Scientism and Theology

[theopoesis]

An Analysis of "Scientism"

I've been asked to present my ideas on what I call "Scientism." I'll do so in three stages. First, I need to present my definition of science and the scientific method. We need to know what science is in order to determine whether all knowledge is scientific. Second, I'll discuss "Scientism" or "Consilience" in an attempt to define the position that I reject. Third, I'll explain reasons why I reject scientism, and reasons why this rejection is linked to debates regarding Christianity. I'll then conclude with how this discussion relates to Christianity and to theology.

Definition of Science

As I understand it, Science and the scientific method is a particular form of knowing that follows particular traits and possesses particular attributes. In brief, these are as follows:

(1) Scientific Methodology: As I was taught it, a fundamental aspect of the scientific revolution was the codification of a scientific methodology consisting of (roughly) four steps: Identify the Problem, Develop a Testable Hypothesis, Test the Hypothesis, Form Conclusions. With repeated testing, the hypothesis can be held with increasing confidence, though it necessarily remains a theory capable of being replaced by a better hypothesis at a later time. This is fairly bread and butter science, so I don't have much of a source here except my high school/college science classes and Wikipedia.

(2) Falsification: One of the main reasons why the scientific method is so valuable is that it offers a hypothesis that can be falsified or proven incorrect. A hypothesis whose predictions do not occur after testing is demonstrated to be false and rejected. For this reason, a hypothesis is only considered valid in the scientific community if it can possibly be falsified. Karl Popper is a good source for this, but again, this is widely accepted as far as I know.

(3) Scientific Community: Jean Francois Lyotard offers an interesting analysis of "scientific" knowledge and "narrative" knowledge in his book The Postmodern Condition. Lyotard suggests that one important aspect of scientific knowledge is the community in which it must occur. To put it simply, scientific methodology implies peer review. This suggests two things. First, there must be "peers" who have attained a roughly equivalent level of scientific expertise. In this specialized world, this implies that discussions of truth concerning the science of _____ must be limited to a specialized group of individuals with expertise in ______. Laity can only contribute to a lesser degree. Second, peer review implies "review." This indicates that peers must be capable of speaking the same language, or understanding one another's research so as to be able to evaluate it. By way of example, consider philosophy in comparison with science. Philosophy in the West has retained a wide divergence of languages/methods; therefore, we can see "continental philosophy" and "analytic philosophy" and so forth. The fundamental language of each is different, but for a "continental" to truly dialogue with an "analytic" philosopher, he or she must step outside of her mental framework into an entirely different framework. Science, in contrast, pushes toward a normative, universal framework for the sake of peer review. Each scientist cannot have his or her own language and background theory. Rather, the community as a whole develops a relatively homogenous theory which then allows all peers to operate within the same framework. In situations where divergent theories exist, they are either hybridized (as in Particle and Wave theory being united in Wave-Particle theory for light) or one theory is abandoned. Two different theories cannot be held for long simultaneously without great strain to the scientific community. This aspect of scientific knowledge is somewhat less well known, but it can be found in the writings of Lyotard, Michael Polanyi, and Thomas Kuhn (among many others).

(4) Autonomy: A final aspect of science is what I label as "autonomy", or as the ceteris paribus (all things equal) criterion. This aspect of science is derived necessarily from the other three aspects of science. In short, it means that the object of study is autonomous or independent from significant influence by the scientist. All things being equal, regardless of the observer, things should play out the same way over and over again. This is deduced for several reasons: First, testing can only be considered valid if the test is thought to reproduce or demonstrate what is hypothesized independently of the tester's intervention. If the hypothesis passes the test only because the scientist caused the test to work through intervention, the scientific method gives us no reason to trust the validity of the hypothesis. Instead, we can only trust the scientists ability to create the outcome he or she desires. Second, falsification is increasingly difficult if there is no experimental autonomy. If all scientists significantly shape the outcomes of their experiments, a failed test does not indicate a failed hypothesis as much as it indicates an inadequate experiment. The scientist could do better the next time around by influencing things the way he or she desired. However, this no longer bears resemblance to falsification. These two reasons (and there are probably others) explain why research typically seeks to minimize the influence of the researcher and maximize the autonomy of the object of study from the influence of that study itself. To be sure, Heisenberg's principle suggests to us that some domains of science are (currently?) outside of the possibility of complete autonomy, but we can at least attempt to minimize our interference. Otherwise, the entire scientific endeavor seems to fail. This would seem to be the most contentious aspect of my definition (and I have not read a direct philosopher of science on the subject). However, the logic behind the claim seems sound, and I have heard statements to this effect in the soft sciences.

This, then, is my definition of science: the pursuit of knowledge by the scientific community through the development of falsifiable hypotheses, repeated autonomous testing, and peer reviewed conclusions.

What is "Scientism"?

If science is just a method of knowing accepted by a certain community according to specific criteria, it seems that science itself is not philosophical as much as it is pragmatic. Science is not something one primarily thinks about or speculates over. Instead, science is something one does. In this respect, Science is decidedly pragmatic. On the other hand, science itself has a foundation which is philosophical in nature. By this, I mean that science has certain epistemological and philosophical commitments (for example there is a commitment to falsification) which are themselves philosophical and pre-scientific. One must justify through philosophy these commitments in order to validate science as a pragmatic pursuit. For this reason we have philosophy of science, which has roots as far back as Aristotle and Galileo up to the present with thinkers like Karl Popper or Imre Lakatos. These thinkers have quite aptly justified the philosophical foundations for science as a pragmatic pursuit.

Quite often a completely valid philosophical perspective finds itself in the hands of advocates who seek to universalize the particularity of a philosophical justification. In this sense, we have nationalism as a universal preference for the concerns of the state over the concerns of the individual, the species, or the corporation. We have feminism as a commitment to universal analysis of all fields from the perspective of feminine interests and perspectives. Thus, it seems at least possible that scientism might exist as a universal commitment to the epistemology and methodology of science. Scientism in this instance would exist when and if the particular philosophical justifications for science had been universalized as justifications (and restrictions) for all human knowledge and method.

What would "scientism" look like? There are several possibilities. First, scientism might be an universalization of method, whereby all pursuits of knowledge would be reduced to scientific pursuits of knowledge through hypothesis, testing, and conclusions in a peer reviewed context. Second, scientism might reduce all knowledge to that which can be falsified. Third, scientism might restrict knowledge to that which exists only in specific communities with academic credibility and shared framework. Fourth, scientism might reduce assume or require all knowledge to be autonomous from the study itself. Of course, there might be combinations of these four variants, and these four aspects might manifest themselves in different degrees.

Now, we have suggested that scientism might exist, but this is a far cry short of demonstrating that scientism does exist. A universalization of the sort that scientism would be is only a problem if there is, in fact, a real universalizing tendency. Here, one could point to theoretical groundwork for scientism, such as E.O. Wilson's Consilience, in which he argues that all human endeavor and knowledge can and should be reduced to scientific analysis. Essentially, Wilson suggests that all other fields of inquiry can be reduced to the study of physics.

Scientism is manifest today in a scope well beyond that of a simple proposal by E.O. Wilson. Forces in various fields of academic study are already transforming themselves according to the principles of science. I'll offer a few brief examples, which will be relevant in future analysis. First is the tendency in the social sciences to move toward scientific methodology. Early work in liberal political thought by Hobbes, Locke, and others was based on deductive logic, historical analysis and/or thought experiments like the "state of nature" analyses. To be sure, some parallels still exist today in the thought of men like John Rawls, but the dominant political science paradigm is that of "rational choice theory" which seeks scientifically and mathematically model election outcomes. Similarly, we see a move in economics toward complete preference for testable models to the exclusion of more basic philosophical discussions on the terms analyzed (as Ricardo and Smith and Marx and Mills were prone to do). In these fields and others, there seems to be a trend toward scientific methodology.

In conjunction with the methodological trend, we can identify a clear bias against non-falsifiable fields ranging from philosophy and theology to the humanities. In general, these subjects are viewed with increasing skepticism, and it is common (especially on these forums) to denigrate non-scientific fields as completely worthless. This is a trend which, from my personal experience, seems to be common in the three universities in which I have taken courses. These trends alone suggest to me that "Scientism" has increasing influence in our culture, and several cultural analyses by Christians and non-Christians indicate the same.

At first glance, these trends seem to be beneficial, and I must admit that my initial encounter with them was quite positive and affirming. However, after more intensive study and analysis, I began to question "scientism" as a valid philosophical posture. I'll begin to explain why...

The Problem with Scientism

Scientism has been challenged on a wide range of fronts from a wide range of sources, including theologians like John Milbank, economists like Donald McKenzie, and scientists like Stephen J. Gould (The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox). The criticisms leveled at scientism can be categorized in the following basic categories: (1) Lack of autonomy; (2) False limits on knowledge; and (3) Priority of non-scientific knowledge. I will address each in detail

(1) Lack of Autonomy: I start with the most contentious point first. I'm verbose (if you hadn't noticed) so I don't want you to grow weary before you get here. You might miss some valid critiques of this perspective. I begin with the assumption that science includes a criterion of autonomy. Again, this means that the object of scientific study is not itself created or significantly influenced by that study. Otherwise, science is not objectively testing the world that exists, but rather is constructively creating that world.

