Criticisms of anti-scientific viewpoints are many and varied. Most seem to focus on the confusion of

conceptual metaphor In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another. An example of this is the understanding of quantity in terms of directionality (e.g. "the pr ...

s arising in the process of learning science and negotiating acceptance of scientific truth in the larger culture. In Western

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

, for instance, students are encouraged to make systematic neutrally-based thinking central, as not taking sides in regard to cultural / ethical / religious traditions and conflicts between them. A common result is that other viewpoints tend to be ranked in comparison to the sciences, particularly the most experimentally-based sciences such as physics or chemistry: they are taken to be the model of neutral systematic reasoning.

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

thus tend to be valued more highly as sources of insights into reality, than, say,

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

. But many societies see those as sources of truth too, and have been skeptical of claims based on mathematics or the sciences — particularly since this mode of thought has been understood to be characteristic of the West and therefore to have something in common with such things as imperialism and colonialism. What is necessarily in common is rarely specified. Recent philosophic manifestos by literary

deconstruction In philosophy, deconstruction is a loosely-defined set of approaches to understand the relationship between text and meaning. The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who described it as a turn away from ...

ists, radical

feminists Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

, and opponents of science generally (e.g., religious, cultural, political, etc.), have concentrated on what is claimed to be an unhealthy link between science and the humanities. The majority of these writers using the term

scientism Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...

use it in a pejorative fashion, stressing the alleged unhealthy linkages or a claimed suppression by 'science' of other viewpoints. These writers typically view science as little more than a socially constructed

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

, neither having nor deserving any privileged position in comparison to others. In this view, scientists "bully" non-scientists with "oppressive" words such as logic, experiment, objectivity, etc. Many people (and certainly many scientists) believe this type of criticism to be little more than an essentially anti-scientific 'science envy', having little to do with science itself and much more to do with cultural fears, political difficulties, and unfortunate social histories. Philosopher

Susan Haack Susan Haack (; born 1945) is a distinguished professor in the humanities, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, professor of philosophy, and professor of law at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. Haack has written on logic ...

writes:

References

Sandra Harding Sandra G. Harding (March 29, 1935 – March 5, 2025) was an American philosopher of feminist and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology, and philosophy of science, who directed the UCLA Center for the Study of Women from 199 ...

, "Who Knows? Identities and Feminist Epistemology," in Joan E. Hartman and Ellen Messer-Davidow, eds., (En)gendering Knowledge, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1991, p. 109

External links

Is Science Killing the soul? A discussion between Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040213034030/http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge53.html , date=2004-02-13

Anti-Scientific Viewpoints

See also

References

External links