From time to time almost everyone at Discovery Institute winds up taking a swipe at scientism, the philosophy that enthrones science as the ultimate arbiter of morals, as well as facts. Scientism--seen in many a news and opinion article--is an arrogant assumption of unearned authority. Wesley J. Smith blogs about it at First Things today.
The trouble is, one may dismiss scientism as folly, and yet be seduced by it in particular circumstances. My chief disappointment these days is not with those snake oil salesmen in the scientific community who try to peddle their views as unimpeachable truth, but the gullible laypeople who, lacking a doctorate in science, think they have to defer to the "experts". This is particularly true of journalists and editorial writers. They wouldn't defer so readily to generals on the subject of the advisability of war, would they? Nor to Wall Street gurus on the wisdom of a given tax policy. But some "study" in which "scientists say" something in a "journal" is treated as Gospel.
Gospel, of course, is not treated as Gospel.