Given recent developments in thought in the fields of sociology and economics, I have reason to believe that when scientism applies the scientific method to social sciences, it cannot fully maintain this autonomy from the object of its study. I'd like to begin by pointing to a book by Donald Mackenzie, Do Economists Make Markets?. Basing his ideas on the linguistic analysis of J.L. Austin, MacKenzie notes that speech is actually a "speech act." In other words, when we speak we do something. This is called "performativity." In terms of economics, MacKenzie (and the other economists in this anthology) suggest that when economists speak about a theory, they actually are doing something performative. Here's how it works: An economist attempts to apply the scientific method to the economy, modeling human behavior and economic transactions in order to develop a mathematical/statistical model to explain these interactions. A model is developed that best approximates reality, and then the model is published. Thus far, this is very similar to science. However, when a scientist publishes her findings on mitosis, cells do not react to the findings. On the other hand, when an economist publishes his findings on markets, the market responds. Investors, brokers, and financial regulators use the most widely accepted model to determine when to buy and sell. If the model says an asset is overpriced, then brokers sell. If the model says an asset is underpriced, brokers buy. Through this process and the gradual acceptance of the theory, an economic model that once only approximated reality suddenly represents reality almost perfectly. However, reality is conforming to the model, not the model to reality. Thus, theory is performative and "scientific" economics is not, in fact, autonomous from markets themselves. MacKenzie studies Options trading primarily (this is cutting edge economics, so it's hard to tell how widespread performativity is). He has clear examples of this cycle of performative options pricing, and the performativity usually lasts until a panic, recession, or scandal, when the model is abandoned for a replacement.

The phenomenon of performativity shouldn't be all that surprising if we pause to reflect on the nature of economics (and other fields in which performativity arguably operates, such as political science). I'm thinking about the work of John Searle in his book The Construction of Social Reality. I'm vague on the details, but as I recall Searle argues that many aspects of human social reality are actually constructed through convention. After all, things like the "body politic" or the "market" or the "nation-state" do not exist as biological or physical realities, per se. Rather, human groups aggregate through consensus and verbal affirmation to "create" a social reality known as "the market" or "the body politic." These institutions only exist through the performative utterances of the people themselves, and through these people's continual compliance with the rules of the reality which they have created. If such entities come into being through performative utterance, it should be no surprise that continual speech in the fields of economics or politics should continue to be performative and constructive of those entities themselves. The findings of MacKenzie or the debate between James Stimpson (Public Opinion in America ) and Lawrence Jacobs (Politicians Don't Pander) suggesting some degree of performativity in politics or economics are entirely logical.

I also want to differentiate between two levels of performativity. In fields such as economics or political science, there are clear individuals with the authority and audience necessary to make dramatic influence on the object of study. Economists have the audience of key decision makers and opinion influencers. Politicians are the same way, but to a lesser degree. In a field like sociology, hardly anyone has the degree of influence needed to shape the object of sociological study completely and immediately. However, if the thought of individuals such as Peter Berger (The Social Construction of Reality) is correct, much of society as we know it is the result of a gradual accumulation of social decisions. One individual (sociologist or otherwise) makes a decision or a declaration about how things are, and through his or her gradual influence, people adopt this decision or declaration no longer as a "hypothesis" or an expression of opinion. Rather, this event is mirrored and repeated until it is custom (how things are done) and eventually culture. If this is correct, there might be short-term performativity, whereby an economic model or political persuasion is "performed" in the marketplace or body politic to "create" a reality that otherwise would not exist. On the other hand, long-term (or slow-acting) performativity would be a gradual process whereby theory, declaration, and hypothesis gradually shapes reality in subtle, but clear, ways. I believe such a trajectory can be traced through the philosophical influence of political liberalism, for example.

What does performativity mean for scientism? First, it suggests that scientific study of social reality cannot be an autonomous, objective matter of hypothesis, test, conclude. Rather, what is studied is actually shaped by study. What is hypothesized might actually cause the test to confirm the hypothesis. If this occurs, what testing means in soft sciences is completely different from what is the case in the hard sciences. To be sure, science still has a place in these fields (in helping identify performativity, for example), but insofar as scientism denies legitimacy to any non-scientific, non-falsifiable knowledge, it fails to recognize the distinction between performativity and description, construction and analysis. Why does this matter? On to point two.

(2) False Limits on Knowledge: In many respects, science is built on a philosophical standpoint which finds its basis in Descartes. The Cartesian system is built upon skepticism and (relative) certainty as a criterion for knowledge, and reduces those things which are neither (relatively) certain nor readily demonstrable to non-knowledge. This is built into science's methodology, and its concern for falsification. If something hasn't been tested to a point of plausible certainty, then it isn't knowledge. If something isn't understood comprehensively enough to be articulated in a way capable of falsification, it isn't knowledge. Such Cartesian certainty has its place in the field of science, but I think it falsely limits knowledge where knowledge is more comprehensive.

I began thinking about such things when I ran into Michael Polanyi's Knowing and Being. Polanyi introduces the idea of "tacit knowledge" as a means of knowing that is distinct from a certain or explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge would be a form of transferable knowledge that is known comprehensively and with a degree of certainty. For example, a scientific experiment could be understood in all of its minutiae and re-created over and over again for a uniformity and transferable object of analysis. In this way, explicit knowledge often moved from particulars to universals through a (relatively) certain comprehension of how the particulars fit together to form a universal. On the other hand, tacit knowledge often moves from particulars to universals without having a clear means of articulating the particulars, how they fit together, or what they signify. There is certainly little which could explicitly be explained in the form of a hypothesis which was testable or falsifiable. Examples of tacit knowledge are widespread. Language, playing the piano, and dancing all are examples of tacit knowledge. However, Polanyi suggests that another category of tacit knowledge includes propositional ideas (as opposed to skills or abilities) that are apprehended in a comprehensive fashion without the ability to yet understand the particular or explicitly explain the knowledge. Explicit knowledge is understood in an atomistic, deductive fashion, but tacit knowledge is only known holistically and (usually) experientially. Polanyi makes the interesting case that such knowledge is vital in the hypothesis-forming stage of scientific methodology (I find him convincing). Scientism, in seeking to extend a Cartesian model of knowledge through the universalization of scientific methodology, would undermine the validity of such tacit knowledge.

Another aspect of the limitation which science places on knowledge is in denying the positive/normative divide. Typically, a positive analysis is one that considers what is but a normative analysis is one suggesting what ought to be. In politics, for example, rational choice theory is a scientific analysis of voter dynamics, but it is incapable of moving from the realities of this voter dynamic to the necessities of a well governed state. Rational choice ends up positing vote maximization (power) as the only end of political interactions. I once had a political science professor - Jurg Steiner - who dedicated his career to trying to prove within the rational choice framework that non-vote maximizing action occurred. After years of research and publication, he had found once incident that was accepted by a small segment of the academy in his homeland of Switzerland. The point is, science has no room for ideas of what should be. One doesn't tell the moon how it ought to look. One simply constructs a model of its orbit. The only driving factor posited (for those entities which act cognitively) is survivial. Similarly, once political science is subject to scientism, it is reduced to description and survival. Economics in a similar fashion has been reduced in many ways to description and profit maximization (which is for the ultimate end of the firm's survival). Where the lack of acknowledgement of the positive/normative diad becomes problematic is with respect to performativity. If we ignore any intentional prescriptive elements in fields such as political science or economics and instead reduce everything to positive analysis, but if this analysis is performative and makes the world be/exist in a particular way, I don't think we can correctly continue without a care for normative aspects in these fields. The result is an a-moral creation of society itself, a performative creation of the political as a domain of raw power and the economic as a domain of pure desire. Neither situation bodes well for human flourishing; one with respect to war and the other with respect to injustice. I see Muhammad Yunus, for example, in his work on microfinance. He says there cannot be a divide between what is and what ought to be, and he has turned finance on its head with the normative goal of justice and poverty relief as an objective. This goal cannot, technically, be scientifically validated. However, with respect to fields such as political science and economics I believe it is exactly such non-scientific aspects which are needed.

(3) Priority of non-scientific knowledge: Having spoken of these problems, I think the writings of philosophers of science such as Thomas Kuhn become particularly relevant. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a well known book, and countless parallels exist among the writings of Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Michael Polanyi, and Karl Popper (among others). The basic idea concerns Lyotard's notion that science is largely about the scientific community. Kuhn suggests that this community operates according to a specific paradigm during times of "normal science." This paradigm directs which questions are asked (and which are inappropriate), what methodologies are used, and what terms/ideas are used to interpret the outcomes of experimentation. This phenomenon gives the group a conservative nature, such that outlying ideas, results, questions, and methods are often ignored by the community as a whole, or dismissed outright. Only when science reaches a "crisis" are these outliers given a chance to enter the mainstream and direct/influence future research and analysis. In short, if Kuhn and many others are correct, there is a strong tendency toward homogeneity in science itself.

Now suppose that scientism extends this strong demand for homogeneity into other fields. We can perhaps understand the need for homogeneity in the hard sciences. After all, if we had hundreds of different sciences accepting hundreds of different explanations for electric currents, for example, our technologies would largely be incompatible, and our very pursuit of knowledge with respect to electricity would be hindered. We can accept homogeneity as long as it works because we know that electricity works the same in New Zealand, Tajikistan, Botswana, Mississippi and Chile. If a theory works in one place, it should be acceptable in others. If theories are unified, it allows for more efficient progress technologically, and for more coherent discussions on science globally.

Suppose, however, that we allow scientism to push such homogeneity in the soft sciences. First, we have the obvious problem that not all cultures, societies, and humans operate the same way. Biologically, of course, the human body is fairly similar across cultural lines. However, psychologically and culturally there may be a huge difference between an Irish factory worker and a Kenyan tribesman. The nature of the society in which each lives will leave a specific imprint on culture, society, and psychology. Even if we analyze two very similar societies' individuals, say an Irish factory worker and a Russian factory worker, there are likely to be tremendous differences as a result of cultural history, societal ideals, and language.

Given this diversity, scientism has a problem. The same electric current works the same way in the United States and Japan, so we have no problem with a homogenizing tendency in the hard sciences because the object of study is uniform and the benefits of homogeneity are obvious. However, if we extend such scientism in a field such as psychology, we may have problems. Each culture has culturally determined psychopathologies, for example. In Japan the hikikomoro is widely prevalent. In the United States, cutting is much more common. Each society likely has a different answer to the question of "what is health?" with respect to mental health. This normative difference cannot even be addressed by scientism in the field of psychology. In brief, science offers a strong tool to psychology, but reduction of psychology to nothing more than science eliminates the tacit knowledge/skill of the counselor, and the diversity of the individuals counseled. In fact, there is a grave risk of reducing psychology to pharmacology. Homogeneity in physics makes physics more efficient, but in psychology it makes psychology less efficient.

