on them, they are bound to bring unjustified discredit on science.

Where has the grim spectre of scientism ever
reared its head outside of
a religion / science debate forum?
Has there ever been an authentic
sighting of a scientismist?

 

[exchemist]

I have no problem with science — my own background is scientific — but I have considerable problems with scientism. So long as there have been scientists like Dawkins, Hawking, Sagan, etc who set themselves up as prophets of atheism and dishonestly (or at best ignorantly) claim that their scientific background confers some sort of authority on them, they are bound to bring unjustified discredit on science.

Well, it does confer authority on them to pontificate about their own area of science. But it certainly does not confer any authority on the subject of religious belief.

Dawkins in fact has consistently demonstrated a very poor understanding of religion. His polemics against it have little credibility. Hawking strikes me as having been rather more nuanced and thoughtful about it.

 

[exchemist]

Where has the grim spectre of scientism ever
reared its head outside of
a religion / science debate forum?
Has there ever been an authentic
sighting of a scientismist?

Definitely.

 

[Ponder This]

So what causes or motivates the anti-scientists?

'lack of belief' (or more precisely 'lack of trust')

Seriously though, not everyone regards science as the owner of all things true.
Science isn't a way of life.

 

[oldbadger]

What Causes or Motivates the Anti-scientists?

Please............... Forgive me....................... Here we go.....

Good Question.......... moving forward >>>>

Let me say at once .........

Oh dear......... here we go........ is this a lecture on how to deliver answers?
Fair enough......... moving on >>>>

.................That's what I call in this thread "Anti-science", the rejection .... of .... broadly "anything science".

Could this detail have been included in the thread title? It would have saved you a lot of work....

So what causes or motivates the anti-scientists?

Broadly, generally, on average, many folks today do not trust everything what gets shoved down our throats as 'science'. A fair % of it ends up in the quackery-bin.

I would point first and foremost .......

First and foremost would have been in the first paragragh, surely?

...................That anti-intellectualism is so much stronger today. Why?

... because broadly, generally, on average, a % of folks who claim to be intellectuals believe that everything they have learned is real, true........ or the worst kind are just pretentious imposters, poor sad misguided simpletons hide behind this word, and science has not yet produced a cheap effective instrument for the detection of quasi-intellectuals, we just have to use experience to suss 'em out.

..................... it's not all Christian denominations at fault.

Absolutely!
There's a few a them Deists about who mistrust folks who claim to be intellectual, or scientists, or (worst of all) both.

But I would not stop there. ....

I didn't think that you would.....

................ the notion "it's a Christian thing" strikes me as superficial and poorly informed. ......

Already agreed.......

Is Southern Culture broadly anti-scientific, or only narrowly anti-evolution? ....

Never been there. But broadly, on average, I'd suggest that research into this deep mistrust of such claims for 'science' and 'intellectualism' be extended far and wide beyond US shores.
You'd definitely get a 'ping' in North Kent, England....

What do you think?

You know what I think......

And beyond that.................

................

......................, is there any good chance anti-science will wane in the future?

Only when 'science' stops disproving 'science'. For examples, only when all tower buildings are reasonably safe in fires. Only when medical developments are sure and healthy. Only when commercial science is a word that means 'trustworthy'.[/QUOTE]

 

[Audie]

Definitely.

You definitely know of a authentic sighting?

 

[Audie]

Please............... Forgive me....................... Here we go.....

Good Question.......... moving forward >>>>

Oh dear......... here we go........ is this a lecture on how to deliver answers?
Fair enough......... moving on >>>>

Could this detail have been included in the thread title? It would have saved you a lot of work....

Broadly, generally, on average, many folks today do not trust everything what gets shoved down our throats as 'science'. A fair % of it ends up in the quackery-bin.

First and foremost would have been in the first paragragh, surely?

... because broadly, generally, on average, a % of folks who claim to be intellectuals believe that everything they have learned is real, true........ or the worst kind are just pretentious imposters, poor sad misguided simpletons hide behind this word, and science has not yet produced a cheap effective instrument for the detection of quasi-intellectuals, we just have to use experience to suss 'em out.

