Angry Cantabrians, frustrated with the speed of the rebuild, are threatening to blow up earthquake repair hubs and shoot staff.
The abuse of rebuild staff escalated yesterday when an eastern Christchurch hub, which looks more like a fortress, was locked down after an angry homeowner, with a violent past, threatened staff.
Things are going to get worse before they get better.
[EQC] Customer services general manager Bruce Emson says staff have been verbally and physically abused by homeowners frustrated at the speed of the rebuild.
He says there have been death threats as well.
“It’s exacerbating a little, as people become less resilient and less tolerant as I guess as we head into our third winter it might even continue to escalate.”
You think?
Fletcher EQR general manager David Peterson said the firm had spent thousands of dollars on extra security to protect its 700 staff after threats and verbal abuse from homeowners.
“We have 20 hubs around the city and we’ve had to make the fences slightly higher, put in exit doors for staff and the reception counters are higher now too, so people can’t jump over them so easily,” Peterson said.
He understood homeowners were frustrated but some behaviour had forced staff out because “customer interaction had become unbearable”.
“When it’s every single day, it really does wear you down. We’ve trained staff specifically to be able to handle aggressive phone calls, and we’ve trained them how to deal with threats physically and emotionally.”
Some areas of the city, such as North New Brighton, were “more problematic” than others, he said.
Perhaps the EQC should focus its rebuilding efforts on “more problematic” areas—areas where people actually live—instead of on the CBD, where rebuilding has continued apace. Take a look at the recent picture below. You’d hardly think that just over two years ago the city was struck by a devastating earthquake.
Here’s a story problem about a situation that doctors often encounter:
1% of women at age forty who participate in routine screening have breast cancer. 80% of women with breast cancer will get positive mammographies. 9.6% of women without breast cancer will also get positive mammographies. A woman in this age group had a positive mammography in a routine screening. What is the probability that she actually has breast cancer?
What do you think the answer is? If you haven’t encountered this kind of problem before, please take a moment to come up with your own answer before continuing.
If you think it would help, make like a constipated mathematician.
If you get the answer wrong, you’re irrational.
If you click here to find the correct answer, you’re both irrational and lazy.
(Judge not, that ye be not judged? Yeah, I already worked out the correct answer myself, thanks. :-))
Watch this Vid below.
If you actually have your Brains switched on and think about what these knobs are saying you will appreciate just how Ridiculous Evolutionist arguments are!
Note that first they say that the Human eye is ‘poorly designed’.
*Talk about Blind stupidity!* These dickheads actually stand there with a straight face and say that the eye is not spectacular super-tek… but ‘junky’ and haphazard!
“It’s got a blind spot!”… they say
… but then they go on to explain that the way the eye works… the so-called blind spot ‘disappears’… which they say is the Genius of Blind evolution!
*So there is no ‘imperfection’… no Bad design after all!*
>>>>>>>>> The whole argument is fallacious <<<<<<<<<<
, and was simply invented to attempt to explain away the stark reality that the Eye points to a designer.
Those of you whom are familiar with the history of the Creationist/evolutionist debate will also spot that Dawkins has *stolen an argument Creationists used to thwart this ‘Bad design’ argument* …. the argument of ‘Trade off’s’.
Creationists argued against the ‘Bad design argument’ by proposing God made ‘trade off’s’ in his design and the so called ‘blind spot’ was one.
Now he claims it was *evolution* which made the ‘trade off’…. “Evolution is a series of trade offs”… (Sic)
And yet also in this video They say the squid has ‘Better designed eyes’ (No ‘trade off’ blind spot) and yet this ‘Better design’ is said to be by ‘Pure luck’!!!
Oh and it just so happens that in reality the ‘poorly designed’ Human Eye works better than the ‘more rational’ squids eye!???
Dawkins says Blind luck created eyes!
Though he has not one ounce of proof, His explaination is supposed to be a ‘more scientific’ than the belief Eyes are designed for a purpose!
I Need Drugs!
This sort of utter Rubbish pushes one to the edge!
For the life of me, I don’t know how people can stomach such childish and pathetic reasoning!
Evolution is Ridiculous!
Dawkins himself said… “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”
Despite this Natural rationale derived from consideration of Living things Dawkins also says…
“It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that). “Put Your Money on Evolution” The New York Times (April 9, 1989) section VII p.35”
Evolution is not a science. It is an attempt by Man to deny the existence of God.
