Apr
5
Scientism Commits Suicide… Twice
“Only science gives reliable truth.” — believers in scientism
Have you ever heard of a self-refuting view or idea? This is an idea that, when examined, actually defeats itself. It commits suicide. There are different types of self-refuting ideas, and some are easier to recognize than others. For example, if someone says, “All English sentences are false.” By saying (or writing) this sentence in English, he has already disproven the validity of the idea. It self-destructs. But, like I said, other such ideas are not so easy to recognize as self-refuting, as they need to be further examined. We’ll look at one in this post.
Why would someone believe a self-refuting idea? Very few people knowingly affirm contradictions. (At least, not in the West.) But, if the contradiction is more implicit than explicit, perhaps part of a larger idea, it can be hard to identify. The person might also be blind to their own bias on the matter. So, falling for a self-refuting idea doesn’t mean you’re dumb. Many otherwise bright people hold or have held such views. It just requires more careful and/or objective thinking.
Note that my title for this post is not “Science Commits Suicide”. Science — i.e., scientific research to discover truth in and about the natural world — is a noble endeavor that produces results, even if those results are sometimes interpreted differently. Scientism, on the other hand, is something else. Briefly put, this is the idea that “knowledge begins and ends with the scientific method, and anything not confirmed by science is mere opinion and unsubstantiated belief.” I submit to you that this is a self-refuting idea.
For an even briefer statement of the essence of scientism, see the slogan quoted at the top of this post. Note that it is a statement about truth that makes an implicit claim to be true. So, much like the earlier statement about English sentences, it includes itself in what it refers to. Furthermore, we realize that the statement can’t satisfy its own requirement. Why? Because there is no scientific evidence proving that science is the only way to know truth. The view commits what Greg Koukl calls Formal Suicide.
“As it turns out, this claim is not a fact of science. It is a philosophical assertion about science that itself cannot be proven by any scientific method and would therefore be unreliable according to this approach.”
In fact, Koukl takes it a step further to say that scientism also commits another form of suicide which he calls Infanticide* — the most difficult type of ‘suicide’ to understand. The idea itself may not be contradictory, but for it to work, there is a dependency relationship that must be satisfied. Koukl explains:
“Sometimes an objection (the ‘child’) is dependent on a prior notion (the ‘parent’) that must be in place for the challenge to be offered. Saying, ‘Vocal cords do not exist.’ is not internally contradictory. But since it requires vocal cords to say it, making the statement results in contradiction. The parent concept (vocal cords) devours the child (the verbal claim there are no vocal cords). That’s why I call this variation Infanticide.
If a claim cannot be made unless the parent concept on which it depends is true, yet the claim denies the parent concept, then the argument commits Infanticide. The child is destroyed by the parent it relies on.”
How does this apply to scientism?
I have a collector mentality, meaning that I like to build collections of things. In the past, I’ve collected rocks, coins, stamps, comic books, autographed celebrity photos, collector plates. Now, I collect Bibles. But, what if I was a believer in scientism, and I wanted to collect all knowledge in a box — a Truth Box? Before any supposed truth could go into the box, it would first need to pass the scientific truth test. And, therein lies the problem…
I could never get started, because some truths would need to be already in the Truth Box before any scientific analysis could get underway. Like what?
- the truths of logic and mathematics
- the truth of the basic reliability of our senses
- certain practical truths expressed as moral requirements (e.g., “Report all data honestly.”)
- the entire scientific method
Yep, the scientific method would have to be available and verified as true before it could be used to test the truthfulness of anything else.
Koukl sums it up like this:
“None of these truths can be established by the methods of science, because science cannot operate in a knowledge vacuum. Certain truths — known through means other than science — must be in place before science can begin testing for other truths. Since the notion of scientism (the child) is inconsistent with the nonscientific presuppositions that make science possible (the parent), scientism as a comprehensive view of knowledge commits Infanticide.”
The notion of scientism would seem to be doubly dead.
* Given what we know to be the normal definitions of the words and that the discussion here involves logic, the claim that infanticide is a form of suicide would seem problematic. But, think of it this way. When one conceptual part of it “kills” another part or keeps it from forming, the overall idea/view in question self-destructs.
(H/T Greg Koukl)
