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Scientism is an ideology which holds that science has primacy over other interpretations of life (e.g., religious, mythical, spiritual, or humanistic explanations). The term has also been applied to the view that natural sciences have primacy over other fields of inquiry such as social sciences.
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Meanings of scientism
Standard dictionary definitions include the following meanings:
The use of the style, assumptions, techniques, and other attributes typically displayed by scientists.
Methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist.
An exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation, as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities.
"Scientism is the use of scientific or pseudoscientific language."
Scientism is the belief that the social sciences are not science because they commonly do not hold to the somewhat stricter interpretation of scientific method used by the natural sciences.
Scientism is a belief that scientific knowledge is the foundation of all knowledge and that, consequently, scientific argument should always be weighted more heavily than other forms of knowledge, particularly those which are not yet well described or justified from within the rational framework, or whose description fails to present itself in the course of a debate against a scientific argument. It can be contrasted by doctrines like historicism, which hold that there are certain "unknowable" truths. This viewpoint is typified by comments such as "Scientific research has demonstrated that substance x causes cancer in humans."
As a form of dogma: "In essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth."
Scientism can also be used to reject the assertion that the application of scientific understanding to all phenomena produces the predicted results and is therefore a reliable guide to policy.
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See also
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Notes
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