Absolutely!
There's a few a them Deists about who mistrust folks who claim to be intellectual, or scientists, or (worst of all) both.

I didn't think that you would.....

Already agreed.......

Never been there. But broadly, on average, I'd suggest that research into this deep mistrust of such claims for 'science' and 'intellectualism' be extended far and wide beyond US shores.
You'd definitely get a 'ping' in North Kent, England....

You know what I think......

................

Only when 'science' stops disproving 'science'. For examples, only when all tower buildings are reasonably safe in fires. Only when medical developments are sure and healthy. Only when commercial science is a word that means 'trustworthy'.

[/QUOTE]

So, you are against anything that is not now and never will be
perfect.

 

[Shadow Link]

I would point first and foremost to the long history in America of deeply rooted anti-intellectualism. But surely, there's more to it than that. That anti-intellectualism is so much stronger today. Why?

Let's consider the time when people could be the personal property of another(or slaves). The first thing I think those owners would not really desire is that a salve become educated. An idea that seems to be carried through into the "now" with the government ran education system. Education seems more concerned with grading based on retention, a standard that actually doesn't focus on using proper deductive reasoning. A limited education system, such as we have, is a system where thought continues to graduate into another form of dependency scurrying around various punishments without actually using shackles & chains but rather the psyche instead.

 

[exchemist]

You definitely know of a authentic sighting?

Here is an extract from Pigliucci:

Scientists are not gods, even though one may sometimes have some difficulty making the distinction, judging from the ego that some of them (the scientists, not the gods) display when talking about what they do. It is not uncommon to hear physicists and cosmologists expounding on the possibility of “theories of everything,” although what they mean is actually a mathematical solution to a specific problem concerning the conceptual unification of natural forces. Cosmologists such as Stephen Hawking freely talk about having seen “the mind of God” when they come up with a new theory about the distant future of the universe (never mind that so far we do not have a unified theory of forces or that Hawking’s initial predictions about the fate of the universe have been proven spectacularly wrong by recent empirical research). Or consider biologist Richard Dawkins, who goes so far as to (mistakenly, as it turns out) claim that science can refute what he calls “the God hypothesis.” The examples above are instances of scientism, a term that sounds descriptive but is in fact only used as an insult.

The term “scientism” encapsulates the intellectual arrogance of some scientists who think that, given enough time and especially financial resources, science will be able to answer whatever meaningful question we may wish to pose — from a cure for cancer to the elusive equation that will tell us how the laws of nature themselves came about. The fact that scientism is an insult, not a philosophical position that anybody cares officially to defend, is perhaps best shown by the fact that there is no noun associated with it: if one engages in scientism one is “being scientistic,” not being a scientist.

Not only can science never in principle reach the Truth because of the untenability of the correspondence theory of truth, but it has also demonstrably blundered in the distant and recent past, sometimes with precisely the sort of dire social consequences that constructionist critics are so worried about.

 

[ChristineM]

Let me say at once I do not mean here people who reject just one particular scientific theory or set of facts. The motives of the man or woman who objects only to evolutionary theory or to vaccines can often enough be easily guessed at.

But I'm curious about what I take as both a relatively recent phenomena and a somewhat more difficult one to figure out the causes of. That's what I call in this thread "Anti-science", the rejection not just of one or two scientific theories and sets of facts, but more broadly "anything science".

About the phenomena being recent. I readily grant there have always been people who rejected the sciences, but I think that up until relatively recent times their number and influence was less significant than it is today. For instance, a half century ago, the notion they might influence government policies or how well the sciences were funded and taught in the public schools was easily dismissed. Beyond that, the sciences were on an order of magnitude more respected than they are today. I think that is a fact.

So what causes or motivates the anti-scientists?

I would point first and foremost to the long history in America of deeply rooted anti-intellectualism. But surely, there's more to it than that. That anti-intellectualism is so much stronger today. Why?

Many people point to the cultural changes of the 1960s and 70s that seem so closely associated with the rise of the Baby Boomers. Among other things, they dramatically boosted the popularity of the notion that "truth is relative", sometimes expressed as, "truth is personal" As I understand it, that notion was once more or less confined to fringe intellectuals, but the Baby Boomers mainstreamed it, made it -- if not actually respectable -- then fashionable.

