Edward Feser: Separating scientism and state

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Separating scientism and state

Scientism transforms science into an intolerant and all-encompassing ideology. Bad as it is when it issues in crackpot philosophy, it can be even worse when used to rationalize destructive public policy – as with the increasingly idiotic and oppressive lockdowns that have been imposed across much of the world. Now perhaps more than ever we need the corrective provided by the late, great philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994), who argued trenchantly for a separation of scientism and state. I offer a primer in a new article at The American Mind.

91 comments:

AnonymousAugust 25, 2020 at 7:49 PM
On the contrary, we should have have had the lockdown in February,

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told a small, private group of constituents on Feb. 27 that the coronavirus outbreak was "akin to the 1918 pandemic," audio obtained by NPR shows.

Why it matters: "The 1918 pandemic," or the Spanish flu, killed millions worldwide — and Burr's comments directly contradicted those from President Trump on that same day, when the U.S. had 15 confirmed coronavirus cases.

What Burr said: "There's one thing that I can tell you about this — it is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything we have seen in recent history. It's probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic."

"Every company should be cognizant of the fact that you may have to alter your travel. You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip they're making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on video conference."
"There will be, I'm sure, times that communities, probably some in North Carolina, have a transmission rate where they say, let's close schools for two weeks, everybody stay home."
What Trump said that same day at a White House meeting: "It's going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear. And from our shores, we — you know, it could get worse before it gets better."

"It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows."
The big picture: Burr did not sound a similarly strong alarm to a wider, more public audience.

The gathering was organized by Tar Heel Circle, a business-oriented North Carolina group with a membership fee between $500 and $10,000.
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AnonymousAugust 25, 2020 at 11:25 PM
What about applying Feyerabend's methodological "principles" to Thomist philosophy?
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AnonymousAugust 26, 2020 at 12:34 AM
I think the worst part about the whole lockdown was when the BLM protests started, and rather than condemn them as a public health risk, the experts said "oh, those protests are safe because we agree with them!". At that point, the "experts" proved themselves to be dishonest, biased, hypocrites – why should anybody listen to them any more?
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Screwtape JenkinsAugust 26, 2020 at 1:22 AM
"why should anybody listen to them any more?"

I can think of about 175,000 reasons.
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One BrowAugust 26, 2020 at 5:58 AM
Would he have been impressed by the “objectivity” of expert advice that was stridently insisted upon one minute, then suddenly abandoned when doing so became politically expedient?

So, science is to blame when people in government ignore the advice of scientists?

In fact, Feyerabend argues, if adherence to stereotypical canons of method is taken to be a hallmark of respectable science, the churchmen who resisted Galileo’s conclusions compare favorably to him.

The churchmen largely supported Galileo's work, and he only got into trouble when he started making it personal.
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StardustyPsycheAugust 26, 2020 at 7:02 AM
Op
“ “scientific method” is a philosopher’s invention, and a notoriously problematic one.”
Really? The scientific method is “problematic”? Uhm, I suggest you may wish to consider going off grid, perhaps as a hunter gatherer who lives in a cabin in some remote location, since the myriad fruits of the scientific method you employ and enjoy hour by hour every day were arrived at by a “problematic” method.

“Observation is in fact always theory-laden rather than neutral between theories.”
Of course, every scientist knows that, what is the problem?

“The supposition that induction suffices uniquely to verify one theory to the exclusion of others is therefore illusory.”
Of course, scientists know that, pretty basic, that’s why all scientific theories are provisional and subject further revision or replacement.

This article started as a series of vague strawman accusations. Now it has moved into pointing obvious features of the scientific method as though they are somehow problems to be exposed.

The author seems to not realize some things most basic about science, that the scientific method itself is flexible, science is provisional, science does not do absolute proof, science rest on certain axioms which are themselves not proved.

Yes, of course, what exactly is the supposed problem?

“Certain principles (such as conservation laws and the preference for simple and unifying theories) are so central to the modern conception of science that to falsify them would be to give up science itself.”
False, no, of course not. If a principle of science is falsified then that simply improves science generally, as all scientific theories must be revised accordingly, which is a very good thing. What exactly is supposed to be the problem here?

“So too, he argues, is the claim that science produces results that are superior to those of any other practice or system of belief.”
Really? Can you find the plans for your cell phone, or designs for a genetically engineered vaccine, or an electric car in the bible, or in the summa?

