Reverence for Science

Scientism is “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).”

I think anyone would grant that applying science to moral philosophy is not a sound undertaking.  For example, using science to evaluate the actions of people in certain societies as “good” or “bad” is going to be fruitless. There are countless similar examples.  As shown below, the movie “Dead Poets’ Society” pokes fun at an academic who tries to quantify the excellence of a poem.

Having said that, in general, our society has far too little faith in and respect for science.  And all this is exacerbated by political extremists, whose influence in our lives is growing steadily.  Can you imagine  George W. Bush or Barack Obama going on television and suggesting that people with a certain disease ingest bleach or shine a light into one of their orifices?  Of course not, but here we are, just a few years later.

Science isn’t perfect; in fact, given that it’s constantly improving our understanding of the world around (and inside) us, one could say that it’s always wrong.  Think of how little of what we believed 400 years ago we still hold true today.

But it’s the best we have, and for that reason alone, it deserves a bit of our reverence.