A second problem with the nature of the paradigm and scientism is in respect to the positive/normative divide. Take as an example global capitalism and the "Washington Consensus." Scientific approaches to economics, through a homogenizing tendency, are seeking to globalize a particular market and system of market analysis and participation. In terms of positive analysis (which scientism reduced economics too), this is a valid aspiration. Arguably, in terms of GDP and per capita income, the globalization of capitalism is beneficial from a dollars per person perspective. However, we must recall the issues of performativity and the necessary underlying normative elements of the social sciences. In terms of economics, it seems clear that there is an underlying critical anthropology in economic theory. Smith and Ricardo and Mills and other early economists were aware of this fact. However, after the advent of marginalism and and scientific approaches to economics, this aspect was dropped. To be sure, the "Washington Consensus" still embodies a particular anthropology which envisages individuals as consumers driven primarily by utility maximization under the guise of a specific rational capacity. The market requires such consumption, utility maximization, and rationality. Of course in promoting positivist analysis and policies of global capitalism, the normative anthropology is assumed. Wherever global capitalism is present, there is a tendency to colonize indigenous identity, culture, and society with the normative model of capitalism anthropology. This is the argument of the post-development advocates, at least. And so, the failure to acknowledge the normative elements of a social system leads scientism to create fields of political science and economics which are colonizing in nature, and which have no open discussion of the very principles of this colonial effect. The paradigm itself has priority in creating the social realities in its own image through latent anthropological elements. Where did these anthropological elements come from? Are they vestigial remnants of 18th and 19th century idealism, or are the the arbitrary constructs of a system unconcerned with the normative consequences of its performance? Scientism refuses to address these questions because they are not testable, certain, or falsifiable. And so it proceeds on without a whim to the homogenization of the cultures it comes into contact with. It's the McDonaldization of the world, to use a popular neologism.


Theology as a Resistance to Scientism

The objections I have raised above to scientism need not be specifically Christian. Indeed, they are merely a deployment of the recent discoveries of post-modernity, post-colonialism, post-structuralism, and post-development economics. In a world of posts, it is easy to imagine a world that is post scientism. In many respects, I believe my rejection of scientism would hold even if my faith in Christianity declined. However, if I am honest it must be immediately clear that I reject scientism partly as a result of my own Christian convictions.

Theology is certainly not scientific (certain ambitions of Alister McGrath notwithstanding). It is neither testable nor falsifiable, and it is not dependent upon autonomy. Indeed, to be a theologian one must be intimately connected both with the human nature which is studied in existential theology and theological anthropology, and with the God which is studied in pneumatology, Christology, and the metaphysics of the Trinity. Theology rejects the Cartesian certainty of science and replaces it with the functional equivalent of tacit knowledge. One knows one's own nature tacitly, and though this ontology and existence are not readily communicable, they both are known in a way that shapes an emerging theological anthropology. The doctrines of sin and the image of God are known as much in the tacit knowledge of human nature as unavoidably fallible and potentially great as they are in the propositional statements of Paul. I know myself to be a sinner and yet I know not how to fully communicate this fact. Similarly, a theology of the Trinity is not falsifiable nor testable nor even autonomous. Rather, such a theology is an elaboration of the religious experiences of the universality, immediacy, transcendence, and monadic plurality of God. Such an experience is known as a certainty, and is not communicable nor transferable. Evangelism as communication of a set of propositions ultimately fails. Instead, evangelism leads one to relate to the Gospel-as-Person (Jesus Christ) or it does nothing.

In short, in rejecting scientism I want to be clear that I am not rejecting science. Theology is a different domain from science altogether. In the past (and present) this has often been forgotten, but many Christians have remembered this truth. Rather, in rejecting scientism I am rejecting the claim that all knowledge is known in certainty. Instead, I believe a tacit knowledge is intrinsic in any analysis of the social sciences. When the critical anthropology which I discussed above was made an integral part of the growth of capitalism, it was because of the efficacy of the non-scientific arguments of Locke, Smith, Mills, and others. These arguments were not falsifiable nor certain, but they caried the day and shaped nascent modernism in such a way that all positive promotion of the ideals of modernity today is irreparably a promotion of the ideals of the liberal critical anthropology. In rejecting scientism, I am merely asking that alternate voices and alternate tacit knowledges be given a chance to leave their mark on the positive performance of theory. Why must liberalism be given exclusive rights to defining the ignored normative aspects of the social sciences? Theology is not science, but functionally it is the equivalent of the liberal modern metanarrative. (By the way, liberalism in this sense is not the same as "democrat" or "not-conservative." It is a technical name for a school of thought).

I believe that metanarrative is the driving force behind the social sciences. When performativity occurs, it is the utterance of a narrative held subconsciously by the social scientist. When realities are socially constructed, the grand vision of the society which constructs these realities necessarily shapes them in a fundamental way. Scientism leads to postmodernism in attempting to deny the validity of the meta-narrative as knowledge, and yet scientism perpetuates an un-named meta-narrative through its performativity and through the homogenizing tendencies of the scientific paradigm. A rejection of scientism required admission of this reality, and discussion of the uncertain, nonfalsifiable nature of the metanarrative.

Christianity as a metanarrative will be viewed differently by different groups. To the secularist, theology is the lie upon which western culture was built. It was dismissed as a lie, but it is yet to be replaced with another. This is because much of the ignored metanarrative of modernity is in fact built upon Christian theological assumptions (so say the promoters of Radical Orthodoxy). In this respect, Christians have incentive to call the subconscious narrative to the forefront in order to demonstrate the paradoxes of a post-Christian narrative in the West. Scientism refuses to discuss non-scientific knowledge to construct a new narrative, and it refuses to fully abandon metanarrative insofar as it perpetuates homogenization through the communitarian nature of the paradigm, and insofar as it is performative when directed toward socially constructed entities. Scientism is the gag order on the question of the telos of society, but it is the simultaneous conservative fortification of the existing metanarrative as fact. Yes, to the secularist theology was a lie left abandoned, but to the theologian, scientism is the perpetuation of a heresy and Christianity is the truth upon which truths are built. I'll conclude with a brief note on the nature of this truth.

Theology is about revelation. Theology touches on identity, culture, ethics, justice and personhood in ways that can never be scientific. However, if the reality of the normative is admitted, if tacit knowledge is acknowledged, and if performativity is directed instead of subconsciously promoted, theology will find itself with a voice in a multicultural world. Who is to say that a theologically informed meta-narrative is inferior to a liberal or a marxist or any other metanarrative? Such scientific certainty cannot be known, but the tacit knowledge of each individual, which is developed in an unutterable way, will result in particular metanarratives being accepted. Christianity claims its narrative is given by God. As such, the performance of the narrative is not arbitrary. Instead, as the theoretical aspects of theology are manifest through performativity, the individuals are shaped into the image of God. Theology is a performative co-creation with God. It is the words spoken to help ensure the re-creation of humans and human society into the kingdom of heaven. In rejecting scientism, I do not reject science. Nor do I seek to restore Christendom. Those days are over. However, I do hope that the days of a private religiosity are over as well. Public theology applied only to the Church as one culture among a multi-cultural world is my hope, and the witness possible through such a pilgrim society is, I believe, the Church's call and its only hope of survival. Both the imperialism of the religious right and the accomodationism of the mainstream church are no longer acceptable in the multicultural postmodern world.

[fewwillfindit]

Well then, this eliminates the possibility that you are an ecumenist, a dominionist or an Emergent. Whew! I was having difficulty discerning your original wording. And to clarify, when I said "verbiage," I meant "choice of wording," and not the less used meaning, "verbosity."

Your vision is grandiose indeed. In short, I understand you to be saying that the Church needs to be relevant to the culture without becoming the culture, or to be in the world, but not of the world. I wonder though, if in our quest to speak to issues of modernity, especially on college campuses, if the raw Gospel message runs the risk of being diminished or neutered. After all, salvation begins with the hearing of the Gospel, and where there is no Gospel, salvation is rare indeed.

You've already addressed this, and I agree, but to expand it a bit further, the examples we have today of churches preaching a culturally relevant message are atrocious at best. Joel Osteen comes to mind, as does Rob Bell and Brian McLaren, and of course the ecumenical hybrid "purpose-driven" non-Gospel of Rick Warren. These leaders, in their desire to fill pews, are so over the top with a culturally relevant seeker-sensitive message, that they have mega churches filled to the rafters with unbelievers. They appeal to the tares, and tares is what they get. Osteen is on record, video no less, as saying numerous times that he never mentions the words "sin" and "repentance." Without these foundational aspects of the Gospel, there is no Gospel.

Contrast this with the great preachers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, like Spurgeon and Whitefield, whose raw unadulterated Gospel message drove thousands upon thousands to their knees in repentance under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, which in turn drove them to the cross. It is unlikely that there were many tares who sat under the preaching of such powerful men of God; at least not twice. No, they preached to the wheat, and wheat is what they got.

Now that said, if I understand you correctly, you are not advocating a culturally relevant message in the sense that the message changes to reflect the culture. Rather, you think that the Church needs to address the issues of our times, and in that sense, it will be more culturally relevant. I do not oppose this, but at the same time, I don't get excited about it either. Just as there is not a Biblical prohibition on doing this, there is also not a Biblical mandate to do it. I am certainly not an advocate of the Church being politically active (and as I read it, neither are you), with the exception of voting our conscience and speaking to moral issues about which we are passionate (abortion, etc.), but at the present I am indifferent to the Church addressing social injustice and globalization, etc.

