The Magician’s Twin — C[live] S[taples] Lewis and the case against Scientism

_{kairosfocus

January 9, 2013

Atheism, Philosophy, Popular culture, Religion, Science, science education, Video, worldview}

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First, let’s watch:

[youtube FPeyJvXU68k]

Then, having watched, let us now discuss, in light of the ongoing debate on the rationality of scientism-rooted a priori evolutionary materialist atheism, here. Also, the issues that come up as our civilisation metaphorically stands on the deck of a ship in Fair Havens and contemplates what to do. END

Comments

KN Forgive me that I have had to spend so much time on cleaning up unnecessary messes deposited to derail serious discussion. Thanks for some help with the mess, too. At 18, you have raised a significant issue, as to what is scientism. I particularly see your:
Here’s a provisional distinction I came up with a few months ago:
strong scientism: strong scientism holds that empirical inquiry into matters of fact is the most important (significant, reliable, valuable, truth-conducive, etc.) kind of human cognitive practices. weak scientism: weak scientism holds that empirical inquiry into matters of fact is the most important (significant, reliable, valuable, truth-conducive, etc.) procedure for generating causal explanations.
So “weak scientism” allows for the significance and value of all sorts of other cognitive practices, such as justifications, explications, elucidations, prescriptions, and demonstrations — whereas “strong scientism” does not. Does that help?
I would say this helps in part, but maybe we need to add at one end, hyper-scientism, of the sort that tries to assert or imply that "Science" is the only begetter of truth or knowledge. Which is of course self refuting, but such do not even realise that an epistemological claim is a philosophical claim, not a scientific one. So sadly defective is our modern education system. (And that is part of why I as a science-math major went out to learn enough phil to fill in key gaps.) On the weak form end, I am thinking you are a bit too broad, causation is not the only focus of science and many who are looking into cause are not doing science, e.g historians and mangers or troubleshooters or detectives. I would suggest that there is a naive overestimation of the capacity of science -- as conventionally understood -- to deliver knowledge, and a tendency to devalue or even denigrate other reasonable means to knowledge. From this,we can assign a spectrum model and maybe identify key "colours" on it. Or, is that my tendency to think in physical science terms popping up again. Hey, let's try for an ordinal scale (Rasch polytomous . . .), maybe with behavioural or verbal anchors to identify points along it. KFkairosfocus_{January 9, 2013
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F/N: Now that I have had a moment, I have gone back above and have filled in some corrective info, especially at 7 and 13, on Gardasil's limitations and on the false accusation that I have lain down with fascist dogs -- namely GK Chesterton -- and have caught their fleas. I trust this should serve to show why I have had to take the step of asking TA to leave this thread when he refused to accept gentler means of correction and insisted on further irresponsible commentary. KFkairosfocus_{January 9, 2013
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I think it’s actually quite difficult to figure out what “scientism” is, exactly what is false or dangerous about it, and how it ought to be criticized.
Hang out here for a while. You'll see all types. :) hyper-scientism - there's only one science and it's the only way to knowledge.Mung_{January 9, 2013
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I think it's actually quite difficult to figure out what "scientism" is, exactly what is false or dangerous about it, and how it ought to be criticized. For one thing, scientism has more than one symptom and more than one critic. Numerous philosophers and cultural critics have inveighed against scientism, but there's surprisingly little agreement amongst them. Some of them are conservatives, others are left-wing; some are religious, others are secularists. It's a big mess. Here's a provisional distinction I came up with a few months ago:
strong scientism: strong scientism holds that empirical inquiry into matters of fact is the most important (significant, reliable, valuable, truth-conducive, etc.) kind of human cognitive practices.

