Word of the Day

Commenter Neil taught me a new word yesterday: scientism. It's not a word I can like. Scientism, it seems, is a religio-philosophical (rp) belief system. It's not the belief system I have a quarrel with, though, it's the word. The problem is that it creates a potential ambiguity for the word scientist, which traditionally and universally describes someone engaged in doing science, regardless of their rp belief system.

I also have to take strong exception to Neil's claim that economic progress is largely due to "scientism." Actually, most economic progress is due to science, by which I mean both the methodology of science and more importantly, the body of results that science has revealed. No doubt many scientists would largely agree with the supposed tenets of scientism - many more would not. Scientists with all sorts of attitudes have made big contributions to science.

I'm not a big believer in "the scientific method." Aside from honesty and respect for the results of experiment, lots of strategies work, including ruthless intellectual opportunism.

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