
If you don't believe that scientism has replaced the foundations of open-minded inquiry that used to be science, Bring me any biology or physics textbook, and I'll show you how it is being done, somewhere in the first few pages.
For example, a text titled simply 'Biology' (Sylvia S. Mader, 1987) contains this astounding paragraph on scientific method on page 11:
"Science is one of the most powerful tools human beings have ever had. It stands with religion, law and art as one of the basic means that the human species has to make sense out of experience. However, unlike religion law and art, science considers only the natural world, and it does so in ways that can be tested. Any other way of finding order in our world, no matter how comforting, useful, beautiful or meaningful to the individual, is not part of science."
"Not part of science." So what?
The implication seems to be that religion, law and art are not valid tools. The last sentence of the paragraph seems to imply that science is the only tool by which one should approach the truth.
Religion and law are not basic tools of inquiry, by the way. Both have their foundations in philosophy. They probably shouldn't have been included in Ms. Mader's basic tools to make sense of experience. Those would be better named as philosophy (which includes religion and law) and art (which includes the arts of reason, imagination, and communication).
There is even an art to science. It is the art of consistently maintaining an open mind while avoiding distraction and deceit.
Philosophy, and art both begin in the natural world. But rather than simply trying to measure that world, they consider it, and extrapolate possibilities. Possibilities are part and parcel of the natural world. In fact, anything that actually exists, happens or is possible is natural, whether it seems at first to be supernatural "woo-woo" or not.
Philosophy seeks meaning and purpose, which are mostly irrelevant to scientific inquiry, though they should not be so to the scientist. Art transmits findings of meaning and purpose, findings which are often revealed only as the artwork is being created.
Science is computational and algorithmic. Philosophy is logical and speculative. Art is inspired. Philosophy and art are just as testable as science, but the means of testing are different for each of them.
Philosophy and art do indeed stand with science. Science cannot stand alone, and any understanding of the world based solely on scientific observation and deductive reasoning, no matter how comforting, useful, beautiful or meaningful to an individual scientist, is sorely lacking in perspective, no matter how appealing the illusion that scientists are the sole keepers of absolute truth.
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