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Science Unlimited? Science Unlimited? The Challenges of Scientism Edited by Maarten Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2017 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2017 Printed in the United States of America 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 49800- 3 (cloth) ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 49814- 0 (paper) ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 49828- 7 (e- book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226498287.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Boudry, Maarten, 1984– editor. | Pigliucci, Massimo, 1964– editor. Title: Science unlimited? : the challenges of scientism / edited by Maarten Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci. Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017017535 | ISBN 9780226498003 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226498140 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226498287 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Scientism. | Science—Philosophy. | Pseudoscience. Classification: LCC Q175 .S36235 2017 | DDC 501—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017535 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48– 1992 (Permanence of Paper). CONTENTS Introduction 1 1 The Sciences and Humanities in a Unity of Knowledge 11 Russell Blackford 2 Plus Ultra: Why Science Does Not Have Limits 31 Maarten Boudry 3 Scientism and the Argument from Supervenience of the Mental on the Physical 53 Filip Buekens 4 Two Cheers for Scientism 73 Taner Edis 5 Scientism and the Is/Ought Gap 95 Justin Kalef 6 The Trouble with Scientism: Why History and the Humanities Are Also a Form of Knowledge 109 Philip Kitcher 7 “Scientism!” 121 Stephen Law 8 Strong Realism as Scientism: Are We at the End of History? 145 Thomas Nickles v vi Contents 9 The Fundamental Argument against Scientism 165 Rik Peels 10 Scientism and Pseudoscience: In Defense of Demarcation Projects 185 Massimo Pigliucci 11 Strong Scientism and Its Research Agenda 203 Alex Rosenberg 12 Economics and Allegations of Scientism 225 Don Ross 13 Why Really Good Science Doesn’t Have All the Answers 245 Michael Ruse 14 Scientism (and Other Problems) in Experimental Philosophy 263 Tom Sorell 15 Against Border Patrols 283 Mariam Thalos List of Contributors 303 Index 307 INTRODUCTION More than a century years ago, C. S. Peirce wrote that “a man must be down- right crazy to deny that science had made many true discoveries” ([1903] 1997, 230). Nowadays, even more so than then, science is widely recognized as one of the marvels of the human intellect. It is our most reliable source of knowledge about the world. But what, if any, are the limits of science? Are there questions that will forever elude our best scientific efforts? And what is this thing we call science, anyway? In discussions about the proper place of science, one often hears about an alleged sin called scientism. Science is a good thing, so the argument goes, but even good things can be pushed too far, beyond their proper limits. Can science settle all interesting questions? Should we leave room for other ways of knowing and understanding besides science, for example the methods em- ployed in the humanities or in philosophy, or does science rule supreme in all these domains? The limits of science is a topic of public interest, as witnessed by a spate of articles in popular magazines and blogs, such as the widely read discussion between Steven Pinker (2013) and Leon Wieseltier (2013) in the New Repub- lic, op- eds by Ross Douthat in the New York Times and Oliver Burkman in the Guardian, or popular books by Alex Rosenberg (2011), Sam Harris (2011), and 1 2 Introduction Susan Haack (2007). More academic discussions of scientism include book- length treatments by Tom Sorell (2002) and Joseph Margolis (2003), and a recent volume criticizing scientism as the “new orthodoxy” (Williams and Robinson 2014). All these authors use the concept of scientism in one way or another, but there is little agreement on its definition. At a first approximation, cur- rent usage suggests the following characteristics: (1) an excessive deference toward the deliverances of science and anything to which the honorific label scientific is attached; (2) brazen confidence in the future successes of scientific investigation, for example in arriving at a Theory of Everything, or in solving every interesting question about reality; (3) the conviction that the methods of science are the only worthwhile modes of inquiry, and will even- tually supplant all others; (4) the thesis that other disciplines should be either subsumed under science or rejected as worthless; (5) the thesis that all ways of acquiring knowledge and understanding are (or should be) scientific in nature, and hence there is no interesting difference between science and other forms of inquiry. Given the ubiquitous usage of the term in a wide variety of contexts, we think a frank philosophical discussion about the limits and proper place of science is long overdue. This volume explores the relationship between science and other ways of knowing, and the possible value of a concept like scientism to describe various forms of (excessive) science enthusiasm. It pro- vides a forum for philosophers and scientists, both detractors and enthusiasts of Science Unlimited, to talk about the nature and scope of science. Demarcation Problems The question of the demarcation between science and nonscience has fas- cinated philosophers ever since Karl Popper ([1959] 2002) proposed the criterion of falsifiability as the distinguishing hallmark of good science. As it is traditionally understood, the demarcation problem concerns the borders between science and pseudoscience— that is, theories that pretend to be scientific, but do not live up to the standards of good science. We have put together a volume on this classical demarcation project, breathing new life into an old chestnut that had been prematurely pronounced dead by some philosophers of science (Pigliucci and Boudry 2013). But there is another, related demarcation problem shimmering through in Popper’s writing on the subject, even though he did not always keep the Introduction 3 two demarcation jobs apart (Boudry 2013). This is the conceptual separation between science and other epistemic endeavors that are valuable in their own right. It concerns neighboring academic disciplines, such as history, philosophy, and mathematics, but also metaphysics and everyday knowledge ac- quisition. This volume deals with this second demarcation project: not the one that tries to distinguish science from its phony contenders, but the one of figuring out the limits of science itself. In this sense, the pages that follow provide a suitable companion to our earlier collection, Philosophy of Pseudo- science. There is another way to spell out the link between the two demarcation problems in philosophy of science. Pseudoscience is a form of fool’s gold: it looks like the real thing, but on closer inspection it turns out to be worthless. The problem with pseudosciences like astrology, homeopathy, and creation- ism is that they are lacking in scientific rigor; they fail to gain the evidential support we demand from science. The problem with scientism, by contrast, can be seen as an excess of science. To be guilty of scientism is to be overly deferential toward science, to unfairly disparage other disciplines like the humanities or philosophy, or to have an inordinate confidence in the future successes of science. Still, how much of science is too much? And how far exactly can science venture before it overreaches? In discussions about its proper purview, a variety of authors have pronounced several domains and types of questions off- limits to science: ethics, subjective experience, abstract entities, intuitive knowledge, qualia, transcendence, metaphysics, and of course God. If it is true that science cannot penetrate those realms, does that mean that there are other ways of knowing, perhaps on an equal par with science, that can proffer insight into them? As should be clear by now, the common usage of scientism is derogatory. Though originally the term simply denoted a scientific habit of thinking, or the worldview of a scientist, over time its meaning has shifted, acquiring a negative connotation, much like the evolution of the words fundamentalism and reductionsim. Nowadays scientism is most commonly used as a term of abuse in the same way as words such as pseudoscience and superstition. As with all normative concepts, however, it is itself susceptible to abuse. Those who stand accused of scientism typically dismiss the accusation as vacuous or meaningless, or as a disguised expression of antiscience. Indeed, even those who believe that scientism is a useful term to navigate our modern intellectual landscape admit that it has been eagerly exploited in the service of antiscience