Scientismist Smackdown

[bunnyjadwiga]

Steven Pinker just published, in the New Republic, one of those self-congratulatory science pieces with the whining about how people are taught too much humanities and not enough science, with the oh-so-approachable title: "Science Is Not Your Enemy An impassioned plea to neglected novelists, embattled professors, and tenure-less historians". (Adam Frank, in "The Power Of Science And The Danger Of Scientism" explained, "Thus, scientism is the "science can explain everything," (or, at least, "science explains everything important"), kind of position some folks take in arguments about religion, philosophy, the value of the humanities, etc;" For medievalists, this is the kind of attitude displayed by that dreadful nonsense, A World Lit Only by Fire. In fact, it's the kind of attitude that led the Enlightenment 'historians' to describe a 'middle' or 'dark' ages in which the church persecuted people for not believing the Earth was flat-- though the orreries installed in churches at in the Middle Ages and Renaissance for the calculation of Easter clearly rely on a non-flat Earth.)

Anyway, someone deliciously smacks down Pinker and his scientism:
"In Which Steven Pinker Is A Total Ignoramus Who Should Go Read A Fucking Book And Get Himself Some Fucking Education"
http://fucktheory.tumblr.com/post/57633497486/in-which-steven-pinker-is-a-total-ignoramus-who

I'm as pleased with scientific progress as the next person but everyone should be thinking about how they are thinking about things-- and asking themselves if they are really using the right tools for the right problem. (Which is what the article Pinker was responding to was saying: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/103086/scientism-humanities-knowledge-theory-everything-arts-science )