A third often mentioned cause is religious based antagonism to the sciences. But that strikes me as superficial. When you look more closely, you first discover it's not all Christian denominations at fault. The old mainstream denominations have mostly remained pro-science. The antagonism is coming overwhelmingly from only factions of Christianity, such as the Southern Baptists, and the non-denominational churches. Groups that usually identify themselves as Evangelicals.

But I would not stop there. No matter how deeply ingrained is the reflex to "blame the Christians", I think the truth is deeper than "the Christians". Again, looking closely, it becomes undeniable that those Christian groups most opposed to the sciences originate in the culture of the South, which has been the longest and most virulently anti-intellectual section of the country.

And if you really wanted to understand it, you could trace Southern anti-intellectualism back to the South's earliest English settlers, who predominantly came from the Cavalier class of England, a class that favored only educating elites, and then only minimally. So, the notion "it's a Christian thing" strikes me as superficial and poorly informed. It would be more accurate to say Southern Christianity only gave Southern anti-intellectualism its main focus: Evolution.

One last point about the South: Even if what I said is true, the question remains, "Why did Southern anti-intellectualism pick only recently to become so virulent? Any answer to that should mention air conditioning. After WWII, air conditioning made the South more attractive to migrants from other parts of the country such that today four in ten Americans live there. Such a large chunk of people will inevitably have an influence.

However! Least you think it's all nicely decided now, consider this: Is Southern Culture broadly anti-scientific, or only narrowly anti-evolution? I myself think the former, but I believe the latter is still arguable.

Is that enough to explain it? American anti-intellectualism (especially Southern anti-intellectualism) combined with the mainstreaming of thoughtless trash like "truth is relative" by the Baby Boomers?

What do you think?

And beyond that, is there any good chance anti-science will wane in the future? Last puzzle of the day: What caused the Baby Boomers to embrace such a hollow, gutless notion as, "Truth is relative"?

I was in discussion yesterday in which my opponent ended one post with a diatribe against science, its immorality, weapons of war, treating people like automata etc ending with 'Keep your science.'

The fact he'd willingly embraced at least 5 or 6 aspects of science from software engineering, through mass communication to quantum mechanics to show his dislike of science struck me as the height of hypocrisy.

 

[oldbadger]

So, you are against anything that is not now and never will be
perfect.[/QUOTE]

Are you asking me, or telling me?

 

[Valjean]

Is science still taught in school these days? I get the impression sometimes that people don't understand what science is or how it works, and sometimes posters seem to think it's analogous to another religion, or that scientists are invested in some sort of ideological agenda.

 

[David T]

Let me say at once I do not mean here people who reject just one particular scientific theory or set of facts. The motives of the man or woman who objects only to evolutionary theory or to vaccines can often enough be easily guessed at.

But I'm curious about what I take as both a relatively recent phenomena and a somewhat more difficult one to figure out the causes of. That's what I call in this thread "Anti-science", the rejection not just of one or two scientific theories and sets of facts, but more broadly "anything science".

About the phenomena being recent. I readily grant there have always been people who rejected the sciences, but I think that up until relatively recent times their number and influence was less significant than it is today. For instance, a half century ago, the notion they might influence government policies or how well the sciences were funded and taught in the public schools was easily dismissed. Beyond that, the sciences were on an order of magnitude more respected than they are today. I think that is a fact.

So what causes or motivates the anti-scientists?

I would point first and foremost to the long history in America of deeply rooted anti-intellectualism. But surely, there's more to it than that. That anti-intellectualism is so much stronger today. Why?

Many people point to the cultural changes of the 1960s and 70s that seem so closely associated with the rise of the Baby Boomers. Among other things, they dramatically boosted the popularity of the notion that "truth is relative", sometimes expressed as, "truth is personal" As I understand it, that notion was once more or less confined to fringe intellectuals, but the Baby Boomers mainstreamed it, made it -- if not actually respectable -- then fashionable.