*Pathetic!*
The reality is the sophistication of the Human eye is staggering.
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”
St Paul Romans 1vs20
It’s daylight now @6am.
@ Home. Climb out of car.
Shut the gate and Nightshift behind me.
In the Weed Garden a Crimson Rose is in Full Bloom.
I must divert.
Nose deep in the Petals.
Blisful Contemplation.
Amen.
Time to Chill.
Sleep.
The fool hath said in his heart “There is no God”!
Pompous and self-deluded Atheists…of various degree.
John Cleese, Penn Jillette, Bill Nye, Stephen Hawking, (above) Frederick Nietzsche, (below) George Carlin,, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Adam Savage, Michio Kaku
(I exclude Carl Sagan…. as though he was an evolutionist he was an honest Agnostic not an atheist)
Without wasting too much precious time, I wish to hack off another limb from the Mythical Atheist Beast.
It is connected to that absurd delusion that reason and science are the preserve of Atheism…
Many Atheists rationalize that the theistic mind is given wholly over to Superstition and Mysticism, and as such opposes Naturalistic explanations and scientific progress. They love to quote the common interpretation of Galileo’s conflict with the Roman Catholic church re The Heliocentric model of the Solar system as being typical of The Religious mentality, and other such gems as ‘American Farmers superstitious attitude towards Jefferson’s scientifically designed Steel plow replacing the wooden Old world style plow ‘proposing the steel ‘would poison the soil’.
It is via such arguments that Atheists sit smugly in their assumed intellectual and rational superiority, and further argue that with the advance of Naturalistic science God himself will be increasingly squeezed out of existence… there being nothing left for him and his hocus pocus to do.
Now I of course understand that superstition and myth has always been a problem for mankind and that it does thrive in ignorance, yet I would argue that Atheists are not immune to either.
I suggest that atheism is itself a form of Anti-scientific superstitious Ignorance!
Yet let me show you that contrary to the Atheist assertion that Theists are quick to accept Superstitious explanations for phenomena , that Judeo-Christian theism has always maintained strong opposition to superstition, and condemned it, and that The Judeo-Christian cosmology embraces the idea that the Natural realm obeys Natural Laws.
First of all The Book of Genesis states that after the six days in which God had restored the Universe to order and created Man, that on the seventh day he rested from his work.
…and yet the Universe continued to function!
This shows that not only is God distinct from the universe, but also that it does not require any ‘work’ from God to function. Ie He has set it up so that it maintains itself and operates independently.
Thus while Egyptian and Maori myths may say that The Sun rises and sets according to the ‘work’ of deities and spirit beings, the bible does not say this.
The Bible says The Universe operates according to the Order of God’s design.
It was in appreciation of this Divine order that Einstein said that the Natural Laws inspire Awe and reveal super intelligent design.
“God is a Geometer”. “God forever arithematises” saith other Mathematicians.
Now let’s see how the Bible disproves the Atheists idea that Biblical theism corrodes the mind and renders a believer susceptible to superstition and mysticism by looking at biblical accounts and personalities.
Let’s consider the Birth of Isaac, which was a Divine intervention into the Natural order.
Now The Book of Genesis lays out the strict Natural Laws of Kinds… Humans give birth to Humans, fish to fish, Sheep to sheep, etc.
Furthermore in 2000 BC, it was understood by Experience that a woman’s natural ability to bear children was limited to her youth.
This was Natural.
And so when Abraham told his aged wife Sarah that God was going to ‘open her womb’ and that she was going to bear him a son… she did not automatically… superstitiously believe Abraham.
Instead she laughed! (Isaac means Laughter)
This is because she knew that ‘Naturally speaking’ she was too old to have children, and that though she believed in God, still she did not expect ‘Divine intervention’ to step in and alter the natural order of things.
Yet She did fall pregnant, and History was forever altered.
This shows that Sarah’s Naturalistic rationale, though understandable was wrong!
That God can and does intervene in the natural order when it suits his purposes to do so.
This is what miracles are.
Rare and exceptional interventions.
What is important to appreciate in this historic account is that Sarah displayed what we today might call ‘a healthy skepticism’ towards miraculous interventions of the Natural Order.
This attitude explodes the atheist notion that Theists are Brain dead morons given to swallow suppositious and mystical ideas and fables.