What other method would you propose to obtain the closest approximation available of truth of, say, the structure of our galaxy, or the atom?

““Scientists are salesmen of ideas and gadgets,” he wrote, not “High Priests of Right Living.””
Sure, you can either live by the science of healthy diet, high tech health care, and avoidance of scientifically identified pathogens, or you can die young, your choice.

““The hardest task needs the lightest hand or else its completion will not lead to freedom but to a tyranny much worse than the one it replaces.””
Vague unsupported hyperventilating.

This has to be one of the worst articles Dr. Feser has ever written. The lack of specific content and reasoning is appalling.

This blog is brought to you by science, not the bible or the summa or Feyerabend. You reap the harvest of the scientific method with every keystroke you use to input data in your computer, and with every character you read from a display made of scientifically designed liquid crystals and diodes that emit light in just the right way to stimulate the color receptors in your retina. Please cite the bible passage that is the “other method” to obtain such knowledge.

There is no “other method”.
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Scott W.August 26, 2020 at 7:08 AM
And as if you set your watch to it, celebrities being flown into NYC for the MTV awards are, you guessed it, exempt from the quarantine rules.
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AnonymousAugust 26, 2020 at 9:29 AM
There is a certain irony in Prof. Feser's quoting Feyerabend's comparisons with the scientists and the Medieval Church.
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Edward FeserAugust 26, 2020 at 10:20 AM
Guys,

I deleted the posts remarking on comments policy, trolling, etc. because they amount to a threadjack. I'll try to address the issue in a separate post.
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swAugust 26, 2020 at 10:56 AM
The arguments against scientism are not relevant to covid 19. The paradigm used to control and treat covid 19 is the same as decades old public health measures and run of the mill industrial biotechnology. Medical journals are full of articles were alternative opinion are shared and discussed. That is true for Covid 19. The protests did not lead to surge in numbers. Those 'woke' experts got lucky as it is harder to spread corona virus outdoors.

The article is not nuanced enough and may make people feel that masking, distancing and not having large indoor gatherings is scientism and as debatable as a prolonged lock down.

In the end your article mounts to someone saying that what the doctors have said is untrue because of their moral failures just as one would say that religion is not true because some religious scholars do not act on what they preach. Or lets abolish the police because there are bad cops.

The attempt to force leftist, trans gender agenda on doctors in name of science is regrettable fact but no very related to covid 19 treatment and research for the most part.

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KyleAugust 26, 2020 at 6:17 PM
I'm familiar with arguments against scientism, like Feser has in his book on metaphysics. What though, is a good introductory book on the critics of the scientific method and science more broadly as modernly understood? Asking for a friend :)
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AnonymousAugust 27, 2020 at 3:14 AM
Scientism is the religion of the left brain.

It is a universal cultural program or ideology which now patterns and controls every minute fraction of today's culture including all of which is usually promoted as religion.

And in the context of Edward's essay everything written by the various pundits that write for the American Mind.

In this age of Scientific materialism, doubt is the only certainty and substance of mind. Therefore, people in this age are profoundly crippled in their ability to grasp matters of higher certainty or to relate to the fact that the world is psycho-physical phenomenon.

The modern academic interpreters of the worlds religious and Spiritual traditions generally do not approach their subjects as practitioners and wise advocates. Rather, they approach their subject with the left brained scientific anti-psychic mind, empty of everything but doubt and doubt's opinion. The usual interpreters of religion and Spirituality are not themselves really religious in any profound sense, nor are they Spiritually motivated.
There is a great range of presumptions common to the traditional structures of religious and Spiritual consciousness that such individuals simply cannot uphold. Such presumptions include the certainty pf the continuation of existence after death, experiental presumptions about the invisible, or at least higher elemental dimensions of the Cosmos and Nature, presumptions about the reality of spirits, ghosts, subtle entities and powers, magic, miracles, mystical assent and experience, the laws of karma (or the cause and effect laws that necessarily produce the future from the actions or motions of all present processes0< and the supremely valuable resource of Help represented by living individuals who are highly evolved - saints, mystics and yogis.

The common tendency is to reduce the expressions and offerings of profound religious and Spiritual consciousness to structures of mind that are basically non-religious and even anti-Spiritual, characterized by doubt and minimal levels of presumption relative to what is beyond or prior to elemental or materialist conceptions

The common religious and Spiritual presumptions were based upon an acknowledgement that energy, invisible life, or spirit-force is behind all and every part of nature. It is this invisible element that is embraced via every form of magical, religious, worshipful, mystical, yogic, or spiritual belief and practice. And it is the failure to really and profoundly presume the existence and the availability of such energy or Spirit-Power that characterizes the non-religious, anti-spiritual, or merely materialistic consciousness.
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CosmicCatAugust 27, 2020 at 8:18 AM
People who think they know better than the "scientism-based COVID19 doctors" are welcome to walk around without a mask, sing in church closely together, go to the beach, etc.... I am an advocate of your God-given freedom to be wise and accept the consequences of your wisdom.
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FreeThinkerAugust 27, 2020 at 9:00 AM
The problem is of course that the consequences of such 'wisdom' is wreaked upon victims, not just the imbeciles who practice it themselves.
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T NAugust 27, 2020 at 3:54 PM
In May, Unicef said lockdowns and fear could kill 1.2 million children under 5 years of age in just six months. That’s just people under 5 and already more than Covid will kill.

They must be right because A) They said they’re going by the science, and B) Unicef has long been approved by the left.

So . . . there’s that.

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/covid-19-devastates-already-fragile-health-systems-over-6000-additional-children
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T NAugust 27, 2020 at 4:27 PM
David Berlinski’s book The Devil’s Delusion is a very witty and cleaver exposé of the errors of scientism in much the same way as Feyerabend—by comparison to a religious faith that tolerates no dissent.
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AnonymousAugust 27, 2020 at 8:05 PM
I have read Paul Feyerabend off and on for decades and am pleased to see Edward Feser engage his arguments at the link. Is there perhaps a chapter relating Feser's scholasticism to Feyerabend's openness to metaphysics in science (eg How to be a Good Empiricist)?

A public response to the pandemic guided by past experience would have integrated quarantine, testing, and contact tracing. Only the first of the three has been feasible at scale in most of the United States. Epidemiologists who favor lockdowns have themselves acknowledged the inadequacy. If we are not following epidemiology because experts cannot get us to do the rest, we are not seeing a triumph of Scientism.

Anyway, is the practice of Public Health an application of biological science (eg tonsilectomy) or an exercise of informed prudence akin to military strategy? The Surgeon General of the United States leads a uniformed United States Public Health Service because in the decades before antibiotics, the populace accepted that epidemics are invaders, invaders kill civilians, and only professional commanders are effective against them. Were they wrong to do so?

At today's polarized extremes, argument about government response to this pandemic supposes that either (a) Public Health is merely settled Science so that lay heads of governments need only defer to an expert consensus to secure civilian safety, or (c) the science is uncertain and other costs must be balanced against loss of life. But we were once ruled by a centrist policy that integrated these into a (b) closely analogous to military command: because the risk to life is high, the science is not Science, sacrifices cannot be avoided, and civilian liberties are curtailed, Public Health is not deferential advice but expert command.

In that view, the state commissions Public Health officers to meet an extraordinary emergency with extraordinary powers of prohibition and coercion to save lives. A president, governor, or mayor should no more direct pandemic responses than lead troops in battle. Governance is not management or command.

This assumes however that the polity in an infected land is a constitutional republic able to delegate, govern, and reclaim, strong authority. That may no longer be the case in the United States, or in other countries where participatory democracy has undermined the independence and trust that republican institutions require.

Which conversely leads to this closing thought: if we would prefer to respond to a pandemic with no commander charged with containing and killing the virus, would we also prefer that an invading army not be countered by a commander charged with forcibly repelling it? Some actually might, whilst others would not. Either way, it would be interesting to hear their reasoning.

BW
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StardustyPsycheAugust 28, 2020 at 4:16 PM
OP,
"Taxpayers are forced to fund the enormous costs of scientific research and the propagation of scientific ideas, whether they agree with them or not."
Yes, of course, what is the problem with that?

The Pasadena City College is almost entirely taxpayer funded, whether they agree or not. A very great many people who strongly disagree with your views are forced by law to contribute to your salary. That is fair.

People who have no children still have to fund schools. People who never visit parks still have fund them. That is how our country works. Government has the constitutional duty to levy taxes to fund government programs. That is fair.

Some people might not agree that scientific research is generally a worthwhile investment, but history has proven them wrong. Funding for basic research, technological development, and medical advancements has paid off for us all time after time.

