Contrary to Steven Pinker’s recent attempt to rehabilitate “scientism”, I argue that the word should stand for a persistent belief that the trustworthiness of institutionalised science is a matter of fact rather than something that needs to be subject to continuous empirical re-evaluation.
A long excerpt from chapter two of Mikhail Bakunin’s ‘God and the State. I like the way Bakunin draws out the authoritarian parallels between experts and clergy.
Recently published studies on the effects of “thinking about science” suggest that it makes people more sensitive to how they imagine others might morally judge them.
Claims that the capacity for self-correction is what separates science from other endeavours don’t hold up when you look at some of those other endeavours.
… does it make a sound when there’s nobody there to hear?
...nature is not a book 