Logical Positivism & Scientism -
More Self-Referential Fallacies

(First draft)

What is logical positivism? The American Heritage Dictionary defines positivism as a "philosophical doctrine contending that sense perceptions are the only admissible basis of human knowledge and precise thought."

In other words, if you can't taste, touch, see, hear or smell something, it doesn't exist or at least isn't worth thinking about. That goes for things like love and justice, evil, truth - and God. Note that positivists don't "prove" any of these things are non-existent or irrelevant; they simply assume it as their starting presupposition.

Gene Veith puts it this way: "The philosophers known as Logical Positivists went so far as to say that any statement that could not be verified empirically (such as theological, metaphysical, aesthetic, and moral statements) are meaningless. You cannot show me "God or "justice"; therefore they do not exist." (Veith, p. 34)

Logical posivitism had its heyday around the turn of the century. It has slipped (somewhat) into obscurity since then, but the impact of this irrational philosophy lingers, particularly in its influence on scientism (described below).

What's wrong with logical positivism? After many years of effort, critics of the logical positivists were able to drive home the self-refuting nature of positivism. Specifically, the statement that "only empirically verifiable statements are meaningful or worth thinking about" was itself a belief that could not be "empirically verified." Positivism denies its own intellectual foundation, starting with a statement of belief that fails its own test. Like the phrase "nothing is absolute," it was a self-referential fallacy. (See the linked paper for a definition of a self-referential fallacy.)

Logical positivism may be more or less dead, at least by its original name, but it lives on in reincarnated form in scientism. Philosopher/theologian/scientist J.P. Moreland describes scientism thus: "According to this view, science is the very paradigm of truth and rationality. If something does not square with currently well-established scientific beliefs, if it is not within the domain of entities appropriate for scientific investigation, or if it is not amenable to scientific methodology, then it is not true or rational." (Moreland, p. 104)

The advocates of scientism (who are usually unaware that there is a name to describe their beliefs and attitude regarding science) can often appear absurd or even comical to anyone who is not a member, so to speak, of the scientism club. Nevertheless they must be dealt with seriously and solemnly if we are to communicate successfully with them.

Scientism involves an unrealistically optimistic, highly idealized view of how science is and has been done, and how scientific knowledge is acquired and transmitted. It is perhaps significant that, at least in my experience, advocates of scientism are not scientists themselves but are better described as "wannabes" or "camp followers" of science.

For example, I recently corresponded briefly with a person who claimed to be a Christian, yet willfully bent and misinterpreted Scripture to correspond to the fads of popular "scientific" opinion. He called me a "false prophet" when I referred to II Peter chapter 3 as contradicting the assumption that uniformitarianism is valid back in time to the begining of the universe. He asserted the phrase "of old" in verse 5 (KJV, "long ago" in NIV) demanded an old age (presumably billions of years) for the earth.

This person deified science, capitalizing the word and anthropomorphizing it on one occasion when he spoke of how "Science is self-correcting." In his mind, human science might make minor mistakes over the short term, but was ultimately held to be the infallible standard to which other knowledge (including God's Word) must be forced to conform.

Such idolatry of science (i.e., scientism) runs afoul of the following problems:

1. It is, like positivism, a self-referential fallacy. Scientism demands that only "scientific" data and methods be used to obtain knowledge and build conclusions, yet (again) we find that it is not based upon or proven by scientific investigation. Scientism arose because some men are dazzled by the technological products of scientific investigation, just as some men are dazzled by human religious teachings of one sort or another. In each case, the result is a fanatic trust that they have found the solution to all problems and the standard against which all other things must be judged.

2. Scientism ignores or downplays human fallibility. Contrary to the apparent belief expressed above, there is no distinct thinking being who goes by the name "Science." Science is self-correcting only to the extent that individual scientists are willing and able to change their minds, and to the extent that improved knowledge is disseminated to future generations so that mistakes are not perpetuated or repeated. This is NOT an automatic process. There are innumerable examples of scientists going to their graves without acknowledging their views were mistaken on some subject. For example, Joseph Priestley defended Phlogiston theory even after it ran hopelessly afoul of experiments showing that phlogiston, if it existed, had to have a negative mass!

3. Scientism ignores or downplays human dishonesty. Dishonesty is no stranger to science, as spectacular frauds such as Piltdown Man demonstrate. In the case of Piltdown, this putative "ape-man" fossil was said to help prove that humans were descended from apes and was considered the most (or one of the most) important fossil hominid(s) for almost forty years after its' discovery. It is said over five hundred doctoral theses were written on Piltdown Man. