Scientism

Scientism is the view that scientific methods or the natural sciences provide the sole, or uniquely authoritative, route to knowledge and understanding.

Epistemology: The branch of philosophy that studies knowledge, justification, and belief. Scientism makes a sweeping claim about which methods can yield knowledge.
Logical positivism: A twentieth-century movement that sought to ground meaningful factual claims in logic and empirical verification. Its verification principle exemplified an ambitious effort to delimit meaningful knowledge scientifically.
William James: An American philosopher and psychologist who helped develop pragmatism and studied religious experience. James resisted reducing religious and human experience to a single scientific standard.
Neuroethics: The study of ethical, legal, and social questions raised by neuroscience. Neuroscience can inform moral debates without settling every normative question.
Two cultures: A phrase for the perceived divide between the sciences and the humanities in modern intellectual life. Scientism can intensify the hierarchy that this divide describes.
Scientific realism: The view that successful scientific theories describe a mind-independent reality, including unobservable entities. Realism concerns what science describes, not whether science is the only source of understanding.
Pragmatism: A philosophical tradition that evaluates ideas through their practical consequences and role in inquiry. Pragmatists can value scientific inquiry without making it the sole form of understanding.
Rudolf Carnap: A German-born philosopher associated with logical positivism and the analysis of scientific language. Carnap’s program illustrates the drive to clarify knowledge through logical and empirical methods.
Evidence-based medicine: Clinical practice that integrates research evidence with professional expertise and patient values. Its model combines scientific findings with judgment and values rather than treating data as sufficient.
Scientocracy: A proposed form of governance in which scientific experts hold substantial political authority. It illustrates the political consequences of treating scientific expertise as a sufficient basis for decisions.

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Relationship between science and religionCompared with: Its expansive account of science often places it in tension with religious sources of knowledge.