weak scientism: weak scientism holds that empirical inquiry into matters of fact is the most important (significant, reliable, valuable, truth-conducive, etc.) procedure for generating causal explanations.
So "weak scientism" allows for the significance and value of all sorts of other cognitive practices, such as justifications, explications, elucidations, prescriptions, and demonstrations -- whereas "strong scientism" does not. Does that help?Kantian Naturalist_{January 9, 2013
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timothya:'
Jeez Joe, you’ve just wiped out modern medicine with that cunning plan.
Nice, a cowardly evasion and false accusation all in one sentence. Earth to timothya- all I asked YOU to do is support YOUR raw spewage. And for that you post more raw spewage. Do you really think that helps make your case? Really? __________ Joe, I have had to add this, at 7 above, in correction:
. . . highlights from the Gov Australia: "Gardasil has been developed that protects against the two high-risk HPV types (types 16 and 18), which cause 70% of cervical cancers in women . . . " i.e. we see the double problem, that (a) 1/3 of cases of Cervical cancer are caused by other varieties, and that (b) the promotion of the vaccine against the two strains that cover the other 2/3 may leave the false impression of general coverage, which is the underlying concern that I raised was it six years ago. A false sense of security tends of course to (c) lead to increased, dangerous behaviour. Where (d) the basic problem I was pointing out, in a context where the implications of continued irresponsible behaviour on the notion that condoms will protect -- they have a significant failure rate in actual usage -- can be deadly. That is why, six years ago, I stood up and highlighted the importance of the Ugandan ABC approach: abstain, be faithful, use condoms if all else fails as better than no condom use. I must report that those who tried to denounce such a caution then, a year or so ago, had to come out and talk about the explosion of HIV cases here relative to the numbers then. The only truly sound sexual practice is chastity and fidelity.
TA's behaviour has been outrageous and inexcusable. Ironically, while accusing me of misinformation, it is he who has spread misinformation. KFJoe_{January 9, 2013
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Timothya, GEM is obviously correct. You offer nothing but sneers and distractions and refuse to address the main topic. I actually appreciate you in this respect – your behavior demonstrates for all the world to see that that is in fact all you’ve got. When it comes to addressing the substance, you’ve got nothing. Thank you.Barry Arrington_{January 9, 2013
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NOTE: I have had to further correct TA as annotated above, and to request that he leave this thread for insistent disruptive behaviour. KFkairosfocus_{January 9, 2013
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TA: Please leave this thread. You have some apologising to do, which you are obviously unwilling to make. You continue to double down on accusatory assertions that are distractive and wrong. (Onlookers, cf here on the HPV Gardasil vaccination and the other 1/3 of HPV- linked cases of Cervical Cancer, for just one sample. I add: I have further corrected at 13 above, on the snide attempt to suggest that I have lain down with fascist dogs and have caught their fleas.) You have made no positive contribution and as thread owner I have little option but to ask you to cease and desist. GEM of TKI KF: You posted the video, which attempts to hijack George Orwell to the service of woo. You included a link to your own website, which publishes inaccurate information on STDs. The video introduces itself by pointing to a fascist sympathiser without any qualification, and then attempts to hijack an outright opponent of religious faith in the service of its message. I am not trying to "suggest that there were not warnings against scientism etc from Orwell", I am stating a simple fact. George Orwell was a lifelong opponent of the religious obscurantism that you represent. The video's use of his name is an intellectual outrage. It isn't the dogs you need to be careful of, it is the fleas.timothya_{January 9, 2013
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TA: It is obvious from your very first steps, that you have stepped in to try to deride, derail and dismiss, rather than address the material issue of the thread, the question of scientism as raised by Lewis, which are in a collection of essays and novels, as well as other things. So far you have tried to talk about HPV, and tried to suggest that there were not warnings against scientism etc from Orwell, and the like, now you want to suggest that figures mentioned in passing are Fascist dogs I am lying down with, all because I have dared to put up a video on Lewis. I ask you now to either address this, or kindly leave the thread, given the sort of snide and invidiously poisonous association laced suggestions you just made. GEM of TKI PS: Now that I have a moment, let me cite a balancing corrective, to counter the attempt to divert, distract, smear and poison, which I suspect is due to a case of displaced anger over my expose of the Wiki article on ID, which I intend to follow up further on on the morrow:
G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was a great Christian writer of the first part of the twentieth century . . . he was also the intellectual leader of a practical intellectual movement anchored in Catholic social teaching and known as Distributism. This movement opposed both socialism and monopolistic capitalism in the name of individual liberty and social solidarity . . . He was one of the great Christian humanists, and a major influence on both his own and subsequent generations (T.S. Eliot, Dorothy L. Sayers, C.S. Lewis) . . . . Nevertheless, when Chesterton’s name is mentioned, allegations that he was anti-semitic and a fascist sympathizer tend to crop up, and these are important to examine . . . . Chesterton, like many Catholics and conservatives, including Winston Churchill and most of the aristocracy, had a certain admiration for Mussolini in the 1920s. The Italian leader was seen as a relatively benign dictator of the type often seen in Latin countries, and as someone who had saved Italy from a near collapse due to the corruption and factionalism of the previous democratic government. At that time, despite its absurd rhetoric, Fascism was not militarily aggressive, nor was it anti-semitic – many Jews were leading Fascists. It was only from the middle 1930s, mainly under Hitler’s baleful influence, that it moved in that direction. In his 1934 book The Resurrection of Rome, where he describes an audience with Mussolini, Chesterton puts his finger on the main weakness of Fascism, which is that it always appeals to Authority to bring order back into the State, without first bringing (moral) order back into the Mind. Fascist “order” is therefore merely the imposition of force. As far as Hitler is concerned, Chesterton was one of the first British writers to raise concern about the rise of Nazism, and had long been almost a lone voice opposing the proto-Nazi eugenics movement, which was supported in Britain before the war by many politicians of both Left and Right (Chesterton’s Eugenics and Other Evils was published in 1922) . . . [There is more on the related antisemitic question, where it seems there is some negligence at minimum on his part, though it is mitigated by his actual personal relationships with and respect for Jews. In truth, it is in recent decades that we have learned, due to the horrors of Hitler, to be far more careful on racially tinged matters.]
So, on balance, it should be clear that GKC was far from a fascist or a symapthiser in any sense that would not also indict Churchill. (Which would be a reduction to absurdity.) And indeed it is quite clear that, for all his sins, Mussolini and his movement were far less virulent than Hitler. We need to understand that in the 1930's a liberal form of fascism often seemed a way forward for people facing an unprecedented global economic crisis, so much so that many were willing to lend qualified or naive support to would be political messiahs, or to hope for a sort of liberal, paternalistic fascism. Big mistake. And I will bet that TA et al will not inform you of what I had to say in the just linked about political messianism. And there is more, specifically on fascism here, and on Hitler here. As for today's form of anti-semitism as disguised under anti-Zionism, so called, cf here. So much for the outrageous notion and slander by invidious association that I have lain down with fascist dogs and have picked up their fleas. TA et al owe an apology bigtime, but on track record of the typical tactics being used to try to discredit UD and those who post or comment here in support of ID, that will be a long time coming, if ever. So, I simply say, we see what is really going on from how these objectors are behaving, and that we should mark them for what hey thus reveal themselves to be, lest we make foolish decisions as our metaphorical ship stands in the road at Fair Havens. kairosfocus_{January 9, 2013
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Joe posted this:
Then demonstrate it or just admit that you are a lying coward.
Jeez Joe, you've just wiped out modern medicine with that cunning plan. No doubt it is your vital spark at work. Back to the video on Lewis - doesn't anyone find it strange that there is nothing in the video about actual science?timothya_{January 9, 2013
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KN: Thanks for your note on Bergson above. KFkairosfocus_{January 9, 2013
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KF: Animal Farm is satire. Orwell was an critical ally of Trotskyism - he fought in the Spanish Civil War with the Trotskyist POUM militia (and got shot in the throat for his pains), he was a longstanding member of the left-wing Independent Labour Party and a lifelong atheist and humanist. He hated Stalinism and wrote Animal Farm as a blast against the perversion of human critical reasoning that Stalinism represented. Along with Evelyn Waugh, he was also arguably the best stylist of English prose of the 20th Century. Unlike Chesterton and the Christian apologist Hilaire Belloc, Orwell resisted the charms of anti-semitism and Hitler's fascism. Be careful of the dogs you lie down with. _________ Onlookers, this is a piece of ad hominem attack by smearing through largely misleading accusations and then invidious association with the accused, which was then doubled down on when I said, please stop. Below, I will expand on my response through evidence here. KFtimothya_{January 9, 2013
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Can you point to any single idea deriving from Bergson’s work that has successfully survived subsequent scrutiny?
According to one story I heard, Ilya Prigogine was once told, "you Bergsonized chemistry!", to which Prigogine responded, "yes, is it not obvious?" Hardly a smoking gun, I know, but it suggests that Bergson had a strong influence on Prigogine's thinking about far-from-equilibrium thermodynamic systems.
As to his being “one of the most influential philosophers of the early 20th Century” – that is ludicrous. Among the French military prior to WWI perhaps (all we need is Le Elan Vital!), at least until the Battle of the Marne. Less influential after that.
Bergson was hugely popular in the United States, thanks to William James. If memory serves, he was one of the very few philosophers to receive a Nobel Prize for Literature, which isn't small potatoes. In my reading I've come across admiring citations to Bergson in philosophers such as Deleuze (who influenced Prigogine), Levinas (who influenced John Paul II), William James (prominent psychologist and philosopher), etc.
Vitalism is nonsense and demonstrably so.
I'm not disputing that; only, there's much more to Bergson's philosophical legacy than his belief in vitalism. I should stress that in fact I disagree quite seriously with Bergson on many points. But I think he's worthy of respect as a philosopher even when he's mostly wrong. In any event, I've hijacked this thread and I apologize. We now return to examining C. S. Lewis' critique of scientism.Kantian Naturalist_{January 9, 2013
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timothya:
Vitalism is nonsense and demonstrably so.
Then demonstrate it or just admit that you are a lying coward.Joe_{January 9, 2013
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TA: Kindly stop your thread jacking attempt. (Notice, you have gone into an entirely different site, to try to raise an issue that you imagine you can make a distraction with. That speaks volumes, and volumes in a context where it is patent that a problem with attempts to immunise against viruses is their ability to have many related varieties that are not covered by any one immunisation attempt. [NB: Now that I have a moment, let me add this as one link on the HPV issue, which highlights from the Gov Australia: "Gardasil has been developed that protects against the two high-risk HPV types (types 16 and 18), which cause 70% of cervical cancers in women . . . " i.e. we see the double problem, that (a) 1/3 of cases of Cervical cancer are caused by other varieties, and that (b) the promotion of the vaccine against the two strains that cover the other 2/3 may leave the false impression of general coverage, which is the underlying concern that I raised was it six years ago. A false sense of security tends of course to (c) lead to increased, dangerous behaviour. Where (d) the basic problem I was pointing out, in a context where the implications of continued irresponsible behaviour on the notion that condoms will protect -- they have a significant failure rate in actual usage -- can be deadly. That is why, six years ago, I stood up and highlighted the importance of the Ugandan ABC approach: abstain, be faithful, use condoms if all else fails as better than no condom use. I must report that those who tried to denounce such a caution then, a year or so ago, had to come out and talk about the explosion of HIV cases here relative to the numbers then. The only truly sound sexual practice is chastity and fidelity.] If you care to see Orwell's warnings I suggest you read 1984, which has a side that addresses dark science. Animal Farm addresses as well Scientific Socialism, which was exactly an example of scientism, predicated on the assumed materialistic science, extended to society. Maybe you are too young to remember the days when in the name of the science of society, it was announced that we were all going to go through the dictatorship of the proletariat and end up in the Communist golden age. If you have read him, you will see that Lewis writes about that, and Orwell too. Indeed, that is the underlying theme for both 1984 and Animal Farm, through the former is more about a Fascist-like state set up in opposition to what seems to be a socialist type one in perpetual war. That stuff about constantly rewriting of history and manipulating language is close enough to what both did to cover them both. With all due respects, it looks very much like you are refusing to see what is right there under your nose in the video; in your haste to find dismissive and diversionary talking points. Kindly, do better than that. KF PS: I will follow up a bit on Chesterton's alleged fascism and antisemitism, but should notify from here. Not to o surprisingly we will see that this is a threadjacking by ad hominem attempt.kairosfocus_{January 9, 2013