We find this same attitude… a resistance to accept supernatural explanations… in the events that surround the incarnation. When Righteous Joseph discovers his espoused Woman Mary is Pregnant with Christ, Knowing how woman get Pregnant he naturally assumes she has had sex with someone else and was thinking about ditching her.
It was only when he is visited by an angel whom explains Mary’s miraculous condition that he accepts Mary has been faithful and that the Child she is carrying is very special.
Again this account shows that the Jewish Theistic mind does not leap to supernatural …’Superstitious’ conclusions.
When Miracles do occur Theists can be very stubborn and slow to accept them.
When The woman returned from Christ’s tomb declaring he had Risen from the dead the response of the Disciples is a natural incredulity, not belief.
They check the tomb themselves, and discuss it as a mystery. Thomas Refuses to believe it point blank…unless he puts his fingers in Christ’s nail holes!
Christ Obliged him.
The Miracle of the resurrection changed World history. The Disciples of Christ, and the Apostle Paul were willing to die for the testimony that Christ really did rise from the Dead.
This was not something they herd.
This was not an ideological ‘faith’.
It was something they witnessed as really happening!
A real time event… an Extra-ordinary Empirical Fact!
The reality is Miracles only have the power to amaze if the person recognizes them as deviations from the normal nature.
The miracles of Christ we see this truth.
Ie whenever Christ performs a miracle it creates a sensation!
People are well aware something unusual has occurred.
That is why Miracles are considered ‘Signs and wonders’ because they violate what is known to be the understood Natural Order of Things!
The Narrow Atheist mindset is a throwback from the ignorant past when Materialists assumed the Universe was Eternal. Though this cosmology has been overthrown, Atheists have clung to their superstitions, and would still have you think that The Natural order is absolute, and thus to believe in a supernatural realm is to be utterly deceived, yet the reality is That The natural order is a temporal, and finite, and dependent orderly system, which exists within a greater Super-natural/ primary reality… ie It is within the bounds of modern science to say that there was ‘a time’ when this universe did not exist, and neither did the Laws of physics as we know them.
True Science has caught up with the Bible!
The Universe is a created thing, and there is no good reason to say that super-natural events can not or have not ever taken place within the universe.
Statements such as ‘Miracles never happen’ are articles of blind faith… an unsubstantiated dogma which contradicts some of the Greatest milestones of recorded History.
To maintain this they enter into far fetched and convoluted attempts to explain away these recorded miraculous events of history like the celebration of the Passover, or the disciples belief in the Resurrection of Christ… in Naturalistic terms… eg they conjecture that Christ faked his death… or that his body was stolen… and one of their chestnuts they like to employ is thir delusion that ‘primitive theistic minds’ were ignorant of nature, and thus quick to accredit mystical causes for things they experienced.
Yet as my post has shown. Jews living 2 millennia ago were not ignorant of the natural order, nor were they quick to claim miracles or other supernatural explanations for things.
Thus the Atheist notions that theism necessarily corrupts the mind is proven false… It is their arse which is hanging out in the breeze!
Isaac Newton.
Their delusion is also exposed by the reality that most of the greatest scientific Minds have been also men of Religious faith.
Science owes a great debt to Theists.
Thus it is the atheist whom is found to be self-deluded and irrational with their false dichotomies between Religion and science, between Faith and Reason.
I have encountered several times the Delusion of atheists that men of faith like myself are incapable of understanding how the Natural world functions and so have expressed that they would not trust in my capacity as an engineer!
Again Reality shows up just how Pompous these atheist delusions are.
My religious faith makes me a better Engineer than many of my contemporaries, not because I am more intelligent, but because it imposes ethical standards of behavior.
God is not the Author of confusion.
I aspire to emulate his Reason, and Purpose, and Art.
In environments of Laxity and poor work culture, my Christian Ethics drive me to resist the flow of apathy and maintain High Order discipline and Methodology even when I am Tired, or angry, or see that nobody else gives a damn.
This results in a consistently superior quality of workmanship …Better Engineering.
Christian Ethics inspire me to do an Honest Job, to go the extra mile to provide Good value to those whom employ my service, and not to cut corners to maximize my personal profit.
Consistent adherence to these ethics helped Me out perform hundreds of others to win ‘Contractor of the year 2012’ at Fonterra Te Rapa.
As a scientist, Christian values ought to keep your integrity to objective truth, as a higher priority than serving corrupt political agendas… like Global warming, etc… resisting the urge to provide Pseudo scientific endorsements of Ideas which may Bring personal wealth and Status via, government funding and pandering to popular delusions.
“… whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men…”. (Col 3vs23)
Thus it is that not only does Theism *not render me stupid and irrational*, It actually inspires Betters Engineering, Higher standards of scientific Rigor, etc… the very opposite of what Atheists assert.
Thus it is the Atheist whom today suffers superstition. They have deluded themselves as to the Efficacy of Theistic faith in stimulating, integrity to objective truth, and superior prowess via self-discipline in the Secular arts and in reason.
We live in a secular society which has actually Banned the teaching of Creation science and Christian values in our schools, thus is their any surprise that Today Science is in Disorder?
That Scientism and Atheism dominate our centers of learning and permeate the values and ideals of our society?
Secular Science has not saved us.
Science has been corrupted by Politics, Profit, and Atheism, and Atheist Pseudo science has in turn corrpted our politics and ethics.
Materialism has ‘successfully’ exorcised Man of his God given inalienable rights and unchained the Totalitarian secular state.
Materialism has destroyed Moral absolutes and rendered all ethics to be merely culturally relitive or Evolutionarily ‘expedient’.
Every type of phobia and crackpot idea is served up to us on a scientific dish.
The result is chaos and confusion… mass supperstition and delusion!
This is what the result of Materialism has been.
Divorcing Science from Theistic ethics.
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian, Libertarian, Dispensationalist, King James Bible believer.
Commenting on another post, Fellow Vigilante, Reed has posted a You tube Vid of Ray Comfort’s ‘Banana argument’ for the existence of God.
I am not sure whether he posted it in Ernest or in jest, as even though the argument has some merit, Ray’s particular version has been debunked.
(Banana’s come in various shapes and sizes)
As far as simple arguements go, I prefer the Peanut butter argument… Because in spite of ridicule from Atheists, it rests on absolutely Rock solid science, and so Atheism have no valid arguements against it.
A similar argument is that when we feel ill and go to the doctor… (even atheist doctors who claim to believe in Evolution) they never diagnose “a new life form has spontaneously generated in your Gut”…even when they cant find the cause of your illness.
In deed if you told your doctor that you were sick and believe a new life form had spontaneously generated in your body they would burst out laughing! They certainly would not give you any credence.
Why?
Because Spontaneous generation is scientifically speaking… an absurdity!
Louis Pasteur…’The Father of Micro Biology’
His Experiment.
Louis Parteurs refutation of spontaneous Generation has never been overthrown, never contravened…. And this is why any claims to a spontaneously generated disease would be considered ridiculous!
(likewise Ridicule would be forthcomming if you insisted that your jar of Peanut butter had been spoiled by a spontaniously generated organism)
Spontaneous generation is an atheistic myth… a naturalistic superstition.
Pasteur so utterly devestated the notion of spontanious generation, that it is an absolute embarrassment to the Atheist naturalist position that they have actually abandoned using the term, insist it has nothing to do with Atheism, and now talk of ‘Abiogenesis’…. HA HA HA!
Despite their protests.
Despite their claims to be applying more modern ideas…It’s the same Myth in a new Skirt!
And Pasteurs Law stll holds good against it!
*This surely ranks as one of the Greatest self delusions of our age!*
The reality is advances in Technology and general Knowledge about single cells has indeed grown immensely yet this advance has only served to magnify, not deminish the problems for naturalism because modern geneticist today stagger at the super complexity of living cells.
Modern apprehension of the complexity of the cell exposes the naivety of the early Naturalistic Naturalists whom assumed single celled life forms would prove to be quite simple… something easily imagined to be able to form by happenstance.
Thus with progress over the past century the evidence has been contradicting this hypothesis.
Today evolutionists must stagger at the complexity which must be achieved via self assembly …of even the most simple possible life form.
Geneticists have been busy paring away at the DNA from within the most simple life form they could find to determine what genes within that cell were essential for ‘life’. Dr Craig Venter and a team of Geneticists attempted to use the smallest genome they could find as a template for the construction of artificial DNA.
They However switched to a more complex genome to take advantage existing experience in transplating this type whole… and after years of effort, filled with failures, they syntetically replicated a perfect copy of that genome and placed inside the membrane of a cell which had been stripped of it’s DNA and to their great joy the cell apparently replicated itself…
His own explaination is here:
In the link above *He talks about the painstaking efforts… the perfect accuracy required…1 error in an over one million base pairs was enough to render their genome useless!