A third often mentioned cause is religious based antagonism to the sciences. But that strikes me as superficial. When you look more closely, you first discover it's not all Christian denominations at fault. The old mainstream denominations have mostly remained pro-science. The antagonism is coming overwhelmingly from only factions of Christianity, such as the Southern Baptists, and the non-denominational churches. Groups that usually identify themselves as Evangelicals.

But I would not stop there. No matter how deeply ingrained is the reflex to "blame the Christians", I think the truth is deeper than "the Christians". Again, looking closely, it becomes undeniable that those Christian groups most opposed to the sciences originate in the culture of the South, which has been the longest and most virulently anti-intellectual section of the country.

And if you really wanted to understand it, you could trace Southern anti-intellectualism back to the South's earliest English settlers, who predominantly came from the Cavalier class of England, a class that favored only educating elites, and then only minimally. So, the notion "it's a Christian thing" strikes me as superficial and poorly informed. It would be more accurate to say Southern Christianity only gave Southern anti-intellectualism its main focus: Evolution.

One last point about the South: Even if what I said is true, the question remains, "Why did Southern anti-intellectualism pick only recently to become so virulent? Any answer to that should mention air conditioning. After WWII, air conditioning made the South more attractive to migrants from other parts of the country such that today four in ten Americans live there. Such a large chunk of people will inevitably have an influence.

However! Least you think it's all nicely decided now, consider this: Is Southern Culture broadly anti-scientific, or only narrowly anti-evolution? I myself think the former, but I believe the latter is still arguable.

Is that enough to explain it? American anti-intellectualism (especially Southern anti-intellectualism) combined with the mainstreaming of thoughtless trash like "truth is relative" by the Baby Boomers?

What do you think?

And beyond that, is there any good chance anti-science will wane in the future? Last puzzle of the day: What caused the Baby Boomers to embrace such a hollow, gutless notion as, "Truth is relative"?

Well there is science say the observation of global climate change and there is politics. So are you complaining about science or politics?

 

[GoodbyeDave]

Has there ever been an authentic
sighting of a scientismist?

OED

Scientism. Excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge, or in the applicability of the methods of physical science to other fields…

That sounds like a description of the men I mentioned.

But of course you weren't really asking a question, were you? Like so many atheists, you were just trying to sound clever. And , like so many atheists, failing.

 

[Audie]

Here is an extract from Pigliucci:

Scientists are not gods, even though one may sometimes have some difficulty making the distinction, judging from the ego that some of them (the scientists, not the gods) display when talking about what they do. It is not uncommon to hear physicists and cosmologists expounding on the possibility of “theories of everything,” although what they mean is actually a mathematical solution to a specific problem concerning the conceptual unification of natural forces. Cosmologists such as Stephen Hawking freely talk about having seen “the mind of God” when they come up with a new theory about the distant future of the universe (never mind that so far we do not have a unified theory of forces or that Hawking’s initial predictions about the fate of the universe have been proven spectacularly wrong by recent empirical research). Or consider biologist Richard Dawkins, who goes so far as to (mistakenly, as it turns out) claim that science can refute what he calls “the God hypothesis.” The examples above are instances of scientism, a term that sounds descriptive but is in fact only used as an insult.

The term “scientism” encapsulates the intellectual arrogance of some scientists who think that, given enough time and especially financial resources, science will be able to answer whatever meaningful question we may wish to pose — from a cure for cancer to the elusive equation that will tell us how the laws of nature themselves came about. The fact that scientism is an insult, not a philosophical position that anybody cares officially to defend, is perhaps best shown by the fact that there is no noun associated with it: if one engages in scientism one is “being scientistic,” not being a scientist.

Not only can science never in principle reach the Truth because of the untenability of the correspondence theory of truth, but it has also demonstrably blundered in the distant and recent past, sometimes with precisely the sort of dire social consequences that constructionist critics are so worried about.

I suppose if one expands the meaning of the word
sufficiently, the corona will eventually encompass
a lot of people.

Whether a strict reading of the word as per say
Oxford dictionary will describe any real people
other than a few nut cases, I doubt

But our creationist sorts need some vague but
derogatory term for those not in the thrall of
their superstitions, so I guess they will take
that one by the throat and make it answer their
purposes.

