Science and Scientism

I often distinguish in my writing between "science" as a mode of understanding and "scientism" which is essentially a cultish reverence for science -- one that excludes or demeans other modes of understanding. John Miller, down on the corner, points to two paragraphs in a recent review by Gertrude Himmelfarb that makes clear the distinction. The original is in the New Republic and you have to pay to read it. She writes:

The editors of these new editions of Darwin may have taught us more than they know. A non-scientist may well stand in awe of the enormous achievements that they as individuals, and science in general, have to their credit. They have learned a great deal, and we have learned a great deal from them. But what they have evidently not learned is humility--an appreciation of the limits of science, of what science does not know and cannot know. This is what they now inadvertently remind us: that there are, after all, other modes of knowledge, other scholarly disciplines--philosophy, history, literature, theology--that have taught us a good deal, over the ages, about human nature, social behavior, ethical principles and practices. There are even non-scholarly, non-professional sources of knowledge that do not come within the purview of science--wisdom, experience, common sense.

In Darwin's day, some eminent scientists--T. H. Huxley, most notably--were distressed by the mechanistic and reductivist interpretation of evolution itself. Today we have even more cause to be concerned about the mechanistic and reductivist interpretation of all of human life, including its emotional and intellectual dimensions, in the name of Darwinism. This is more than science. It is scientism--and scientism with a vengeance, for it is not only science that is now presumed to be the only access to comprehensive truth, but also that sub-category of science known as Darwinism.

Read Miller's post here.

The post has elicited a number of interesting responses on the corner, especially those from John Derbyshire who defends the scientistic position. Go to its main page and scroll around.