What Scientism Is Not- The Strawman

In discussions of the existence of God and the truth of Christianity, atheists are often understood and represented to hold to the idea of scientism. Scientism being the philosophical view that the study of nature (science) is the only valid source of truth about reality. In my conversations with atheists, though, if they start out affirming such a view, they usually concede it within a few minutes of my pointing out that everyone relies on knowledge outside the sciences all the time. There are a few hold-outs, but generally this is my experience.

I recently reviewed J.P. Moreland's book "Scientism and Secularism" on this subject. One of the critiques that I have seen from many people (including both atheists and Christians) is that Moreland wasted time arguing against atheism using a misunderstanding of scientism. The charge is that he argued against a view that few atheists actually defend- a strawman. Of course, most atheists recognize that other sources of truth exist outside nature. They know, understand, and accept the defeaters presented by Moreland.

The Distinction and The Connection

However, the value of Moreland's book is not found solely in its defeat of scientism but in the distinction identified between strong scientism and weak scientism. While atheists recognize and (generally) deny strong scientism, they still hold to weak scientism.

The distinction between strong and weak scientism comes down to the attitude of those who reject non-scientific disciplines as sources of truth. Strong scientism, even on the surface, rejects that other sources of knowledge exist and will not even waste time using them to judge their scientific theories. On the other hand, weak scientism grants that knowledge exists in other disciplines, but while it allows the scientific disciplines to judge theories in those other disciplines, the judgment is not a two-way street. Weak scientism does not allow other knowledge disciplines to judge scientific theories.

Moreland demonstrates that, while distinct in attitude regarding the other knowledge disciplines, weak scientism logically and necessarily implies strong scientism. This means that weak scientism is just strong scientism articulated and applied differently but with the same outcome. A strawman? No. Moreland recognizes the philosophical detour that such atheists take and shows how even that detour fails.

For strong scientism, science is the only source of truth, so theories that reign supreme among scientists are the only ones that can possibly be the outcome of the investigation of reality. For weak scientism, science is the final source of truth, so theories that reign supreme among scientists are the only ones that can possibly be the outcome of the investigation of reality. The destination is the same, just with a slight detour.

Because of the necessary logical connection between weak scientism and strong scientism, the same reasons that an atheist would agree as their reasons for rejecting strong scientism, are the same reasons that defeat weak scientism. If strong scientism is rejected for its falsified necessary features that are also necessary features of weak scientism, then weak scientism, logically, must be rejected as well.

The victim of the critiques of scientism is the destination. When atheists agree that the critiques defeat strong scientism then they adjust their view to the weak version, they have not rejected the destination, they have only adjusted how they get there in an effort to appear to accept the defeaters of scientism.

Protecting Against Pseudoscience

Many people adopt one of the forms of scientism in an effort to protect their minds from accepting pseudoscientific claims. Accepting scientism is an unnecessary barrier to guard against pseudoscience. Unfortunately, accepting (either version of) scientism exchanges pseudoscience for illogic, irrationality, unreasonableness and a stunted investigation into reality. While pseudoscience misinterprets parts of reality, scientism denies parts of reality.

Interestingly enough, those who have accepted scientism to guard against pseudoscience have actually made their situation worse. Misrepresentations of reality still grant that those parts of reality exist and are sources of truth, thus proper representation is still an option upon further investigation of the data and logic that produced the wrong conclusions.

However, with scientism, those areas of reality are completely denied to be knowable or even exist. The opportunity for course-correction of the investigation is completely removed if one accepts scientism, and they ultimately cut themselves and others off from that portion of reality and live in denial of its existence- a delusion.

If we continue down this logical path, we discover that scientism is actually more dangerous than pseudoscience. Someone can have the wrong understanding of a portion of reality, and we can recognize that wrong understanding, but we do not need to deny that portion of reality exists or deny that it is knowable to avoid the misunderstanding. To deny either is to surrender to ignorance, and that is hardly the goal of science or any truth-seeker.

Being wrong is part of the investigation process. Every investigator of nature (scientist) is going to perform pseudoscience at some point, though not necessarily intentionally. They are going to get their data wrong, and they're going to reason fallaciously. That's just part of being human. The goal, though, is not to just conclude that what is being investigated is unknowable, but that we were wrong somewhere and that course-correction is necessary. This course-correction is done all the time by scientists in the lab, the field, and in journals. Pseudoscience is rejected, not the existence of what is being investigated or even its knowability. Rather it is the understanding that what is being investigated exists and is knowable that drives the investigation and the critique of invalid data and logical fallacy.