I like what you have to say about the Church being its own culture without being the culture, but don't we have that already? Granted, it is scattered about and not a homogenous unified body, but man; without divine intervention, I cannot see such a logistical feat being even remotely feasible. Such a thought actually frightens me a bit, and on many levels. (Doctrinal compromise, would there be a global leader?, is such a thing Christ's vision?) I see Scriptural indicators that as we approach the end of the Church age, things will get progressively worse and Church attendance will be greatly diminished, so I wonder if such a vision would be inadvertantly counteracting what is already set in motion. Of course, the flip side of the coin is that we let God handle that end of the spectrum, and let the Church focus on doing its job.

But just what is the job of the Church? Isn't it primarily the Great Commission? Is it the Church's job to appeal to the masses by speaking to the issues of the day in an effort to become more relevant in society, or is it the Church's job to preach the raw unadulterated Gospel, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and let God fill the pews with whomever He wishes?

Perhaps we need a few more Spurgeons and Whitefields and a few less Osteens and Warrens.

[theopoesis]

In short, I understand you to be saying that the Church needs to be relevant to the culture without becoming the culture, or to be in the world, but not of the world. I wonder though, if in our quest to speak to issues of modernity, especially on college campuses, if the raw Gospel message runs the risk of being diminished or neutered. After all, salvation begins with the hearing of the Gospel, and where there is no Gospel, salvation is rare indeed.

I recognize your point as vitally important. A brief corrective: I don't necessarily seek to be relevant as much as I seek to be the church. To be sure, the church does not exist where the gospel is not preached. However, you are quite correct in saying "salvation begins with the hearing of the gospel." A full ecclesiology takes account of the Biblical language. The Church is a "city on a hill", that society who stands out so distinctively that it is a light not hidden under a bushel. Does such a city exist when a group has merely heard the gospel, or when they have been completely transformed by the gospel in every aspect of their lives? The Church is "one" as Jesus and the Father are one. Does such unity proceed from hearing a shared message, or from sharing a mission of reconciliation, a rebirth into a new group life through the Holy Spirit, and a unity of prayer, support, and discipleship? Likewise, the Church is the body where each person has his or her distinctive role in the edification of the whole. Is this role merely a hearing of the gospel, or a living it out through the redemption and application of your faculties and abilities through the mercy of the Holy Spirit and according to the greater purposes of God?

I am merely suggesting that to be the city on a hill, we must be so culturally distinctive as to actually reside on a hill. I am suggesting that to be "one" we must first reject the modern ideal of the Cartesian individual who is "one" in a way of isolation instead of in a way of communion. I am suggesting that to be the body, we must make use of all talents in all areas, not simply making use of talents with respect to private piety.

You've already addressed this, and I agree, but to expand it a bit further, the examples we have today of churches preaching a culturally relevant message are atrocious at best. Joel Osteen comes to mind, as does Rob Bell and Brian McLaren, and of course the ecumenical hybrid "purpose-driven" non-Gospel of Rick Warren. These leaders, in their desire to fill pews, are so over the top with a culturally relevant seeker-sensitive message, that they have mega churches filled to the rafters with unbelievers. They appeal to the tares, and tares is what they get. Osteen is on record, video no less, as saying numerous times that he never mentions the words "sin" and "repentance." Without these foundational aspects of the Gospel, there is no Gospel.

Contrast this with the great preachers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, like Spurgeon and Whitefield, whose raw unadulterated Gospel message drove thousands upon thousands to their knees in repentance under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, which in turn drove them to the cross. It is unlikely that there were many tares who sat under the preaching of such powerful men of God; at least not twice. No, they preached to the wheat, and wheat is what they got.

I agree completely. But if you look at your history, what was a corollary of the Great Awakenings? Abolitionism, prohibition, free churches, economic reform, and so forth. The preaching of a powerful gospel demands a full rebirth into a new life. Insofar as a person's life extends beyond the personal piety of the soul, the new life extends beyond the personal transformation of accepting the gospel as a message. Full acceptance of the gospel brings us into communion with the Gospel-as-Person: Jesus Christ. When we are "in Christ" we are no longer in the world, so we "throw off the sin that so easily entangles", and we throw down "vain and deceitful philosophies" and we do not live in accordance with the "ruler of this world." If this imagery doesn't speak to the need to have a distinctive culture, I don't know what does.

Osteen is not distinctive... his is a non-theological self-help book with heavy emphasis on the secular ideal of "prosperity" and "health." Rick Warren is a touch better, but his methods are nothing more than the entertainment of Hollywood and a theology-lite.

As a final note... Whitfield and Spurgeon did not merely preach to the wheat. With God's aid, they grew wheat. It's not merely preaching a message of truth, but growing that message within the congregation through discipleship, distinctive witness, and counter-cultural ethics. And to be counter-cultural (i.e. to be the church), one must have some connection (relevance?) with culture, of which one is the antithesis.

Now that said, if I understand you correctly, you are not advocating a culturally relevant message in the sense that the message changes to reflect the culture. Rather, you think that the Church needs to address the issues of our times, and in that sense, it will be more culturally relevant. I do not oppose this, but at the same time, I don't get excited about it either. Just as there is not a Biblical prohibition on doing this, there is also not a Biblical mandate to do it. I am certainly not an advocate of the Church being politically active (and as I read it, neither are you), with the exception of voting our conscience and speaking to moral issues about which we are passionate (abortion, etc.), but at the present I am indifferent to the Church addressing social injustice and globalization, etc.

1 John 3:17 - "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?"

James 1:27 - "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Luke 13:20-21 - "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough"

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 - "Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."

Colossians 2:8 - "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."

Romans 12:1-2 - " Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

That's all I'm saying. Just expanded for our context. I don't see how indifference to culture or justice coheres with the Biblical vision.

I like what you have to say about the Church being its own culture without being the culture, but don't we have that already? Granted, it is scattered about and not a homogenous unified body, but man; without divine intervention, I cannot see such a logistical feat being even remotely feasible.

I'm very skeptical that we have that when I look around at the church today. In the 400s to the 1600s, if one wanted to learn about linguistics of philosophy, one turned to Augustine and Aquinas. If one wanted to hear the great classics of music, one turned to Handel or Bach. If one wanted to see the most amazing architecture, one turned to the builders of cathedrals. That was a distinctive Christian culture.

Today, when the Church wants to develop its leadership, it turns to the strategies of corporate America. When we want to make worship more "appealing" we adopt the lights and video and entertainment aspects of Hollywood and the radio. The average Christian is theologically illiterate and is shaped by non-Christian ideals such as individualism, consumerism, and democracy. And it's an unavoidable truth that most churches don't speak on many of the things that define daily life for modern individuals.

Divine intervention is precisely what we need, and is precisely what happens in salvation through the work of the Holy Spirit.

But just what is the job of the Church? Isn't it primarily the Great Commission?

Precisely the point. The church exists to make disciples. The disciple is one who "picks up his cross and follows Jesus" into a kingdom where "the first will be last and the last will be first." The Great Commission disrupts the entire social hierarchy. The Church exists to make disciples of all nations. The Church is not to remain captive to any individual nation or culture, but to transcend nations and cultures as the counter-cultural "nation of priests" who invites "barbarian, scythian, or jew" to partake of the blessings of relationship with the triune God. The Church exists to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What is Baptism if it is not symbolic of our burial with Christ unto death, and our resurrection to a new Spirit-filled life which foreshadows the bodily resurrection (Romans 6)? What does it mean to be "born again" or to be "made alive together" if that doesn't imply dying to our old way of life and being remade anew so that we are "in Christ" and restored to the image of God? What does such death and rebirth imply if our identity, society, culture, and mindset from our previous life is not abandoned for a new Christian culture? The full gospel is not merely information to be accepted. It is an invitation into a new life of radical discipleship and communion with the Triune God. Such a message necessarily has cultural ramifications.

Perhaps we need a few more Spurgeons and Whitefields and a few less Osteens and Warrens.

Perhaps the Church today is closer to Osteen and Warren than it realizes.

[nygreenguy]

Sorry for the delay in responding.

I read the whole thing, but Im afraid I cant give a response without some clarification.

(4) Autonomy: A final aspect of science is what I label as "autonomy", or as the ceteris paribus (all things equal) criterion. This aspect of science is derived necessarily from the other three aspects of science. In short, it means that the object of study is autonomous or independent from significant influence by the scientist. All things being equal, regardless of the observer, things should play out the same way over and over again. This is deduced for several reasons: First, testing can only be considered valid if the test is thought to reproduce or demonstrate what is hypothesized independently of the tester's intervention. If the hypothesis passes the test only because the scientist caused the test to work through intervention, the scientific method gives us no reason to trust the validity of the hypothesis. Instead, we can only trust the scientists ability to create the outcome he or she desires. Second, falsification is increasingly difficult if there is no experimental autonomy. If all scientists significantly shape the outcomes of their experiments, a failed test does not indicate a failed hypothesis as much as it indicates an inadequate experiment. The scientist could do better the next time around by influencing things the way he or she desired. However, this no longer bears resemblance to falsification. These two reasons (and there are probably others) explain why research typically seeks to minimize the influence of the researcher and maximize the autonomy of the object of study from the influence of that study itself. To be sure, Heisenberg's principle suggests to us that some domains of science are (currently?) outside of the possibility of complete autonomy, but we can at least attempt to minimize our interference. Otherwise, the entire scientific endeavor seems to fail. This would seem to be the most contentious aspect of my definition (and I have not read a direct philosopher of science on the subject). However, the logic behind the claim seems sound, and I have heard statements to this effect in the soft sciences.

How does this pertain to direct experiments with different variables. For examples, I am trying to grow pine seedlings. I may try different treatments such as a variation of pH, soil temperature, nitrogen, watering, etc... I am manipulating my experiment. This is direct intervention.

In conjunction with the methodological trend, we can identify a clear bias against non-falsifiable fields ranging from philosophy and theology to the humanities.

I think this is more of an anecdotal argument than anything. I can see empiricists criticizing theology which tries to directly study "god" (like seminary school), but not theology which steps back and examines religion as a cultural phenomena, like the humanities.

I have never seen "science" applied to the humanities, or suggested that it should except for maybe in archaeology. Do you have any examples of this happening?

[theopoesis]

Sorry for the delay in responding.

You ask excellent clarifying questions, nygreenguy. I don't mind the wait.

I read the whole thing, but Im afraid I cant give a response without some clarification.

(4) Autonomy: A final aspect of science is what I label as "autonomy", or as the ceteris paribus (all things equal) criterion. This aspect of science is derived necessarily from the other three aspects of science. In short, it means that the object of study is autonomous or independent from significant influence by the scientist. All things being equal, regardless of the observer, things should play out the same way over and over again. This is deduced for several reasons: First, testing can only be considered valid if the test is thought to reproduce or demonstrate what is hypothesized independently of the tester's intervention. If the hypothesis passes the test only because the scientist caused the test to work through intervention, the scientific method gives us no reason to trust the validity of the hypothesis. Instead, we can only trust the scientists ability to create the outcome he or she desires. Second, falsification is increasingly difficult if there is no experimental autonomy. If all scientists significantly shape the outcomes of their experiments, a failed test does not indicate a failed hypothesis as much as it indicates an inadequate experiment. The scientist could do better the next time around by influencing things the way he or she desired. However, this no longer bears resemblance to falsification. These two reasons (and there are probably others) explain why research typically seeks to minimize the influence of the researcher and maximize the autonomy of the object of study from the influence of that study itself. To be sure, Heisenberg's principle suggests to us that some domains of science are (currently?) outside of the possibility of complete autonomy, but we can at least attempt to minimize our interference. Otherwise, the entire scientific endeavor seems to fail. This would seem to be the most contentious aspect of my definition (and I have not read a direct philosopher of science on the subject). However, the logic behind the claim seems sound, and I have heard statements to this effect in the soft sciences.

How does this pertain to direct experiments with different variables. For examples, I am trying to grow pine seedlings. I may try different treatments such as a variation of pH, soil temperature, nitrogen, watering, etc... I am manipulating my experiment. This is direct intervention.

Perhaps I did not speak clearly. My apologies. Your example is precisely why I also call the criterion of autonomy the ceteris paribus principle. Ceteris paribus (all things being equal) refers to a method of isolating a single variable to test. In the example you gave, a variation of pH, you are presumably testing to determine what a variation of pH does to plant health and growth across the globe ceteris paribus. In other words, assuming equal water supply, soil nutrients, sunlight, etc. what does a variation in pH do in terms of plant growth? In asking such a question, scientists assume that the variable they are measuring is pH and that their own involvement has no influence (apart from artificially introducing the pH change). If a different scientist in a different lab performed the experiment they would get the same results because the source of influence is the change in pH and not you as a scientist. Likewise, once enough scientists have verified the results, they make a theory about the effects of pH in nature. They assume that pH will have the same effect on plant growth, ceteris paribus, in nature because the variable that effects plant growth is not the presence of the scientist, but the modification of the pH. The assumption is that the scientist is autonomous from the experiment except as an instrument of artificially modifying the variable. In examples of performativity as I suggested above, the variable is not autonomous from the researcher, and arguably the variable would not work in the same way in the world ceteris paribus had the researcher not studied it and promoted a theory about it.

In conjunction with the methodological trend, we can identify a clear bias against non-falsifiable fields ranging from philosophy and theology to the humanities.

I think this is more of an anecdotal argument than anything. I can see empiricists criticizing theology which tries to directly study "god" (like seminary school), but not theology which steps back and examines religion as a cultural phenomena, like the humanities.

I have never seen "science" applied to the humanities, or suggested that it should except for maybe in archaeology. Do you have any examples of this happening?

I have a few examples readily at hand, but could provide many more given the time to research. Having a B.A. in economics, being one class short in political science and two short in philosophy, I can say all three fields are rife with scientism. My limited experience in anthropology suggests the same, though I am not as aware as I should be to confidently state the matter.

In political science, the most common trend is rational choice theory. The two works that set this theory in motion are Anthony Downs' An Economic Theory of Democracy and Mancur Olsen's The Logic of Collective Action. Both works emphasized the positive while remaining silent on the normative. Both sought testability through isolation of variables, and falsification through this testability. Both are arguably performative insofar as the "economic" or "scientific" theories are used by politicians to determine how to vote and what policies to promote. Rational choice theory also has an underlying assumption that political agents seek to maximize power. Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro's Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory is a good survey of the literature on rational choice theory.

In philosophy, phenomenology claims to be attempting to make philosophy more "scientific." Edmund Husserl is who I am thinking of here. Husserl walks a tightrope in his essay, "Philosophy as Rigorous Science" in attempting to (1) reject all existing philosophy as unscientific, and (2) pave the way for a scientific philosophy by rejecting the philosophies of Weltaunschauung (worldview). To do so is to reject the normative, the speculative, the non-falsifiable in hopes of moving toward something that might be scientific. I need to study it more, but it seems phenomenology admits it still has a long way to go. Still, what's important is that scientism (or the desire to be "scientific") has led to philosophy abandoning the normative and moving toward the positive analysis of conscousness as a phenomenon. Other philosophical elements such as the linguistic turn or the turn to the subject bear similar tendencies.

Parallels in psychology and counseling can be seen in the move toward psych-pharmacology and behavioral or evolutionary psychology while resisting psychoanalysis, person-centered therapy, and other "non-scientific" parallels. Parallels in sociology and economics certainly exist as well.

[nygreenguy]

Perhaps I did not speak clearly. My apologies. Your example is precisely why I also call the criterion of autonomy the ceteris paribus principle. Ceteris paribus (all things being equal) refers to a method of isolating a single variable to test. In the example you gave, a variation of pH, you are presumably testing to determine what a variation of pH does to plant health and growth across the globe ceteris paribus. In other words, assuming equal water supply, soil nutrients, sunlight, etc. what does a variation in pH do in terms of plant growth? In asking such a question, scientists assume that the variable they are measuring is pH and that their own involvement has no influence (apart from artificially introducing the pH change). If a different scientist in a different lab performed the experiment they would get the same results because the source of influence is the change in pH and not you as a scientist. Likewise, once enough scientists have verified the results, they make a theory about the effects of pH in nature. They assume that pH will have the same effect on plant growth, ceteris paribus, in nature because the variable that effects plant growth is not the presence of the scientist, but the modification of the pH. The assumption is that the scientist is autonomous from the experiment except as an instrument of artificially modifying the variable. In examples of performativity as I suggested above, the variable is not autonomous from the researcher, and arguably the variable would not work in the same way in the world ceteris paribus had the researcher not studied it and promoted a theory about it.

Let me try to give my (less verbose) synopsis of what you are saying. Experimental manipulation is acceptable, as long as its the treatment causing the effect. Ie reduced plant growth is due to high pH as opposed to the scientist cutting the plant.

I think I can agree with it. Sort of. Something doesnt quite sit right with me, and Im not sure what it is, but until I can identify it, its a moot point.

Next, something I think I have a reason to object is:

refers to a method of isolating a single variable to test

. There are many, many times when we do not, or can not reduce things down to a single variable. In fact, we have an entire branch of statistics (ANOVA) dedicated to studying just this, the effects of multiple variables or treatments on an experiment.

I have a few examples readily at hand, but could provide many more given the time to research. Having a B.A. in economics, being one class short in political science and two short in philosophy, I can say all three fields are rife with scientism. My limited experience in anthropology suggests the same, though I am not as aware as I should be to confidently state the matter.

I guess Im glad I didnt inset my opinion that I dont think economics is a science.

Oh wait....

In political science, the most common trend is rational choice theory. The two works that set this theory in motion are Anthony Downs' An Economic Theory of Democracy and Mancur Olsen's The Logic of Collective Action. Both works emphasized the positive while remaining silent on the normative. Both sought testability through isolation of variables, and falsification through this testability. Both are arguably performative insofar as the "economic" or "scientific" theories are used by politicians to determine how to vote and what policies to promote. Rational choice theory also has an underlying assumption that political agents seek to maximize power. Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro's Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory is a good survey of the literature on rational choice theory.

It appears people are trying to use science to predict human behavior. What is your objection to this? Am I misrepresenting your position?

In philosophy, phenomenology claims to be attempting to make philosophy more "scientific." Edmund Husserl is who I am thinking of here. Husserl walks a tightrope in his essay, "Philosophy as Rigorous Science" in attempting to (1) reject all existing philosophy as unscientific, and (2) pave the way for a scientific philosophy by rejecting the philosophies of Weltaunschauung (worldview). To do so is to reject the normative, the speculative, the non-falsifiable in hopes of moving toward something that might be scientific. I need to study it more, but it seems phenomenology admits it still has a long way to go. Still, what's important is that scientism (or the desire to be "scientific") has led to philosophy abandoning the normative and moving toward the positive analysis of conscousness as a phenomenon. Other philosophical elements such as the linguistic turn or the turn to the subject bear similar tendencies.

I can admit I know little about philosophy. I cant really conceive how philosophy could ever be a science.

Now, how is analyzing consciousness in a scientific way "scientisim" and not just science?

Parallels in psychology and counseling can be seen in the move toward psych-pharmacology and behavioral or evolutionary psychology while resisting psychoanalysis, person-centered therapy, and other "non-scientific" parallels. Parallels in sociology and economics certainly exist as well.

Are you saying psychology isnt science? I guess I have a lot to say about this since I see both a psychologist and a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist seeks to solve problems through pharmacology, because they see certain issues as problems with my internal biology.

My psychologist uses psychoanalysis, person-centered therapy and I would argue those are scientific. Do you think they are not scientific? Looking for patterns in human behavior, making predictions based upon evidence, etc....

Take for example, I get severe anxiety and I tend to "shut down" anytime I hear people yelling. So, we have a problem and we solve it by formulating a hypothesis, and testing it. Well, growing up my parents were horrid alcoholics and drug addicts. I hear yelling all the time. So, when I hear yelling now, my body goes into a sort of pavlovian response.

Now, there is plenty of evolutionary psychology behind this as to why we do this, and there is "science" which analyzes why this happens to me as an individual.

I guess I dont get your disagreement with this being called science.

[theopoesis]

Let me try to give my (less verbose) synopsis of what you are saying. Experimental manipulation is acceptable, as long as its the treatment causing the effect. Ie reduced plant growth is due to high pH as opposed to the scientist cutting the plant.

I think I can agree with it. Sort of. Something doesnt quite sit right with me, and Im not sure what it is, but until I can identify it, its a moot point.

Next, something I think I have a reason to object is:

refers to a method of isolating a single variable to test

. There are many, many times when we do not, or can not reduce things down to a single variable. In fact, we have an entire branch of statistics (ANOVA) dedicated to studying just this, the effects of multiple variables or treatments on an experiment.

You summarized me well. As for ANOVA, I grant your point. I would think multi-variable analysis would still assume that the observer was not the decisive variable. Perhaps I am wrong.

I have a few examples readily at hand, but could provide many more given the time to research. Having a B.A. in economics, being one class short in political science and two short in philosophy, I can say all three fields are rife with scientism. My limited experience in anthropology suggests the same, though I am not as aware as I should be to confidently state the matter.

I guess Im glad I didnt inset my opinion that I dont think economics is a science.

Oh wait....

That makes two of us, which is why it is frustrating that economics is trying to be a science.

In political science, the most common trend is rational choice theory...

It appears people are trying to use science to predict human behavior. What is your objection to this? Am I misrepresenting your position?

I do not object to science being used as an attempt to predict human behavior. Rather, I object to the reduction of all political analysis to the science of trying to predict human behavior. I have no problem with science properly applied in the field of political science, but when such scientific analysis eliminates alternate aspects of the field, I call this "Scientism" and vigorously object to it.

In philosophy, phenomenology claims to be attempting to make philosophy more "scientific"...

I can admit I know little about philosophy. I cant really conceive how philosophy could ever be a science.

Now, how is analyzing consciousness in a scientific way "scientisim" and not just science?

That's the million dollar question. Husserl tries to distinguish between psychology as science and phenomenology, but he tries to maintain a distinctive role for phenomenological philosophy as distinct from science. Yet, he eliminates the role for the vast majority of philosophy in favor of the "scientific" phenomenology. I agree with you that philosophy cannot be science, and therefore I reject Husserl and the desire to make philosophy science through Scientism.

Parallels in psychology and counseling can be seen in the move toward psych-pharmacology and behavioral or evolutionary psychology while resisting psychoanalysis, person-centered therapy, and other "non-scientific" parallels. Parallels in sociology and economics certainly exist as well.

Are you saying psychology isnt science?

I am saying psychology isn't only a science.

I guess I have a lot to say about this since I see both a psychologist and a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist seeks to solve problems through pharmacology, because they see certain issues as problems with my internal biology.

My psychologist uses psychoanalysis, person-centered therapy and I would argue those are scientific. Do you think they are not scientific? Looking for patterns in human behavior, making predictions based upon evidence, etc....

Take for example, I get severe anxiety and I tend to "shut down" anytime I hear people yelling. So, we have a problem and we solve it by formulating a hypothesis, and testing it. Well, growing up my parents were horrid alcoholics and drug addicts. I hear yelling all the time. So, when I hear yelling now, my body goes into a sort of pavlovian response.

Now, there is plenty of evolutionary psychology behind this as to why we do this, and there is "science" which analyzes why this happens to me as an individual.

I guess I dont get your disagreement with this being called science.

I've studied basic psychology and worked in a clinical context as part of a treatment team. My wife is also pursuing a masters degree in counseling at the moment. So we've seen things from different angles perhaps.

I am not saying that there are not scientific elements to psychology. Rather, I am suggesting that all of psychology is not reducible to these scientific aspects. Pharmacology is valid science. There are certainly aspects of counseling that could follow a hypothesis and test model. Evolutionary psychology is not completely without merit. Still, there are aspects of counseling that are decisively not scientific. Psychoanalysis is not falsifiable or autonomous. You can never know what subconsciously is effecting a person definitively, and you can never know whether the power of suggestion from a psychiatrist created subconscious links or whether they already existed. All you can do is determine whether the psychoanalysis works. Many psychologists are seeking to eliminate psychoanalysis for that reason. Likewise for person-centered therapy, which seems to place a great deal of emphasis on the tacit knowledge of the therapist in establishing a relationship with the patient. The value of listening, offering guidance, questioning, and sharing can be explained scientifically, but the application of such elements cannot be simplified to a simple scientific rubric. It varies with each person. All I am saying in rejecting scientism is that if we reduce psychology to only science, we lost something. The same is arguably true for all social sciences. Insofar as they relate to persons who are material, science will continue to play a role. But (for the reasons in the OP) I believe we must reject completely reducing the social sciences to a scientific study of the material elements of the person.

[nygreenguy]

The value of listening, offering guidance, questioning, and sharing can be explained scientifically, but the application of such elements cannot be simplified to a simple scientific rubric.

Ill respond fully tomorrow, but for just this part, I jsut read a paper at the therapists office today which (i could be mistaken, I read only part of the article and it was in haste) that a computer program was more effective in treating a person than an actual therapist. It was better at picking up certain signals which the person could not. Then again, since I read it so quickly, I could be talking out my sphincter.

[nygreenguy]

You summarized me well. As for ANOVA, I grant your point. I would think multi-variable analysis would still assume that the observer was not the decisive variable. Perhaps I am wrong.

Turns out I have more time than I though. My objection was it seemed that you limited science to single variable testing. It would appear that is not the case.

That makes two of us, which is why it is frustrating that economics is trying to be a science.

Then what else is it, or what else could it be?

I do not object to science being used as an attempt to predict human behavior. Rather, I object to the reduction of all political analysis to the science of trying to predict human behavior. I have no problem with science properly applied in the field of political science, but when such scientific analysis eliminates alternate aspects of the field, I call this "Scientism" and vigorously object to it.

This is what I meant above. What are these?

I am saying psychology isn't only a science.

As above, then what else is it?

Still, there are aspects of counseling that are decisively not scientific. Psychoanalysis is not falsifiable or autonomous. You can never know what subconsciously is effecting a person definitively, and you can never know whether the power of suggestion from a psychiatrist created subconscious links or whether they already existed. All you can do is determine whether the psychoanalysis works. It varies with each person. All I am saying in rejecting scientism is that if we reduce psychology to only science, we lost something. The same is arguably true for all social sciences. Insofar as they relate to persons who are material, science will continue to play a role. But (for the reasons in the OP) I believe we must reject completely reducing the social sciences to a scientific study of the material elements of the person.

Heres what I found interesting:

Thus the question of psychoanalysis' scientific status has nagged the discipline since the beginning. In fact, however, there is, considerable experimental or "empirical" confirmation of psychoanalysis. Unfortunately, these experiments testing psychoanalysis are mentioned rarely if at all in the Freud wars. The bashers or those who believe them simply repeat like a mantra, There is no scientific evidence for psychoanalysis, not could there be. Neither part of that statement holds water. Experimental psychologists have shown that psychoanalysis (at least early psychoanalysis) is not only testable and falsifiable, but it has been tested and to some extent confirmed, to some extent falsified...

On this issue Westen's 1998 survey becomes cogent. What needs to be tested, Westen notes, is psychoanalysis as it is now, not as it was in Freud's day. In particular, Westen points to the advent of object-relations theory and the idea that the basic drives are not just sex and aggression but include a drive to relate to other persons.7

Westen's survey sets out five general propositions that, he says, today's practitioners would agree are the foundational ideas of modern psychoanalysis. Then Westen then adduces the evidence (in some 350 references) that support these ideas.

1. Much mental life, including thoughts, feelings, and motives is unconscious. Neurology supplies massive evidence of unconscious processes of cognition. Both neurologists and psychologists abundantly demonstrate unconscious emotional learning and defense mechanisms evoked by emotions, in particular, "avoidant" mechanisms like repression and denial against emotions that are unpleasant. As for motives, both these defenses and priming experients show unconscious motivations.

2. Mental processes operate in parallel and, often, in conflict. Westen points to the similarity between psychoanalytic accounts of conflict like multiple functioning" and the PDP (parallel distributed processing) theories now gaining wide acceptance among neurologists. PDP uses Hebb's well-known hypothesis: neurons that fire together wire together. A PDP network models how competing inputs gradually change the weighting of various paths through the network until it arrives at a compromise output. Other experiments demonstrate that people act so as to compromise impulses of which they are unconscious.

3. Stable personality patterns form in childhood and shape later relationships. Observational and longitudinal studies read forward to show adult personality traits beginning to crystallize in childhood and read backward to show that childhood experiences were formative for later personality and social functioning.

4. Mental representations of the self, others, and relationships guide interactions with others and shape symptoms. Westen points to considerable research on attachment behaviors both in animals and humans; on people's transferring their feelings from significant others to unknown or fictional people; and on links between maternal separation or poor mothering or social support and depression or health in general.

5. Personality development is not just learning regulation of sex and aggression (Freud's theory) but also moving from immature dependency to mature interdependency. Most evidence for Freud's theory comes from clinical experience, but laboratory studies do support an "oral" style, an "anal" style, and the Oedipus complex, although evidence linking these to childhood stages is much more tenuous. [As in Fisher and Greenberg's survey--nnh.]8

The variety of social science methods

In thinking about psychoanalysis' claims, the most helpful books I have found are Paul Diesing's Patterns of Discovery in the Social Sciences (1971) and How Does Social Science Work? (1991).16 Diesing is a down-to-earth philosopher. He does not fall into the mistake of starting with an abstract or a priori definition of "science" and question whether this or that activity fits into it. Diesing, by contrast, read papers and visited laboratories to see what social scientists actually were doing. From this observation of social scientists at work, he singled out four methods in common use in the social sciences.