Government funding has led to great improvements in ships, aircraft, space, electronics, communications, cars, medicine, and on and on.

We live in a constitutional democratic republic. What exactly is supposed to be the problem with scientific research being handled the same way as every other government expenditure?

“White Western liberal intellectuals initially claimed to affirm the equality of all people, whatever their tradition. But this equality “did not mean equality of traditions; it meant equality of access to one particular tradition,” namely the liberal and scientific tradition favored by white Western intellectuals.”
How did this morph into a racial issue? Is science somehow a “white” thing that “white” people are forcing on other races? So, does that make the director of the American Museum of Natural History an Uncle Tom?

“A mystic might judge his methods to be as legitimate as those of science and to yield far more important results. He might be right about this, and he might be wrong, but science cannot tell us either way,”
This section of the article is fully deserving of its self-anticipated mockery.

Perhaps the mystic will imagine he can cure his own cancer, or internal organ damage, or other serious illness. Science certainly can tell us whether surgery and antibiotics are superior to mystical ruminations, the evidence being ruminating mystics who die and those who seek “white” scientific medical treatment who recover and live.

The mystic has no methods to achieve the results of science, and to assert the mystic does is preposterous. No, the mystic cannot actually fly, people require an aircraft for that, which is indeed obvious and easily proved every time some fool thinks he can fly and ends up smashed on the ground below his takeoff point.

“In Feyerabend’s view, when science arrogates to itself privileges like those described above, it violates these Millian principles.”
Except it doesn’t, which is why no specific examples are provided, and certainly no generalized such process can be pointed out.

The charge of scientism is simply made up out of thin air. Scientism does not exist as a real feature of government or society in general, except in the minds of the religious and a few authors of little note.

“He showed that the signatories simply did not understand, or care to understand, the actual views of the people they were condemning, but merely parroted clichés and rested their case on their authority as scientists rather than on arguments reflecting knowledge of the subject matter.”
Knowledge on the subject matter of astrology? Seriously? Just pick up the paper and read your horoscope. How absurd. No, it is not a cliché that astrology makes ridiculous predictions about real life events based on the positions of celestial objects.

One has no obligation to study the details of every crackpot idea to come down the pike, to try to squeeze out some grain of truth from the huge pile of rubbish. Those grains of truth are easily available elsewhere without the stench of sifting through all that garbage.
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StardustyPsycheAugust 28, 2020 at 4:20 PM
(cont.)
“Again, what Feyerabend favored was debate between opinions”
That is a common tactic of crackpots, to get themselves elevated to some sort of parity. No, one has no obligation to afford patently bad ideas such respect and status.

“patients have the right to accept or reject the advice of doctors. Consumers and patients are the ones paying the bills, and the ones whose lives are affected. Even when they are wrong and the experts are correct, the experts simply don’t have the right to make the final call on such matters.”
Another charge made up out of thin air. If you need surgery but you don’t want it that is up to you. Some people refuse treatment for religious or other personal reasons. Such people typically die due to lack of scientific medical assistance for serious illnesses, and that is their choice, a choice Americans are in fact free to make.

I have had relatives who got old, got sick, and refused treatment. Yes, they understood the science of medicine could have kept them alive longer, but they made a choice, because even the best science available could not bring them back to a life they considered worth living, rather, only just barely alive while being restricted and in pain and not able to do anything they considered worthwhile.

So they made a choice, the science was correct, they died. I miss them but I respect their decisions, it was their lives, not my life, so their choices.

No scientist could or even wanted to block those choices. This section of the article is entire specious, unfounded, and nothing but empty fear mongering.

“Feyerabend thus called for a “separation of science and state,” though it is not really science, but scientism, that he wanted entirely to disentangle from government.”
There is no “scientism” entanglement to be disentangled. This is just more fear mongering.

“One needn’t agree with everything he said (and I certainly don’t) to think it a salutary counterbalance to the sometimes excessive deference to expert opinion that has characterized the COVID-19 crisis.”
There are countries that have eliminated new cases and new deaths, which are the countries that acted upon the science.

Here in the US we are suffering from an acutely ignorant and narcissistic leader who pressures the CDC to issue deadly advice, while encouraging his followers to act dangerously toward each other and all the rest of us. So the US is suffering for the lack of attention to the science, just the opposite of the claims made in this very poorly written article.

“Though the virus poses grave danger mainly to the elderly and those already suffering from other serious ailments, even the healthy have been put under quarantine.”
Of course, obviously, because asymptomatic transmitters infect those who then die of the disease. That is the science. I know personally, because a good friend of mine died of Covid-19.

Listen to the advice of scientists, not the president or his lackeys at the CDC:
Wear the best quality mask you have available, for your own protection and for the protection of others in the event you are an asymptomatic carrier.

Stay away from other people as much as practical, especially in confined spaces. Six feet is not a magic number, it is just a basic rule of thumb, an approximate guideline.

Use increased sanitation, especially prior to eating with your hands (such as a sandwich or apple).

Get tested if you have exposure or think you might have been exposed. If you test positive stay away from family, friends, and work, and be sure to wear a mask to protect others from you even if you do not have symptoms.

Science, learn from it and live by it. If you ignore it the virus might kill you or you might spread it to somebody else who then dies from it. Don’t be a killer, heed the science.

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CantusAugust 29, 2020 at 8:16 AM
I don't think Stardusty understood Feyerabend's point. He does exactly the kind of thing the article claimed defenders of scientism usually do, namely claiming that the achievements of science are just obviously superior to the "method" of the mystic, because he strawmans the mystic's viewpoint, putting words in his mouth. He imagines that the mystic thinks he can do the things science enables us to do (curing disease, flying, etc) by some occult mechanism. No doubt there are mystics who think like that, but that wasn't what the hypothetical mystic in the article claimed to be able to do. He claimed to be able to "leave his body and commune directly with God". Stardusty merely presumes that material advancement to improve the human condition is obviously more important than gaining knowledge or experience of God, but this is because he is a materialist and so doesn't believe in the spiritual. The basic point is this - if the mystic's view of the cosmos is right, then even the greatest scientific achievements amount at best to decorating the waiting-room and making it a nicer place. While there's nothing wrong with doing that, it'd be foolish to think that such decoration was the primary thing we should worry about. Basically, the issue is that science itself can't tell you whether material achievements are more important than spiritual ones. Stardusty is merely taking his atheistic worldview for granted and assuming that they are.
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CantusAugust 29, 2020 at 8:20 AM
Note that none of this implies that I distrust or dislike science at all. Not so, I regard it highly, and I do regard the improvement of the material condition of man as being generally a good thing (though not the most important). I merely object to the absurd notion that this therefore means that it is the only thing that matters.
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StardustyPsycheAugust 29, 2020 at 9:44 AM
Cantus,
“Stardusty is merely taking his atheistic worldview for granted and assuming that they are.”
I make no such assumption.

You, a mystic, a yogi, or anybody else can meditate all you wish, and if any such person decides for themselves that the visions and conclusions arrived at thereby are the most important things in their lives then that is perfectly OK with me. Think whatever you wish to think, up to you.

None of that is the role of government. There is no “scientism” “entanglement” in government such that government is somehow neglecting alternatives to funding scientific research. There are no alternatives to funding scientific research to accomplish the things that government is established to accomplish on behalf of the people.

The mystic has no capacity to provide some “other method” that is relevant to government funding. The taxpayers, in general, are not even remotely interested in funding a guy to close his eyes and daydream about meeting god.

The taxpayers are interested in funding research universities, the Human Genome Project, and advancements in science and technology across a broad spectrum of scientific research. The charge that there is somehow a “scientism” “entanglement” driving science research is preposterous. There is no “other method” to achieve the results that science research can and has achieved again and again.

“I merely object to the absurd notion that this therefore means that it is the only thing that matters.”
Science research is the only thing that matters to government to achieve such advancements government is tasked to achieve at taxpayer expense.

It is not the job of government to find god. If you think finding god is important go ahead and spend as much of your own money on that search as you wish, up to you.
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CantusAugust 29, 2020 at 1:49 PM
Since when was this only about government funding? I was speaking about the issue in isolation, rather than specifically about whether the government should fund anything, as was the article when it introduced that example. Your initial response simply ridiculed the mystic outright without mentioning anything about public health policy or government funding. You clearly mocked and attacked the idea itself, not merely the notion that it should be government funded. And if you took the time to read Feser's article properly, you'd see that the "scientism and state" thing he was talking about was the excessive deference to "SCIENCE!!" in relation to the implementation of the COVID lockdown. "Science" has been used as a weapon to shut down any dissent against any lockdown policy, even though science has nothing to say about the question of whether such-and-such a measure is worth the costs it imposes, or whether it is too much to bear. Scientists who have any difference of opinion whatsoever on the pandemic have been shut down and silenced instead of being reasoned with - behaviour indicative of a dogmatic religion, not the scientific method. You seem to think this is some fight between "funding science" and "funding alternative medicine", when in fact it is a criticism of our culture's tendency to treat science like a religion and scientists like high priests.
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CantusAugust 29, 2020 at 1:52 PM
Oh and Stardusty,
Please keep any reply focussed and to the point. I will not respond to a muddleheaded 5000-word soup.
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TonyAugust 29, 2020 at 3:13 PM
Gotta hand it to Feser, this comment is a fantastic zinger:

