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Scientism

I read this article in an article on Scientism by Steven Pinker in the New Republic. .My issue is simple: he has conflated speculation–unexamined paradigms–with Science outright. Our best evidence is that the mind and brain are severable. This evidence is empirical and scientifically repeatable. It belongs within the realm of what is called science, but it will not be included by mediocre and haughty minds like his.

Our best evidence is that the universe is interactive, that it specifically interacts with our minds; that we in some measure cocreate what is called reality. Mediocre and haughty intellects refuse to examine the implications of this idea. They assume because it is convenient for them that whatever they are studying is “out there”, and not “in here”. They assume their minds can someone be objective, when our best evidence is that this is a fanstastical notion, every bit as irrational as the belief that Christ occupies the host.

These people frustrate me, because they lie constantly while proclaiming their love of truth. If they were willing to examine ALL the evidence on all topics which has been produced honestly–take as one example the evidence for Remote Viewing–then they could be called scientists. This would be a most excellent thing.

I have among other things often thought that morality itself is a matter for science–not in the sense of studying neurons, but in studying the correspondance between cognitive inputs and behavioral outputs, and affective health and well being. Buddhism is scientific, in a formal way, at least in its premises and many of its practices.

Until honesty prevails, though, such people are merely clever technicians: of words or experiment, it doesn’t matter. They don’t warrant much respect, nor does the worldview which arises from their demonstrably wrong empirical assumptions. There is no room in science for assumptions. There is simply empirical and non-empirical. They live in the realm of the non-empirical, while claiming the contrary. This makes them hypocrites of the worst sort.