Experimentation

Statistical survey research

Formal methods

Participant-observer or clinical or holistic methods

Very briefly, experimentation works with variables (natural occurrences that offer measurable variations). The experimenter seeks numerical correlations among independent, dependent, and controlled variables. We see these techniques commonly among academic psychologists, for example, those testing psychoanalytic theories. We generally regard experimentation as the most rigorous and "scientific" of the methods in the social sciences, but it has problems.

For one thing, because each experimenter defines variables and methods very precisely, experimenters have difficulty in generalizing results beyond the particular experimental method used.17 Also, most psychological experiments treat some stimulus as the independent variable and the response as the dependent variable. The individuals in between the stimulus and the response get averaged out by various statistical techniques. Thus, the model of one variable depending on another more or less locks the experimenter into a stimulus-response model of the human being. That commitment tends to model us human beings as though we were born blank slates on which the environment writes its influences. Thinkers about scientific method like Chomsky and Pinker have raised serious doubts about that "Standard Social Science Model."

Matthew Erdelyi contrasts clinical and experimental evidence. The clinical method can reveal complex processes--that is its strength. Its weakness is its looseness of method. It rests on interpretation, which is a "subjective" matter. The therapist's influence affects what happens. The therapist's reports are also necessarily personal and subjective. By contrast, the experimental method is both rigorous and public. The many loose influences in the clinical approach get eliminated or controlled and quantified. But the method has a weakness in its inability to deal with complex processes--like the origins in childhood of a repression. In the debate about psychoanalysis, experimental psychologists sometimes delcare they cannot confirm this or that complex psychoanalytic concept, say, repression. What is striking, Erdelyi points out, is that they then dismiss the concept instead of holding the method accountable for the failure.18

Diesing's second category, survey method, serves to study larger populations than the experimenter can, substituting statistical for experimental controls. Using survey methods, social scientists collect data and formulate general if-then principles for organizing the data. One finds survey method used by sociologists, political scientists, marketers, or public health officials, for example.19 One even finds it with particle physicists. For instance, the immense Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector in Japan had 11,000 big photodetectors simply waiting and watching and counting any neutrino interactions generated in the sun and by cosmic rays. That is survey research.20

A social scientist using formal methods will develop a model--nowdays it is often a computer model--and compare its behavior to the real world's. Among the social sciences, one sees this method most clearly in linguistics and economics, but also in international politics and sociology.21

Holistic method is another mode that social scientists commonly use, and a great many philosophers and some scientists have written about holistic methods: Susan James, D. C. Philips, Christopher Peacocke, Karl Pribram Ulrich Gahde, and many others. Much of this discussion, however, has addressed abstract questions such as whether the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts or what is the relation between subjective and objective. Diesing's focus on just the method the social scientists use has proved the most useful for my purposes.

The holistic researcher gathers data into a coherent mass, using themes to explain interrelations within the data. This method serves best to study unique systems that cannot readily be multiplied for experimental or survey manipulations: a patient, a community, a family, or a corporation, for example. Holistic method is used by archaeologists and anthropologists, clinical psychologists, but above all by psychoanalysts.22

Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, for example, offers an elaborate discussion of various customs of the Bororo Indians, the layout of the village, dances, theories of the dead, myths, clothing, and so on. He then pulls them all together into "one regulation [that] takes precedence over all others."23 As for archaeologists, Freud's description of their method is quite accurate and clearly shows the holistic method. Finding ruins, the explorers see what lies exposed, question the inhabitants, perhaps clear away rubbish, and uncover what is buried. Finding inscriptions, they decipher them. If they are successful, "The discoveries are self-explanatory."24

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/20 ... nd08.shtml

You can never know what subconsciously is effecting a person definitively, and you can never know whether the power of suggestion from a psychiatrist created subconscious links or whether they already existed

I disagree on a couple levels. I think this statement almost goes to the point of forcing someone to disprove something. Take our plant example, there could be a multitude of factors outside of pH which could be causing the change (strange gasses in the air,insect damage on the roots, contaminated media), but the evidence through replication and analysis sort rules outside forces out.

The same goes for psychology. The conclusions do not come from a single session. There is a reason you keep going back, and keep going over the same issues. Through questioning, the therapist can see whats really going on.

I think you get the point. I disagree with your assessment that economics, psychology, etc. is anything but science. I think there may be some misunderstanding of what science is, as it seems strange that none of the social sciences would fit your definition of science.

[theopoesis]

I guess Im glad I didnt inset my opinion that I dont think economics is a science.

Oh wait....

That makes two of us, which is why it is frustrating that economics is trying to be a science.

Then what else is it, or what else could it be?

I disagree with your assessment that economics, psychology, etc. is anything but science. I think there may be some misunderstanding of what science is, as it seems strange that none of the social sciences would fit your definition of science.

Why the sudden reversal? I'll address your main point later. However, at the present it seems there may be two of us who are unclear on whether the social sciences are "science."

I do not object to science being used as an attempt to predict human behavior. Rather, I object to the reduction of all political analysis to the science of trying to predict human behavior. I have no problem with science properly applied in the field of political science, but when such scientific analysis eliminates alternate aspects of the field, I call this "Scientism" and vigorously object to it.

This is what I meant above. What are these?

I wrote a ridiculously long OP to explain this. In brief: constructive or performative aspects, tacit knowledge, and normative aspects. In addition, I openly and gladly grant that there are scientific/positivist elements in the social sciences. However, I deny that the social sciences are reducible to these aspects. Likewise, because of the inability to reduce social sciences to science, I reject any claim that the social sciences are only or pure science.

I am saying psychology isn't only a science.

As above, then what else is it?

I am reminded of Michel Foucault's claim that mental institutes functioned socially as means of establishing valid and unallowable modes of being. Psychology defines what is and is not correct mental functioning in a non-scientific way as a means of enforcing the ideal of the society as a whole. This could be enforced in any number of ways. As one example, consider heteronormativity. Psychology has within it the intrinsic normative claim of what good mental health is, as well as a performative aspect whereby the normative claim is concretized in those who are subject to the systematic application of psychology. This is not to say that there is no scientific basis. Rather, it is to suggest that to limit psychology to the simple scientific aspects it possesses is to eliminate any future discussion of whether our normative framework is valid or validly performed.

Still, there are aspects of counseling that are decisively not scientific. Psychoanalysis is not falsifiable or autonomous. You can never know what subconsciously is effecting a person definitively, and you can never know whether the power of suggestion from a psychiatrist created subconscious links or whether they already existed. All you can do is determine whether the psychoanalysis works. It varies with each person. All I am saying in rejecting scientism is that if we reduce psychology to only science, we lost something. The same is arguably true for all social sciences. Insofar as they relate to persons who are material, science will continue to play a role. But (for the reasons in the OP) I believe we must reject completely reducing the social sciences to a scientific study of the material elements of the person.

Heres what I found interesting:

Thus the question of psychoanalysis' scientific status has nagged the discipline since the beginning. In fact, however, there is, considerable experimental or "empirical" confirmation of psychoanalysis. Unfortunately, these experiments testing psychoanalysis are mentioned rarely if at all in the Freud wars. The bashers or those who believe them simply repeat like a mantra, There is no scientific evidence for psychoanalysis, not could there be. Neither part of that statement holds water. Experimental psychologists have shown that psychoanalysis (at least early psychoanalysis) is not only testable and falsifiable, but it has been tested and to some extent confirmed, to some extent falsified...

On this issue Westen's 1998 survey becomes cogent. What needs to be tested, Westen notes, is psychoanalysis as it is now, not as it was in Freud's day. In particular, Westen points to the advent of object-relations theory and the idea that the basic drives are not just sex and aggression but include a drive to relate to other persons.7

Westen's survey sets out five general propositions that, he says, today's practitioners would agree are the foundational ideas of modern psychoanalysis. Then Westen then adduces the evidence (in some 350 references) that support these ideas.

1. Much mental life, including thoughts, feelings, and motives is unconscious. Neurology supplies massive evidence of unconscious processes of cognition. Both neurologists and psychologists abundantly demonstrate unconscious emotional learning and defense mechanisms evoked by emotions, in particular, "avoidant" mechanisms like repression and denial against emotions that are unpleasant. As for motives, both these defenses and priming experients show unconscious motivations.

2. Mental processes operate in parallel and, often, in conflict. Westen points to the similarity between psychoanalytic accounts of conflict like multiple functioning" and the PDP (parallel distributed processing) theories now gaining wide acceptance among neurologists. PDP uses Hebb's well-known hypothesis: neurons that fire together wire together. A PDP network models how competing inputs gradually change the weighting of various paths through the network until it arrives at a compromise output. Other experiments demonstrate that people act so as to compromise impulses of which they are unconscious.

3. Stable personality patterns form in childhood and shape later relationships. Observational and longitudinal studies read forward to show adult personality traits beginning to crystallize in childhood and read backward to show that childhood experiences were formative for later personality and social functioning.

4. Mental representations of the self, others, and relationships guide interactions with others and shape symptoms. Westen points to considerable research on attachment behaviors both in animals and humans; on people's transferring their feelings from significant others to unknown or fictional people; and on links between maternal separation or poor mothering or social support and depression or health in general.