If one accepts scientism to avoid pseudoscientific processes in any investigation, they have denied the very goal of science- to discover what is true about this world. If pseudoscience must be vehemently rejected, then scientism should be practically unthinkable.

Testing By Non-Scientific Sources of Truth

Now, let's take this a step further. Denying certain sources of truth leads to denial of testing by those sources. If a company refuses to test claims about their products by available methods, then that should raise a red flag for the consumer. Accepting scientism forces the refusal to test claims about reality by available methods. So, this should also raise a red flag for the truth-seeker.

Just because a tool of investigation does not involve one of the five senses does not mean that it cannot be used to identify (judge) bad data or fallacious reasoning. Rather quite the opposite. The more tools that we have at our disposal to identify false conclusions, the less time we will spend with pseudoscientific processes and conclusions.

The naturalist is stuck with the limited toolkit they have because they have presupposed that the natural is all that exists (they are compelled to hold to scientism), but for the theist we not only are open to a wider range of conclusions (including metaphysical/supernatural), but we also have non-physical tools at our disposal to identify pseudoscience where the naturalist cannot (at least, not without "stealing it from God," as Frank Turek would say). We can test claims and their processes of investigation of reality by such tools as logic, mathematics, history, philosophy, and theology.

For the Christian, we have this expanded toolkit at our disposal. This means that we can use mathematics to test theories of the cause of the universe; it also means that we can use Scripture and philosophy to test theories of human origins and life's diversity.

Scientism in the Church

So many Christians are willing to change their interpretation of data in fields other than science because of their interpretation of the scientific data and being unwilling to consider a different interpretation of the scientific data. They give primacy to their interpretation of the scientific data- no other field of study can judge the scientific interpretation, and while the other fields are valid sources of truth (the concession of weak scientism), they must be judged by scientific interpretations but never serve as judges of scientific interpretations.

This is how weak scientism works. But because weak scientism fails, this method of interpreting data fails as well. Rather, as Christians, we need to be willing to adjust our interpretation of the scientific data as well as the non-scientific data. The best way to approach this is to gather the interpretations that are compatible with the data from both (or all) fields then bring more fields of study and their respective data points in to further narrow the field of overlapping (possible) interpretations. The compatible interpretations of every data point in every field of study ultimately judges and is judged by the compatible interpretations of every other data point in every other field of study.

This is neither strong nor weak scientism. This is a complete rejection of all forms of scientism. Scientism will be comfortable and seem reasonable ("we're avoiding pseudoscience") until we get to the fields of study that begin to judge and rule out our preferred (or just familiar) interpretations. Super-natural explanations (causes outside this universe) do not necessarily have to be theistic, so those may still be acceptable. But then we bring more fields of study (philosophy of knowledge, design, and information) to the table to serve as judges resulting in a divine foot being placed in the door with deism in general. Still more data is brought to the table (e.g. what's presented in "Improbable Planet" and "Stealing From God") to lead to the more specific but still general theism. And finally, human history and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, demonstrating the truth of Christian theism in particular.

Conclusion

Scientism is often adopted as a defensive posture to avoid the dangers of pseudoscience, but that position comes with even more dangers. For the truth-seeker, it is important to recognize the dangers of both and avoid both. Moreland demonstrates in his book how accepting a weak form of scientism is not the way to truly avoid the dangers of hard scientism. Scientism must be rejected completely if the truth-seeker wishes to avoid dangers worse than pseudoscience.

For the Christian, there is nothing to be concerned about by letting go of our weak scientism. By allowing other disciplines to judge our scientific interpretations, we can rule out incorrect views of God's creation when science is trailing behind or may not even have the tools to adjudicate among scientific theories.

For the non-Christian, there is nothing to fear about rejecting scientism except for Truth, itself. Yes, a divine foot will be in the door the moment you let go, but that divine foot is nothing to personally fear. God is not a danger. Your pride and sin are the dangers. If you recognize your pride and your sin as the dangers that they truly are, you will be freed to avoid the dangers of both scientism or pseudoscience. Otherwise, you will be caught between both, never able to truly escape. When the whole of the evidential base is considered (all the sources of knowledge), Jesus Christ comes out as the only way to avoid all the dangers that keep us from seeking truth. If you are truly a truth-seeker, it is time to lay down your pride and accept Him as your Creator and Savior.

For more on this subject, I recommend these books and articles: