{"id":3706,"date":"2013-08-17T17:22:20","date_gmt":"2013-08-17T22:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/?p=3706"},"modified":"2013-08-17T17:33:26","modified_gmt":"2013-08-17T22:33:26","slug":"steven-pinker-science-and-scientism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/2013\/08\/17\/technology\/steven-pinker-science-and-scientism\/","title":{"rendered":"Steven Pinker, Science, and “Scientism”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an article that appeared recently in The New Republic<\/em> entitled, “Science is not Your Enemy<\/a>,” Steven Pinker is ostensibly defending science, going so far as to embrace “scientism.”\u00a0 As he points out, “The term “scientism” is anything but clear, more of a boo-word than a label for any coherent doctrine.”\u00a0 That’s quite true, which is reason enough to be somewhat circumspect about self-identifying (if I may coin a term)\u00a0as a “scientismist.”\u00a0 Nothing daunted, Pinker does just that, defending scientism in “the good sense.”\u00a0He informs us that “good scientism” is\u00a0distinguished by “an explicit commitment to two ideals,”\u00a0namely, the propositions that the world is intelligible<\/em>, and that the acquisition of knowledge is hard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Let me say up front that I am on Pinker’s side when it comes to the defense of what he calls “science,” just as I am on his side in rejecting the ideology of the Blank Slate<\/a>.\u00a0 Certainly he’s worthy of a certain respect, if only in view of the sort of people who have been coming out of the woodwork to attack him for his latest.\u00a0 Anyone with enemies like that can’t be all bad.\u00a0 It’s just that, whenever I read his stuff, I find myself rolling my eyes before long.\u00a0 Consider, for example, his tome about the Blank Slate.\u00a0 My paperback version runs to 500 pages give or take, and in all that prose, I find only a single mention of Robert Ardrey, and then only accompanied by the claim that he was “totally and utterly wrong.”\u00a0 Now, by the account of the Blank Slaters themselves<\/a>\u00a0(see, in particular,\u00a0the essays by\u00a0Geoffrey Gorer in Man and Aggression<\/em>, edited by Ashley Montagu),\u00a0Robert Ardrey was their most effective and influential opponent.\u00a0 In other words, Pinker wrote a thick tome, purporting to be an account of the Blank Slate, in which he practically ignored the contributions of the most important player in the whole affair, only mentioning him at all in order to declare him wrong, when in fact he was on the same side of the issue as Pinker.<\/p>\n

Similar problems turn up in Pinker’s latest.\u00a0 For example, he writes,<\/p>\n

Just as common, and as historically illiterate, is the blaming of science for political movements with a pseudoscientific patina, particularly Social Darwinism and eugenics.\u00a0 Social Darwinism was the misnamed laissez-faire philosophy of Herbert Spencer.\u00a0 It was inspired not by Darwin’s theory of natural selection, but by Spencer’s Victorian-era conception of a mysterious natural force for progress, which was best left unimpeded.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here, as in numerous similar cases, it is clear Pinker has never bothered to read Spencer.\u00a0 The claim that he was a “Social Darwinist” was a red herring tossed out by his enemies after he was dead.\u00a0 Based on a minimal fair reading of his work, the claim is nonsense.\u00a0 If actually reading Spencer is too tedious, just Google something like “Spencer Social Darwinism.”\u00a0 Check a few of the hits, and you will find that a good number of modern scholars have been fair-minded enough to actively dispute the claim.\u00a0 Other than that, you will find no reference to specific writings of Spencer in which he promotes Social Darwinism as it is generally understood.\u00a0 The same could be said of the laissez faire<\/em> claim.\u00a0 Spencer supported a small state, but hardly rejected stated intervention in all cases.\u00a0 He was a supporter of labor unions, and even was of the opinion that land should be held in common in his earlier writings.\u00a0 As for “Victorian-era” conceptions, if memory serves, Darwin wrote during that era as well, and while Spencer embraced Lamarckism and had a less than up-to-date notion of how evolution works, I find no reference in any of\u00a0his work to a “mysterious natural force for progress.”<\/p>\n

Pinker’s comments about morality are similarly clouded.\u00a0 He writes,<\/p>\n

In other words, the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is the worldview given to us by science… The facts of science, by exposing the absence of purpose in the laws governing the universe, force us to take responsibility for the welfare of ourselves, our species, and our planet.\u00a0 For the same reason, they undercut any moral or political system based on mystical forces, quests, destinies, dialectics, struggles, or messianic ages.\u00a0 And in combination with a few unexceptionable convictions – that all of us value our own welfare and that we are social beings who impinge on each other and can negotiate codes of conduct – the scientific facts militate toward a defensible morality, namely, adhering to principles that maximize the flourishing of humans and other sentient beings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, Pinker has bought in to the Sam Harris “human flourishing” mumbo-jumbo, and thinks that the “facts of science” can somehow become material objects with the power to dictate that which is “good” and that which is “evil.”\u00a0 Here Pinker, in company with Harris, has taken leave of his senses.\u00a0 Based on what he wrote earlier in the essay, we know that he is aware that what we understand as morality is the expression of evolved behavioral traits.\u00a0 Those traits are their ultimate cause, and without them morality would literally cease to exist as we know it.\u00a0 They exist in the brains of individuals, solely by virtue of the fact that, at some point in the distant past utterly unlike the present, they promoted our survival.\u00a0 And yet, in spite of the fact that Pinker must understand, at least at some level, that these things are true, he agrees with Harris that the emotional responses, or, as Hume, whom Pinker also claims to have read, puts it, sentiments, can jump out of our heads, become objects, or things in themselves, independent of the minds of individuals, and, as such, can be manipulated and specified by the “facts of science.”\u00a0 Presumably, once the “educated” and the “scientists” have agreed on what the “facts of science” tell us is a “defensible morality,” at that point the rest of\u00a0us become bound to agree with them on the meanings of “good” and “evil” that they pass down to us, must\u00a0subordinate our own emotions and inherent predispositions regarding such matters to “science,” and presumably be justifiably (by “science”) punished if we do not.\u00a0 What nonsense!<\/p>\n

“Science” is not an object, any more than “good” and “evil.”\u00a0 “Science” cannot independently “say” anything, nor can it create values.\u00a0 In reality, “science” is a rather vague set of principles and prescriptions for approaching the truth, applied willy-nilly if at all by most “scientists.”\u00a0 By even embracing the use of the term “science” in that way, Pinker is playing into the hands of his enemies.\u00a0 He is\u00a0validating their claim that “science” is actually a thing, but in their case, a b\u00eate noire<\/em>, transcending its real nature as a set of rules, more or less vaguely understood and\u00a0applied, to become an object in itself.\u00a0 Once the existence of such a “science” object is accepted, it becomes a mere bagatelle to\u00a0fix on it the responsibility for all the evils of the world, or, in the case of the Pinkers of the world, all the good.<\/p>\n

In reality, the issue here is not whether this imaginary “science” object exists and, assuming it does, whether it is “good” or “evil.”\u00a0 It is about whether we should be empowered to learn things about the universe in which we live or not.\u00a0 The opponents of “scientism” typically rail against such things as eugenics, Social Darwinism, and the atomic bomb.\u00a0 These are supposedly the creations of the “science” object.\u00a0 But, in fact, they are no such thing.\u00a0 In the case of eugenics and Social Darwinism, they represent the moral choices of individuals.\u00a0 In the case of the atomic bomb, we have a thing which\u00a0became possible as a result of the knowledge of the physical world acquired in the preceding half a century, give or take.\u00a0 What would the opponents of “scientism” have us change?\u00a0 The decision to build the atomic bomb?\u00a0 Fine, but in that case they are not opposing “science,” but rather a choice made by individuals.\u00a0 Opposition to “science” itself can only reasonably be construed as opposition to the acquisition of the knowledge that made\u00a0the bomb\u00a0possible to begin with.\u00a0 If that is what the opponents of “scientism” really mean, let them put their cards on the table.\u00a0 Let them explain to us in just what ways those things which the rest of us are to be allowed to know will be limited, and just why it is they think they have the right to dictate to the rest of us what we can know and what we can’t.<\/p>\n

It seems to me\u00a0this whole “science” thing is getting out of hand.\u00a0 If we must have an object, it would be much better for us to go back to the Enlightenment and use the term “reason.”\u00a0 It seems to me that would make it a great deal more clear what we are talking about.\u00a0 It would reveal the true nature of the debate.\u00a0 It is not about the “science” object, and whether it is “good” or “evil,” but about whether we should actually try to use our rational minds, or instead relegate our brains to the less ambitious\u00a0task of serving\u00a0as a convenient stuffing for our skulls.<\/p>\n

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In an article that appeared recently in The New Republic entitled, “Science is not Your Enemy,” Steven Pinker is ostensibly defending science, going so far as to embrace “scientism.”\u00a0 As he points out, “The term “scientism” is anything but clear, more of a boo-word than a label for any coherent doctrine.”\u00a0 That’s quite true, which … Continue reading “Steven Pinker, Science, and “Scientism””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[67,94,41,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideology","category-reason","category-science","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwEq0-XM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3706"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3712,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}