5. Personality development is not just learning regulation of sex and aggression (Freud's theory) but also moving from immature dependency to mature interdependency. Most evidence for Freud's theory comes from clinical experience, but laboratory studies do support an "oral" style, an "anal" style, and the Oedipus complex, although evidence linking these to childhood stages is much more tenuous. [As in Fisher and Greenberg's survey--nnh.]8

The variety of social science methods

In thinking about psychoanalysis' claims, the most helpful books I have found are Paul Diesing's Patterns of Discovery in the Social Sciences (1971) and How Does Social Science Work? (1991).16 Diesing is a down-to-earth philosopher. He does not fall into the mistake of starting with an abstract or a priori definition of "science" and question whether this or that activity fits into it. Diesing, by contrast, read papers and visited laboratories to see what social scientists actually were doing. From this observation of social scientists at work, he singled out four methods in common use in the social sciences.

Experimentation

Statistical survey research

Formal methods

Participant-observer or clinical or holistic methods

Very briefly, experimentation works with variables (natural occurrences that offer measurable variations). The experimenter seeks numerical correlations among independent, dependent, and controlled variables. We see these techniques commonly among academic psychologists, for example, those testing psychoanalytic theories. We generally regard experimentation as the most rigorous and "scientific" of the methods in the social sciences, but it has problems.

For one thing, because each experimenter defines variables and methods very precisely, experimenters have difficulty in generalizing results beyond the particular experimental method used.17 Also, most psychological experiments treat some stimulus as the independent variable and the response as the dependent variable. The individuals in between the stimulus and the response get averaged out by various statistical techniques. Thus, the model of one variable depending on another more or less locks the experimenter into a stimulus-response model of the human being. That commitment tends to model us human beings as though we were born blank slates on which the environment writes its influences. Thinkers about scientific method like Chomsky and Pinker have raised serious doubts about that "Standard Social Science Model."

Matthew Erdelyi contrasts clinical and experimental evidence. The clinical method can reveal complex processes--that is its strength. Its weakness is its looseness of method. It rests on interpretation, which is a "subjective" matter. The therapist's influence affects what happens. The therapist's reports are also necessarily personal and subjective. By contrast, the experimental method is both rigorous and public. The many loose influences in the clinical approach get eliminated or controlled and quantified. But the method has a weakness in its inability to deal with complex processes--like the origins in childhood of a repression. In the debate about psychoanalysis, experimental psychologists sometimes delcare they cannot confirm this or that complex psychoanalytic concept, say, repression. What is striking, Erdelyi points out, is that they then dismiss the concept instead of holding the method accountable for the failure.18

Diesing's second category, survey method, serves to study larger populations than the experimenter can, substituting statistical for experimental controls. Using survey methods, social scientists collect data and formulate general if-then principles for organizing the data. One finds survey method used by sociologists, political scientists, marketers, or public health officials, for example.19 One even finds it with particle physicists. For instance, the immense Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector in Japan had 11,000 big photodetectors simply waiting and watching and counting any neutrino interactions generated in the sun and by cosmic rays. That is survey research.20

A social scientist using formal methods will develop a model--nowdays it is often a computer model--and compare its behavior to the real world's. Among the social sciences, one sees this method most clearly in linguistics and economics, but also in international politics and sociology.21

Holistic method is another mode that social scientists commonly use, and a great many philosophers and some scientists have written about holistic methods: Susan James, D. C. Philips, Christopher Peacocke, Karl Pribram Ulrich Gahde, and many others. Much of this discussion, however, has addressed abstract questions such as whether the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts or what is the relation between subjective and objective. Diesing's focus on just the method the social scientists use has proved the most useful for my purposes.

The holistic researcher gathers data into a coherent mass, using themes to explain interrelations within the data. This method serves best to study unique systems that cannot readily be multiplied for experimental or survey manipulations: a patient, a community, a family, or a corporation, for example. Holistic method is used by archaeologists and anthropologists, clinical psychologists, but above all by psychoanalysts.22

Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, for example, offers an elaborate discussion of various customs of the Bororo Indians, the layout of the village, dances, theories of the dead, myths, clothing, and so on. He then pulls them all together into "one regulation [that] takes precedence over all others."23 As for archaeologists, Freud's description of their method is quite accurate and clearly shows the holistic method. Finding ruins, the explorers see what lies exposed, question the inhabitants, perhaps clear away rubbish, and uncover what is buried. Finding inscriptions, they decipher them. If they are successful, "The discoveries are self-explanatory."24

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/20 ... nd08.shtml

Ok, so my psychology professor disagrees with this article's author. I'll just grant your point because it doesn't much matter to me how scientific psychoanalysis is. My point is not, nor has it ever been, that psychology is not science to any degree at all. My point has always been that psychology is not only science, and that where scientism tries to reduce the social sciences to the functional equivalent of the hard sciences is does a disservice to the fields. I see no reason to continue to debate peripheral matters such as whether the autonomy principle applies to multivariable as well as single variable science, or where exactly we draw the line in determining to what extent psychoanalysis is grounded in scientific theory. Even if every tiny detail of psychoanalysis is reducible to scientifically verified fact, we still have the immense problems that I raised in my OP about performativity, the positive/normative divide, and tacit knowledge. Until you begin to discuss these matters, it seems that our discussion will be very unfruitful.

You can never know what subconsciously is effecting a person definitively, and you can never know whether the power of suggestion from a psychiatrist created subconscious links or whether they already existed

I disagree on a couple levels. I think this statement almost goes to the point of forcing someone to disprove something. Take our plant example, there could be a multitude of factors outside of pH which could be causing the change (strange gasses in the air,insect damage on the roots, contaminated media), but the evidence through replication and analysis sort rules outside forces out.

The same goes for psychology. The conclusions do not come from a single session. There is a reason you keep going back, and keep going over the same issues. Through questioning, the therapist can see whats really going on.

But again, even in science the criterion of autonomy assumes that the researcher is not one of these unknown variables. The variable of pH might be confounded by gasses, insects, contaminated media, etc but the assumption is that the scientist is not effecting things. If constructionism and performativity are correct, this cannot be true completely in psychology. Therefore, even if we can analyze patterns in which science can explain the specifics of psychological phenomana, we must question the science itself unless we discredit the theories of performativity and constructionism.

I think you get the point. I disagree with your assessment that economics, psychology, etc. is anything but science. I think there may be some misunderstanding of what science is, as it seems strange that none of the social sciences would fit your definition of science.

Again, I am not saying that these things are not science. I am saying that they are not only science, as scientism would claim. Your failure to address the issues of social construction, performativity, and normative aspects of these fields is analogous to the way that scientism refuses to address them and simply points to its efficient successes. I think the misunderstanding is not over what science is, but rather is over what these fields actually do.

[nygreenguy]

I disagree with your assessment that economics, psychology, etc. is anything but science. I think there may be some misunderstanding of what science is, as it seems strange that none of the social sciences would fit your definition of science.

Why the sudden reversal? I'll address your main point later. However, at the present it seems there may be two of us who are unclear on whether the social sciences are "science."

sorry, I was kidding about the economics comment. I currently accept it as a science, even if I disagree with its findings

I wrote a ridiculously long OP to explain this. In brief: constructive or performative aspects, tacit knowledge, and normative aspects.

I dont see how these specifically apply to the fields mentioned, and their role in them.

I know what tacit knowledge is, but I dont know the others.

Likewise, because of the inability to reduce social sciences to science, I reject any claim that the social sciences are only or pure science.

I dont see how this hasnt been done.

I am reminded of Michel Foucault's claim that mental institutes functioned socially as means of establishing valid and unallowable modes of being.

Social norms?

Psychology defines what is and is not correct mental functioning in a non-scientific way as a means of enforcing the ideal of the society as a whole.

I disagree. It defines what is preferred mental functioning. Psychiatry deals with what is correct and not correct mental functioning. Please correct me if I am wrong.

This could be enforced in any number of ways. As one example, consider heteronormativity. Psychology has within it the intrinsic normative claim of what good mental health is, as well as a performative aspect whereby the normative claim is concretized in those who are subject to the systematic application of psychology. This is not to say that there is no scientific basis. Rather, it is to suggest that to limit psychology to the simple scientific aspects it possesses is to eliminate any future discussion of whether our normative framework is valid or validly performed.

You mention heteronormativity, but dont actually apply it. Please elaborate more specifically.

My point has always been that psychology is not only science, and that where scientism tries to reduce the social sciences to the functional equivalent of the hard sciences is does a disservice to the fields.

Then how come every practitioner of these that I have met, think they are sciences? Is this where your disagreement lies?

I see no reason to continue to debate peripheral matters such as whether the autonomy principle applies to multivariable as well as single variable science, or where exactly we draw the line in determining to what extent psychoanalysis is grounded in scientific theory.

The debate is about what is science and what is science. I am trying to figure out what you claim science is. These matters are highly relevant. I am finding what appears to be inaccuracies and only through these examples and elaboration can I figure out if your definition is correct.

Even if every tiny detail of psychoanalysis is reducible to scientifically verified fact, we still have the immense problems that I raised in my OP about performativity, the positive/normative divide, and tacit knowledge. Until you begin to discuss these matters, it seems that our discussion will be very unfruitful.

As soon as I understand what those even are, Ill give it a try!

(please feel free to help here)

But again, even in science the criterion of autonomy assumes that the researcher is not one of these unknown variables. The variable of pH might be confounded by gasses, insects, contaminated media, etc but the assumption is that the scientist is not effecting things. If constructionism and performativity are correct, this cannot be true completely in psychology. Therefore, even if we can analyze patterns in which science can explain the specifics of psychological phenomana, we must question the science itself unless we discredit the theories of performativity and constructionism.

I had a talk with one of the statistics professors here at my university today about just this. According to him, there are many tools and statistical techniques that are available which can account for these. No one doubts there can be issues, but we even have the same issues in the hard science which you have no trouble in accepting.

Your failure to address the issues of social construction, performativity, and normative aspects of these fields is analogous to the way that scientism refuses to address them and simply points to its efficient successes. I think the misunderstanding is not over what science is, but rather is over what these fields actually do.

As I stated later, when I understand these terms more, I can address them. I know generally what performativity is, and I do not think you are correct in saying this is an issue, for at least any of the examples given.