I have recently heard this word being used in a negative connotation: “Scientism“
“Scientism is a term often used today as a pejorative to describe someone of holding the view that science has primacy over all other interpretations of life such as philosophical, religious, mythical, spiritual, or humanistic explanations.” – wikipedia.com
I heard it on a video of a discussion about religion where a person involved in the Templeton Foundation was talking about it negatively. The wiki gives a little bit of history and claims that it was used awhile ago and was not initially a pejorative. It only recently became a word used in a negative way.
My concern is how this idea, of someone placing a scientific view above everything else, is used to attack science. A recent conversation of mine revolved around the fact that my friend was trying to claim that we should just take the most beneficial perspective and be done. The argument was over the existence of free-will, and thus far, nothing but “personal experience” (which means nothing in science) has made anyone believe in free-will. All of science is based on the fact that the physical universe, which is all that we know of, is deterministic. The only flaw thus far is that quantum mechanics has yet to be shown as random or deterministic. If someone asked me if I believe in free-will, I would say no. However, I live my life as if I had free-will because it is impossible to base my life on a deterministic world, furthermore, that is even an illogical statement if everything is deterministic.
My point here is that to explain the workings of the universe, I choose the best model, the most-supported model, the most tested model, the simplest model (where possible) and the one that has yet to be proved false. So, determinism is what I will use as a scientist to analyze and explain things. To live my life, I will always be rational, and will use the scientific method as the basis of my knowledge and beliefs. Yet, I act as if I had free-will even though it is not a belief I hold, because from my perspective as a human being, I want free-will and cannot function without pretending I have it.
To bring this back to scientism, my friend tried to attack the deterministic model because he claims it is not beneficial to a human living his life. He tried to discount the science by saying it cannot be placed above every other view. However, the use of the model comes into play in all of science. The extension of the deterministic model, to look at the possibility of free-will, is just a predictive application which I accept as part of my knowledge because it makes complete sense and there is almost nothing to contradict it.
I do place the scientific view above all else. The philosophical view is logic which is part of science when there are things we cannot directly test. I discount any religious/mythical/spiritual views as I have yet to see them add anything useful to my knowledge base (I already have a moral standard). And at the end of the day, I will act as a humanist, yet I will be able to explain why I act like a humanist with my scientific view :D.
