Squeers,
If you remember me you will know that I do not always agree with you but I think I could always learn from you. This applies, in particular, to your contributions to this thread. I am especially thankful for bringing up the relevant book by B. A. Wallace (in your link) that I did not know about.

George,
I’m sure I could learn from you too but unfortunately you don’t tend to participate these days.

AJ Philips,
Apologies for not using your handle above, it was an oversight. Also, the Alan Wallace text was published 2000, not 1992.

Hi Josephus,

You questioned my impartiality the other day:

"Loudmouth immagines he is impartial and the best person to teach children the truth about religion in schools. His premise about the truth of religion is evidenced by his personal bias."

And who said Christians don't have a sense of humour ?

When I was doing RI in school, there was always the problem of which brand we would get to bore us silly. The Catholics had their own bloke, I think, but the rest of us had to put up with some unworldly soul from one of the smaller outfits.

He (always a he) recruited some of us to the ISCF, which had singing twice a week, at which we all got a Milk Arrowroot and glass of red cordial, which was great. The ISCF also organised camps during the holidays, where we used to chat up the girls from other schools while the organisers tried desperately to keep us apart, and busy on hikes and singing sessions. It got even better in secondary school. I loved the music, and I don't think any of it did us any harm.

It just seems that the best way around this problem of bias is to appoint atheists, people will be even-handed, equally disparaging of all superstitions, not just Christian ones.

And as a bonus, we might be able to turn some of those impressionable kids against religion altogether :) Win-win !

Come on, Josephus, turn that frown upside down !

Cheers,

Joe

Squeers,

I also thank you for that link to B.A. Wallace! I've now bought it on my Kindle.

Cheers

We’re getting somewhere here now, Squeers.

<<I prefer the subheadings I’ve mentioned, which indicate it's a spectrum;>>

One can fit your subheadings and still not fit the scientism profile. People like Dawkins do hastily dismiss mysticism and spirituality (as do I), but there’s nothing irrational about that considering scientific explanations have been found for everything was once thought to have mystical properties.

But that doesn’t mean they’re not open to spiritual/mystical answers if they can be demonstrated (I know Dawkins clarified this many times before), however, it’s up to the invoker of such ideas to present the evidence.

<<You’ve provided “no” evidence for your modern version, just assertions and denialism. In any case the term’s been derogatory for nearly 100 years!>>

Okay, I really haven’t been clear when I’ve spoken of the modern “use” and “meaning”. I take full responsibility for all the confusion here. I have pretty ordinary communication skills and talking to someone who sounds like they’ve swallowed a thesaurus is really testing.

The meaning appears to have always been the same. The last link you provided and the OED references support what I believe scientism to be. Your definition seems to be a little more lax.

The use of the term is the also appears to be the same, to a slightly lesser extent. But in my experience (and the experience of many others) the term is now predominantly used by theists wanting to stop someone in their tracks because they don’t feel comfortable with science exploring certain places. I’ve had it happen to me on OLO.

<<Even the OLO article you link to is by an economist and not a theist, though looking at the comments I see Squeers features prominently.>>

Huh?!

I didn’t link to an article. They were comments sections from many articles. There were 14 pages of results linking to every page that Google finds OLO containing the word “scientism”.

<<It was precisely [a strawman]!>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman

Continued…

…Continued

<<You attempted to dismiss critics of scientific fundamentalism en passant (while you were dismissing critics of Humanism)…>>

No, I simply used an analogy. I still addressed the arguments regarding humanism.

<<You imply your faith that science will solve it all…>>

Not at all.

You could possibly say that I imply that science MAY solve it all, and suspecting that this may be the case is entirely rational considering every unknown in the past, that was thought to have a spiritual/mystical/miraculous/transcendental/other-worldly explanation, was eventually found to have a scientific one.

I don’t have “faith” in anything either. I have trust that has been earned and I will grant trust tentatively, but I don’t have faith. Faith is the excuse people give when they don’t have a good reason to believe something.

<<…and beyond that you just say insulting stuff to denigrate unbelievers!>>

Unbelievers of what?

I’m sorry if you find what I said offensive but that's my experience and it’s an important factor in what I’ve been saying.

<<As I've tried to argue, here and elsewhere, it's about much more important considerations than preserving mystical beliefs.>>

Fair enough. But what reason do you have for devoting so much energy to spiritual/mystical/transcendental considerations that you could go on such a tirade against those who are sceptical? Has science once failed somewhere? Is there an occasion I’m not thinking of where scientists had to give up and conclude that the answer must lay in a different realm? No, and until such time, tirades and derogatory labels like ”scientism” are unfair, inappropriate and just plain irrational.

<<Beyond that, I’m all for science exploring consciousness, just not its drawing the parameters of what’s admissible as evidence or explanation.>>

I’m not aware of anyone who insists that such parameters be drawn. People are free to put forth whatever evidence and explanations they like, but if they want public funding, then they need to demonstrate that the validity of their explanations.

Sorry Squeers, but you’re punching at shadows.