Introducing students to scientism and the limits of science

Science has been tremendously successful in helping us understand the world and giving us vast improvements in quality of life. It is easy for those immersed in the study of science to come to believe that, with enough time and effort, science can solve all problems confronting our world. However, not all applications of science have been (or will be) beneficial, and despite its appearance of universality, there are many questions that are vital to our social fabric, which science cannot answer. Scientism is the exaggerated belief in the over-encompassing power of science, and that it alone is adequate for “solving all problems and answering all meaningful questions” (Gantt & Williams, 2018). In order for students to gain a sustainable science education, which they can use effectively for the good of society, it is important for them to gain an appreciation of the limits of science. This presentation will introduce possible ways to make science students reflect on the limits of science by looking at a number of questions which are related to science, but which cannot be answered by scientific or technological reasoning alone. Students can be asked to discuss whether science can help us learn what is morally right, what makes us human, whether good scientists make good managers or good politicians, why we have so much difficulty combatting misinformation and defending our democracy despite progress in telecommunications, how to avoid over-reliance on technological or pharmaceutical “easy fixes” for problems that are better solved by other means, etc. REFERENCES: Gantt, E.E and Williams, R.N., “On Hijacking Science: Exploring the Nature and Consequences of Overreach in Psychology”, Routledge, 2018, Ch. 1. Robinson, D.N., “Science, Scientism and Explanation,” in Scientism: The New Orthodoxy, edited by R.N. Williams and D.N. Robinson, Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. Ziman, J., “Some Manifestations of Scientism” in Puzzles, Problems and Enigmas: Occasional Pieces on the Human Aspect of Science, Cambridge University Press, 1981.