 

[exchemist]

I suppose if one expands the meaning of the word
sufficiently, the corona will eventually encompass
a lot of people.

Whether a strict reading of the word as per say
Oxford dictionary will describe any real people
other than a few nut cases, I doubt

But our creationist sorts need some vague but
derogatory term for those not in the thrall of
their superstitions, so I guess they will take
that one by the throat and make it answer their
purposes.

Scientism, as used by Pigliucci, Popper etc. is a word with a proper meaning and real people do fall prey to it, Dawkins seemingly being one. It really describes overreach in the application of scientific thinking and the denigration of systems of thought that are not scientific. (People asserting the outcomes of free-market economics are morally just would be another example, I suppose.) However I fully agree it also becomes a useful pejorative epithet for people to chuck at physicalists (or in extreme cases all scientists!), without understanding its meaning.

 

[Audie]

Scientism, as used by Pigliucci, Popper etc. is a word with a proper meaning and real people do fall prey to it, Dawkins seemingly being one. It really describes overreach in the application of scientific thinking and the denigration of systems of thought that are not scientific. (People asserting the outcomes of free-market economics are morally just would be another example, I suppose.) However I fully agree it also becomes a useful pejorative epithet for people to chuck at physicalists (or in extreme cases all scientists!), without understanding its meaning.

I certainly was mistaken about what the
Oxford dictionary would say.

Lets see-

Thought charactrristic of scientists

Excessive belief in its efficacy

(Paraphased)

Then there is this discussion:

The Folly of Scientism

So this has been worthwhile. I had assumed the
people who complain about
"scientism" were merely being tiresome
like the ones who claim to see ad hom
evrrywhere, with of course no grasp
of the concept.

Now I see the "scientism" people are
being even more tirseome than I thought.

They are on part 2 of Oxford def; excessive
reliance, belief in.

And what is "excessive" to them?

Whatever they say it is! Develop the
BB Theory? Scientism! Point out
that data shows the flood is a myth?
Scientism! Wait for the phone to
ring, the faith and all? Scientism.

Best summed with the phrase,
especially if spoken in a deep,
manly voice:

"God says, man says."

(and who ya gonna believe?)

 

[exchemist]

I certainly was mistaken about what the
Oxford dictionary would say.

Lets see-

Thought charactrristic of scientists

Excessive belief in its efficacy

(Paraphased)

Then there is this discussion:

The Folly of Scientism

So this has been worthwhile. I had assumed the
people who complain about
"scientism" were merely being tiresome
like the ones who claim to see ad hom
evrrywhere, with of course no grasp
of the concept.

Now I see the "scientism" people are
being even more tirseome than I thought.

They are on part 2 of Oxford def; excessive
reliance, belief in.

And what is "excessive" to them?

Whatever they say it is! Develop the
BB Theory? Scientism! Point out
that data shows the flood is a myth?
Scientism! Wait for the phone to
ring, the faith and all? Scientism.

Best summed with the phrase,
especially if spoken in a deep,
manly voice:

"God says, man says."

(and who ya gonna believe?)

Well I think the article you link to has much to commend it. There IS overreach.

Science cannot answer metaphysical questions, nor add much useful to the humanities. I find those scientists who claim that philosophy is either dead or irrelevant, due to science, particularly myopic. Hawking has form here, Dawkins of course, and so too do both De Grasse Tyson and even the late, great Feynman.

I like to think some of what they say is hyperbole to sell books or make TV audiences sit up, but I fear they mean it.

 

[ecco]

Perhaps a distrust of science has the same root cause as this growing distrust generally.

On what is this distrust built and who is fueling the fires?

 

[ecco]

I have no problem with science — my own background is scientific — but I have considerable problems with scientism. So long as there have been scientists like Dawkins, Hawking, Sagan, etc who set themselves up as prophets of atheism and dishonestly (or at best ignorantly) claim that their scientific background confers some sort of authority on them, they are bound to bring unjustified discredit on science.

Here we start to see the answers to the questions posed in the OP.

• Science = Atheism
• Atheism = Bad
• Anti-Atheism = Good
• Anti-Science = Good