Even the pretense of scientific objectivity that liberalism gives with its left hand is now being taken away by its far-left hand.

I love the "left hand" contrasted with the "far-left hand". Liberalism doesn't have a right hand.

However, I would pick a bone with either Feser or (more probably) with Feyerabend, on the his Millsian defense of pluralism:

What he really favored was a pluralism that refused to allow any one tradition, including science, to dominate all others politically in a democratic society. His positive defense of this view was essentially an adaptation of Mill’s On Liberty.

Take, for example, the objection made here:

Furthermore, Mill stressed, it is not enough for the expression of unpopular opinions not to be legally prohibited. There must be no social sanction against their expression. Indeed, he regarded social pressure as more insidious than governmental control.

I would say, in opposition: to have a society is to have a culture, and to have a culture is, per se to have presumptions and favored points of view. And to have such means that the culture will have means of UNfavoring contrary presumptions and points of view. The notion that it is possible for EVERYONE in a society to act as if EVERY theory, expression, idea, or preference may be true or may be false for practical purposes is not only to eviscerate society but also to preclude all positive action. It is death. You cannot actually LIVE and also give full and equal hearing to EVERY crackpot theory until you can defeat it from agreed upon first principles. You must, to live, act as if some things are more reasonable and their opposites are not. This isn't "scientism", it is what every human being does. And to refuse to allow the "accepted" truths, or even "truths" to be generally accorded a socially favored preference is to eliminate society itself.

With his theory, Mills, at least, would generate an utterly atomistic millieu of individuals who are unable to even speak to each other without first specifying one of 10 billion dictionaries as a favored one "for this conversation." I am reminded of an early scene in John Wright's The Golden Transcendence, in which an effectively digitized person living in the digital cloud, in order even say "hello", must request permission to suggest a download of megabytes of data to suggest what he might mean by "hello" so as not to be taken as attacking the other person inadvertently. Wokeness taken to its natural end, I suppose. Ultimately, because language is a cultural convention that (necessarily) involves presumptions and pre-set points of view, to use language on someone is to "impose" upon them what may be foreign to them and may "attack" their own preferred presumptions.
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GoneFishingAugust 29, 2020 at 6:07 PM
Yep, philosophers ever since Galileo's time have chafed at the epistemological primacy (or "hegemony", if you prefer) given to science when it comes to contingent truths about the natural world. Thomists have been right up there with the worst of them, and here Ed comes to continue the (not so) hallowed tradition. He'd be on much firmer ground if he'd simply say science can tell us (to a certain degree of accuracy) the epidemiological consequences of locking down or not, or social distancing or not, but there are other important considerations which need to be in view before making the final decision, which science is not able to help us with. Instead he brings up the crackpot philosopher Feyerabend and bangs the drum against "SCIENTISM!!!" with hackneyed right-wing covidiot talking points and philosophic PRATTs (Points Refuted A Thousand Times).

Look, if you're really going to say that government should look equally upon treatments proven to work via randomized, controlled trials (or using such a standard to investigate the efficacy of some proposed treatment) and things like faith healing or voodoo or homeopathy, you are bonkers. (And a good thing you are regarded as such, with minimal impact on public policy.) Ed bemoans that in fact, proven treatments are preferred to woo (if a minority of the population would prefer such woo), which means he is bonkers and the rest of his screed is not to be taken seriously.

"For one thing, science is claimed to have a method superior to all the alternatives; for another, it is claimed to have delivered superior results. But Feyerabend holds that such claims are false, or at best question-begging."

Yeah, I know. Because he's a crackpot. But please tell us, after you recite the well-known PRATTs against science, what ACTUALLY has done better in yielding knowledge about the physical world? (The reference to mysticism is absurd. Which mystic ever put anyone on the moon? Or gave us the knowledge of physics and engineering required to do that?)

I could go on and on. But, as you can guess, I have no sympathy whatsoever for your being a "hostage" to science. Get used to it. It's not going to change.

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TheresaSeptember 2, 2020 at 9:39 AM
If moving COVID goalposts is wrong, then this is just because there has to be a clear rationale for the kinds of extreme economic destruction policies enforced to supposedly combat the pandemic. Given that, the lockdown was never justified, because there was never a reasonable case made establishing any concrete goalposts attached to concrete criteria, nor any reasonable case for thinking that there was any imminent danger of approaching those goalposts, whatever exactly they were. So, no, Ed, I think your initial lockdown support is still not justified -- unless you're willing to grant the legitimacy of moving goalposts willy-nilly, i.e., not really having any goalposts.
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One BrowSeptember 2, 2020 at 1:38 PM
Theresa,
Given that, the lockdown was never justified, because there was never a reasonable case made establishing any concrete goalposts attached to concrete criteria, nor any reasonable case for thinking that there was any imminent danger of approaching those goalposts, whatever exactly they were.

Perhaps that's true where you are, but Illinois has very clearly defined stages and levels of restrictions, and have moved into stages with lesser restrictions (and sometimes regressed) over time.
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StardustyPsycheSeptember 3, 2020 at 4:40 AM
OP,
“like egging on creationists, playing devil’s advocate for astrology, and calling for the “separation of science and state.””
Yes, claiming that “scientism” is a real feature of how science is practiced generally is in the category of advocating creationism and astrology.

Yes, the charge that “scientism” is somehow “entangled” in government, or elsewhere for that matter, presents as an imaginary conspiracy theory. All that is missing is the foil hat.

Who, specifically, are these scientismists? Names and citations please. What specific government polices have been influenced by this imagined “entanglement”?

I have heard people say they are a Marxist, Platonist, Communist, Capitalist, Racist, Nationalist and on and on, but never once have I ever heard anybody say they are a scientismist.

Apparently, if the OP is to be believed, these scientismists are a secret society who hide their insidious subversive activities by never acknowledging their true beliefs.

“Like scripture, science is taken to stand outside all other human belief systems”
By who? I have never heard this view expressed by anybody at all, much less as a belief system that is somehow “entangled” in government.

“For example, when the state involves itself in health care, it will fund only remedies approved by scientists, never Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture, faith healing, the advice of Hopi medicine men, or voodoo”
Indeed, the charge of “scientism” is about as sensible as government-funded voodoo. Voodoo? Seriously? How is the charge of “scientism” not crackpot imaginary nonsense?

So, government is guilty of enforcing a “hegemony” of scientismistic policies because of government’s abject failure to include voodoo research in its budgets. Like I said, all that is missing is the foil hat.

“Nor are citizens under any obligation to let scientific considerations trump other aspects of an issue, any more than a consumer ought to let an auto mechanic’s advice trump budget considerations”
So, if the mechanic tells you that used car has a bad transmission that will cost a few grand to fix, and then the engine is about shot too, plus the brakes are leaking, go ahead and buy the car because it is cheaper. If you heed the advice of the mechanic who actually studies cars in detail then you are succumbing to the hegemony of mechanicism.
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Graeme OSeptember 7, 2020 at 3:18 AM
I was given 'Against Method' as a late teen, enthralled by pure maths. An area as disciplined, and yet creative, as theology. So thank you for the invocation of Feyerabend. And I appreciate the importance of not outsourcing values to 'Science'.

But I am a little unnerved - even allowing for the liberalist lean in your philosophy - to read that now, of all times, is a time to insist on some impossible strict separation of 'science and state'.

Besides an empirical overstatement in the idea that science is somehow a state religion in the US of all places, there is the present importance of social solidarity and neighbourliness. A virus isn't going to go away nor its trail of death and long-covid illnesses isn't going to be minimised by invoking rights to disparate value based opinions. We are thus left with some very practical questions for which scientific QnAs will be crucial - as to vaccine efficacy, how widespread and repeated such vaccines need to be to achieve 'herd immunity' and, assuming scarcity, what groups are most at risk or transmissible to 'deserve' them first. Such utility based calculations, of the present era/conditions, fall squarely within classical, Villeyan natural law.
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