The accusation of “scientism”, irrationality passed off as a debate

[ad_1]

Every time you try to simply report solid facts in discussions where unfounded positions prevail, but deeply rooted and closely linked to very specific interests, you feel flying in Italy the accusation of “scientism” leveled against those who take it upon themselves to remember the little or a lot that scientific research can contribute to different areas in which it is necessary to make some decisions. This accusation, in this context, is usually the last defense of irrationalists who are irreparably wrong, such as those who try to defend the vitalism of biodynamics and the alleged anthroposophical virtues, or those who would like to see the ancient, but false, therapeutic disciplines recognized Orientals on a par with modern medical science, or even – just to give just the last example – those who claim to forbid cultivated meat in the name of stupid prejudices and violated traditions, to be maintained at any cost (and not on the basis of an always possible real cost-benefit analysis). Of these, of course, there is little to say, for their attack is as old as the invention of science itself; it is much more interesting, however, to note that among those who claim to defend the results of scientific research, including certain local academics, the defects of scientism are indeed evident. Scientism, we read in Treccani, is understood today as that “particular intellectual attitude of those who consider the only valid knowledge to be that of the physical and experimental sciences, and therefore devalue any other form of knowledge that does not accept the methods of these sciences”.

Now, suppose we consider the knowledge of a composer, inherent in his own subject; it is evident that, although a limited scientific analysis of what he knows is always possible, what is useful to the master is not the result of this, which at most can indirectly interest him, but rather a consolidated knowledge of his own art, together I would say instinctive and probably genetic that allow him to apply this consolidated knowledge in ways that are more or less pleasant for his audience. Let’s look at the art of a writer, or even at the traditional knowledge of a storyteller, at the profound knowledge of the law of a lawyer, even at that of the social world of someone who deals with public relations: even if it were possible in all the cases described and in still others who could think of using the scientific method to examine such types of knowledge, it is evident that in very few, perhaps in no case, with that method it would be possible to obtain something useful in the respective fields of application. Yet it is undoubtedly useful and even indispensable knowledge and knowledge, if, for example, we look at the knowledge of regulatory systems and its value in maintaining complex societies like ours; therefore, in no case and in any sense, is it possible to establish a scale of values ​​that relegates such knowledge to a lower level than the knowledge that can be acquired through the logical-mathematical formalization of experience and the generalization of natural facts that the sciences allow.

Now, it is certain that the method and the scientific disciplines can instead contribute to broadening and deepening any other knowledge, in a virtuous collaboration that is often the best that can be imagined from the point of view of the admirable intellectual result that is obtained: research on ancient DNA, for example, can tell us a lot about prehistory, just as spectrophotometric analysis can tell us a lot about a work of art, or scientific evidence can help us in a court of law or in building a law more useful and equitable, and astronomy can prompt metaphysics and philosophy like few other subjects. The aesthetic sense, depth of analysis and other virtues of knowledge and fields that are not strictly scientific can all gain in terms of depth and breadth, when they manage to intersect with scientific data and the meticulous and solid reconstruction of certain possible facts; vice versa, the beauty of scientific knowledge, a very powerful engine that stimulates research, can only benefit from the wonderful application to historical, aesthetic and social fields that scientists manage to cross.

The arrogant defense of a single method and the claim to use it for the acquisition of every possible knowledge not only in its own fields, but in any sphere of human action and thought, has one, and one main, defect that true scientists recognize well in the scientism of some naive: the narrow-minded conviction that it is not interesting, useful or beautiful that which is not subject, by principle or by current shortcomings, to the scientific method. There is no limit to the use of the scientific method in any field of human thought, if not that of its very uselessness where this condition occurs; but to believe that this last limit does not exist, and to ignore how stupid it is to deprive ourselves of what our mind can do outside of science, this is the most serious limit that allows us to identify scientism with certainty.

Science is and remains primarily the product of applying a method, which, despite the limitations due to the fact that whoever applies it is human, at least for now and before any artificial intelligence capable of this sense arises, thanks to collective work produces some of the most lasting, solid and magnificent architectures of thought ever never managed to create, from which our material well-being flows almost exclusively; but science does not need unreasonable support, and indeed is itself better protected by a moderate consideration of itself, especially in the presence of other great works of our mind, such as art, legal thought or philosophy. With this conviction, it is possible to send back to the sender the accusations of those who do not love science and do not know it, or who have an interest in opposing its resultsaccusing the researchers of a non-existent “constitutive” scientism to take refuge in a stupid irrationalism.

[ad_2]

Source link