Now what must be appreciated in respect to our topic is that just achieving this much… engineering the simplest chains of Synthetic DNA, was considered a spectacular feat… a Historic Milestone of science and Technology!
And they did not create life but used a pre-existing cell ‘body’.
Contrary to what Atheists and Evolutionists claim these experiments and modern advances in genetic science make the Idea of spontaneous generation even less plausible… not more!
That Blind Natural forces are supposed to have done much more that what Dr Venter and his team of geneticists have achieved Beggars rational belief!
In deed Dr Venter has demonstrated the need for Genius and care, and purposeful manipulation to produce a technological wonder which in no way would or could form via nature or chance.
In creating and installing the Synthetic DNA into this cell Dr Venter has assumed the Role of God!
Pasteur has never been given his due.
‘Pasteur’s Law’ is absent from all biological text books… why?
Because it utterly undoes the entire edifice of Naturalistic evolution!
It is however a rock solid Law of Biology.
Mendels Law also does this and yet because they have not been able to overthrow it with ‘Darwin’s Law’… (Because the is no such thing as Darwin’s Law)… they simply ignore the real implications of Mendel’s Law and pretend that it is a mechanism for carrying successful evolutionary traits into future generations!
Thus while Medical science progresses with leaps and bounds because it does not rely on evolutionary theory, The religion of many biologists is corrupting the academic community… as ‘specialisation’/ the division of labour in scientific research and expertise means that academics in all the other disciplines accept by blind faith that Evolutionary Biology is rock solid… because they trust the biological fraternity …as experts in their own field… ie The Physicist rarely feels competent to question the publications of the Biologist… even when their claims appear to contravene the known tendencies of physics…in particular the tendency towards entropy. They assume the biologists are applying rigorous scientific method… and being Naturalists… it is assumed that Naturalists are brutality clinical and incapable of fostering let alone imposing personal prejudices onto raw data. Ie the Naturalist is automatically assumed to be of higher scientific calibre…more objective, and thus a superior interpreter of Evidence and data to that of the ‘mysticism’ which haunts the theistic mind.
Thus being of Naturalistic faith, and specialisation in the various fields of science has all worked to protect and perpetuate the myth that Evolution has scientifically validity… and that Creationism is ‘unscientific’.
This is a Joke!
Tim Wikiriwhi
King James Bible believer/ Dispensationalist/ Libertarian.
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God…”
(Psalm 14vs1)
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”
(Rom 1vs20)
Are you Lost in Scientism?
Lies destroy our grip on reality.
The Bible tells us of a Necromancer whom raised the prophet Samuel’s Ghost.
Do you doubt this really happened? Do you assume science proves this is impossible? If so you have been decieved!
Science has proven no such thing!
You have been decieved into believing Science proves Materialism/ monism/ Naturalism!
You have been Mentally Hobbled!
If you have been conditioned to believe Reality is strictly limited to only what Empirical Science can substantiate, then you are trapped in the Straight jacket of Scientism.
If you Believe absolutely in Naturalism, No God, no Ghosts, No miracles… You are a prisoner of Scientism.
If you Believe that Material reality is the only reality… You have been Smoked by Atheist Scientism.
Scientism is form of intellectual Coffin Torture!… a closeted mentality… a short sighted blindness… a vanity.
Scientism is a Religion…and not a very intelligent one at that!
Scientism is Irrational.
The day anyone realizes the trap that is Materialist Naturalist Scientism, and boldly embraces the possibility of Super-naturalism…is a day of personal Liberation!
It is an awakening…to a greater reality… Greater possiblities… more plausible probabilities!
It is mind expanding… Freewill is not an Illusion!
It puts Emperical Science (and our sences) into their proper context.
It apprehends their limitations.
It allows the enlightened person to shrug off the absurdities, the Gross implausibility, the wild superstition, The Deadness, The Amorality, The Meaningless, The Purposeless, The enslavement and surrender to Determinism…that Materialist Naturalism demands of it’s devotees.
Hour Of Power. The Great Dr Robert Schuller (Senior).
“Faith is the Optimistic vison of a Possiblity thinker, whereas Atheism is the Pessimistic lack of vison of an impossiblity thinker…” (Quote from memory)
Then One can look back at the past 500 years and appreciate the how the Ideologies of Materialism, Naturalism, and Scientism came about, and why they have successfully blinded the minds of millions of Men whom vainly consider themselves ‘Superior’… ‘Modern’… ‘Men of Reason’…. ‘Liberated from ‘Faith’ and Superstitious Error’, Etc yet ultimately have proven to be Blind, leaders of the Blind.
Thus saith THE LORD…
There is No conflict between True Religion/ The Bible, and True Science!
The Bible gives us access to a reality which is otherwise beyond our reach.
The Bible is Super Natural…Divine Revelation.
“A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”
Francis Bacon…The Father of Modern Science.
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1Cor2vs114)
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:…” (1Tim6vs20)
St Paul
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian. Libertarian. 1611 King James Bible Believer. Dispensationalist. Possibility Thinker.
Scientism is a term used, usually pejoratively, to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints.
The term frequently implies a critique of the more extreme expressions of logical positivism and has been used by social scientists such as Friedrich Hayek, philosophers of science such as Karl Popper, and philosophers such as Hilary Putnam to describe the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methodology and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measurable.
Scientism may refer to science applied “in excess”. The term scientism can apply in either of two equally pejorative senses:
To indicate the improper usage of science or scientific claims.
This usage applies equally in contexts where science might not apply, such as when the topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, and in contexts where there is insufficient empirical evidence to justify a scientific conclusion. It includes an excessive deference to claims made by scientists or an uncritical eagerness to accept any result described as scientific. In this case, the term is a counterargument to appeals to scientific authority.
To refer to “the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry,” or that “science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective” with a concomitant “elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience.”
The term is also used to highlight the possible dangers of lapses towards excessive reductionism in all fields of human knowledge.
For sociologists in the tradition of Max Weber, such as Jürgen Habermas, the concept of scientism relates significantly to the philosophy of positivism, but also to the cultural rationalization of the modern West.
Contents
1 Overview
2 Relevance to science/religion debates
3 Philosophy of science
4 Religion and philosophy
5 Rationalization and modernity
6 Dictionary meanings
7 Media references
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
OverviewReviewing the references to scientism in the works of contemporary scholars, Gregory R. Petersondetects two main broad themes:
It is used to criticize a totalizing view of science as if it were capable of describing all reality and knowledge, or as if it were the only true way to acquire knowledge about reality and the nature of things;
It is used to denote a border-crossing violation in which the theories and methods of one (scientific) discipline are inappropriately applied to another (scientific or non-scientific) discipline and its domain. An example of this second usage is to label as scientism any attempt to claim science as the only or primary source of human values (a traditional domain of ethics) or as the source of meaning and purpose (a traditional domain of religion and related worldviews).
Mikael Stenmark proposes the expression scientific expansionism as a synonym of scientism.In the Encyclopedia of science and religion, he writes that, while the doctrines that are described as scientism have many possible forms and varying degrees of ambition, they share the idea that the boundaries of science (that is, typically the natural sciences) could and should be expanded so that something that has not been previously considered as a subject pertinent to science can now be understood as part of science (usually with science becoming the sole or the main arbiter regarding this area or dimension).
According to Stenmark, the strongest form of scientism states that science has no boundaries and that all human problems and all aspects of human endeavor, with due time, will be dealt with and solved by science alone. This idea has also been called the Myth of Progress.
E. F. Schumacher in his A Guide for the Perplexed criticized scientism as an impoverished world view confined solely to what can be counted, measured and weighed. “The architects of the modern worldview, notably Galileo and Descartes, assumed that those things that could be weighed, measured, and counted were more true than those that could not be quantified. If it couldn’t be counted, in other words, it didn’t count.”
Relevance to science/religion debatesThe term is often used by speakers such as John Haught against vocal critics of religion-as-such.[25] Philosopher Daniel Dennett responded to criticism of his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by saying that “when someone puts forward a scientific theory that [religious critics] really don’t like, they just try to discredit it as ‘scientism'”.
Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, draws a parallel between scientism and traditional religious movements, pointing to the cult of personality that develops around some scientists in the public eye. He defines scientism as a worldview that encompasses natural explanations, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason.
The Iranian scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr has stated that in the West, many will accept the ideology of modern science, not as “simple ordinary science”, but as a replacement for religion.
Gregory R. Peterson writes that “for many theologians and philosophers, scientism is among the greatest of intellectual sins”.
Susan Haack argues that the charge of “scientism” caricatures actual scientific endeavor. No single form of inference or procedure of inquiry used by scientists explains the success of science. Instead we find:
the inferences and procedures used by all serious empirical inquirers
a vast array of tools of inquiry, from observational instruments to mathematical techniques, as well as social mechanisms that encourage honesty. These tools are diverse and evolving, and many are domain-specific.
Philosophy of science
In his essay, Against Method, Paul Feyerabend characterizes science as “an essentially anarchic enterprise” and argues emphatically that science merits no exclusive monopoly over “dealing in knowledge” and that scientists have never operated within a distinct and narrowly self-defined tradition. He depicts the process of contemporary scientific education as a mild form of indoctrination, aimed at “making the history of science duller, simpler, more uniform, more ‘objective’ and more easily accessible to treatment by strict and unchanging rules.”
[S]cience can stand on its own feet and does not need any help from rationalists, secular humanists, Marxists and similar religious movements; and … non-scientific cultures, procedures and assumptions can also stand on their own feet and should be allowed to do so … Science must be protected from ideologies; and societies, especially democratic societies, must be protected from science… In a democracy scientific institutions, research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be subjected to public control, there must be a separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions, and science should be taught as one view among many and not as the one and only road to truth and reality.
— Feyerabend, Against Method, p.viii
Religion and philosophyPhilosopher of religion Keith Ward has said scientism is philosophically inconsistent or even self-refuting, as the truth of the statements “no statements are true unless they can be proven scientifically (or logically)” or “no statements are true unless they can be shown empirically to be true” cannot themselves be proven scientifically, logically, or empirically.[32]
Rationalization and modernity: Rationalization (sociology)
In the introduction to his collected oeuvre on the sociology of religion, Max Weber asks why “the scientific, the artistic, the political, or the economic development [elsewhere]… did not enter upon that path of rationalization which is peculiar to the Occident?” According to the distinguished German social theorist, Jürgen Habermas, “For Weber, the intrinsic (that is, not merely contingent) relationship between modernity and what he called ‘Occidental rationalism’ was still self-evident.” Weber described a process of rationalisation, disenchantment and the “disintegration of religious world views” that resulted in modern secular societies and capitalism.[33]
“Modernization” was introduced as a technical term only in the 1950s. It is the mark of a theoretical approach that takes up Weber’s problem but elaborates it with the tools of social-scientific functionalism… The theory of modernization performs two abstractions on Weber’s concept of “modernity”. It dissociates “modernity” from its modern European origins and stylizes it into a spatio-temporally neutral model for processes of social development in general. Furthermore, it breaks the internal connections between modernity and the historical context of Western rationalism, so that processes of modernization… [are] no longer burdened with the idea of a completion of modernity, that is to say, of a goal state after which “postmodern” developments would have to set in… Indeed it is precisely modernization research that has contributed to the currency of the expression “postmodern” even among social scientists.
— Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
Habermas is critical of pure instrumental rationality, arguing that the “Social Life–World” is better suited to literary expression, the former being “intersubjectively accessible experiences” that can be generalized in a formal language, while the latter “must generate an intersubjectivity of mutual understanding in each concrete case”:[34][35]
The world in which human beings are born and live and finally die; the world in which they love and hate, in which they experience triumph and humiliation, hope and despair; the world of sufferings and enjoyments, of madness and common sense, of silliness, cunning and wisdom; the world of social pressures and individual impulses, of reason against passion, of instincts and conventions, of shared language and unsharable feelings and sensations…
— Aldous Huxley, Literature and Science
Dictionary meanings
Standard dictionary definitions include the following applications of the term “scientism”:
The use of the style, assumptions, techniques, and other attributes typically displayed by scientists.
Methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist.
An exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation, as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities.
The use of scientific or pseudoscientific language.
The contention that the social sciences, such as economics and sociology, are only properly sciences when they abide by the somewhat stricter interpretation of scientific method used by the natural sciences, and that otherwise they are not truly sciences.
“A term applied (freq. in a derogatory manner) to a belief in the omnipotence of scientific knowledge and techniques; also to the view that the methods of study appropriate to physical science can replace those used in other fields such as philosophy and, esp., human behaviour and the social sciences.”
“1. The collection of attitudes and practices considered typical of scientists. 2. The belief that the investigative methods of the physical sciences are applicable or justifiable in all fields of inquiry.”
St Paul. (2Thes5vs23)
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the comming of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
