Scientism
From RationalWiki
Scientism, broadly speaking, is the idea that natural sciences have authority over how to interpret the universe. To any practicing scientist, who has actually looked at the universe and tested it, this seems obvious, but many philosophers, woo-meisters and humanities graduates certainly aren't happy. It is often used - as a perjorative - by bitter creationists when they are jealous that science can be backed up while religion cannot. Used in this way, it tries to conflate science as a belief system, such as a religion. Obviously, being an "ism", like racism makes it baaad, m'kay?
[edit] Quotes
To quote one blog entry:
Scientism assumes that science is the controlling reality about life, so anything that can be validated scientifically ought to be done. Other things are subjective fantasy—like love, beauty, good, evil, conscience, ethics.[1]
To quote another:
The scientism practiced by devotees of Darwinian evolution, however, is not science, but simply a secular religious worship masquerading as science. In Darwinian scientism no free inquiry, no examination of evidence will be permitted. The gods of secularism have revealed the dogma of social justice, which necessitates moral relativism based on the secular theory of Darwinian evolution, and anyone revealing inconvenient, contradictory facts must be destroyed.[2]
And another:
One way to reject scientism is to combine scientific reality checks with faith. When we build and maintain a Christian worldview — a view of the world, used for living in the world — based on the Bible, we believe that reality includes what we see and also what we don't see.
For example, a coroner might say, "During my 45 years of experience, I have observed that dead people always remain dead, they are never resurrected back to life, so (based on this scientific reality check) if you want to be scientific then you should reject Biblical claims for the resurrection of Jesus." But this observation is not evidence against divine action, if God's common actions are not obvious and His obvious actions are not common. During the history recorded in the Bible, many millions of people died, but only seven were brought back to life: two in the Old Testament (by Elijah & Elisha) and five in the New Testament (two by Jesus, one of Jesus, and by Peter & Paul). Even though God's actions are occasionally miraculous, usually God chooses to act in ways that are natural, not miraculous. [3]