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The video claims that:
In the first half of the Twentieth Century, three prophetic writers warned about the dark side of science and technological progress - G.K. Chesterton, George Orwell and C.S. Lewis.
I've read pretty much every thing that George Orwell published. I cannot recall a single prophetic warning against the dark side of science. Could anyone enlighten me? KF: which HPV strains are the current vaccine ineffective against?timothya_{January 9, 2013
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TA: Snip, strawmanise and snipe, first with Lewis then with me. Lewis is speaking to Scientism, and it so happens he read a book in 1918 while recovering from wounds, that you object to. He went on to pen some very serious and sober minded commentary on scientism -- the books [essays and science fiction/fantasy alike] should be easy to access -- and where it can go; in later years, which you do not even attempt to address in your haste to dismiss. Speaks volumes. I am fully aware of the HPV innocculations, their risks (too often unacknowledged) and the fact that there is a wide range of varieties of same HPV viri, si8milar to the common cold, many of which the immunisations are ineffective against. Kindly, stop snipping and sniping. KFkairosfocus_{January 9, 2013
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Kantian Rationalist posted this:
Bergson was one of the most influential philosophers of the early 20th century. He was widely read by philosophers of wildly different positions, but also by psychologists, artists, musicians, scientists, etc. Being influenced by Bergson is not in itself problematic.
Can you point to any single idea deriving from Bergson's work that has successfully survived subsequent scrutiny? As to his being "one of the most influential philosophers of the early 20th Century" - that is ludicrous. Among the French military prior to WWI perhaps (all we need is Le Elan Vital!), at least until the Battle of the Marne. Less influential after that. Vitalism is nonsense and demonstrably so.timothya_{January 9, 2013
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Kairosfocus invites you to click through to his website where he posted this:
For, it is clear that many of our young people -- and indeed many of our adult population, too -- indulge in very unsafe sexual habits: promiscuity, "unprotected sex"; even sex in exchange for money, favours, or even something as simple as a phone card. Such practices simply invite the spread of HIV/AIDS and the dozens of other devastating sexually transmissible diseases; some of which are almost as worrisome as AIDS -- e.g. Human Papilloma Virus [HPV], which is a leading, strongly suspected cause of cervical cancer. (According to available statistics, this cancer has killed more women in the USA than AIDS has. Moreover, while HPV is so contagious that it is reportedly the commonest STD in the USA, condoms provide little defense against it. HPV is thus very politically incorrect; so it is, by and large, a silent plague.)
You appear to be unaware that there is an effective vaccine available for a range of human papilloma virus strains (though not all). It was developed via a research program in the USA and Australia, and based on earlier research done in Germany. It is currently available in 80 countries worldwide, and is made available in Australia as a targetted vaccination program for at-risk groups of young people. This is off-topic to your original post, however it derives from your own onlinking habits. It is a dis-service to the people of your community to talk about health threats without explaining that simple and straightforward science-based countermeasures are available.timothya_{January 9, 2013
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Bergson was one of the most influential philosophers of the early 20th century. He was widely read by philosophers of wildly different positions, but also by psychologists, artists, musicians, scientists, etc. Being influenced by Bergson is not in itself problematic.Kantian Naturalist_{January 9, 2013
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I hadn't realised that Lewis was inspired by Bergson's vitalism. But it makes sense. Wrong then, not even wrong now.timothya_{January 9, 2013
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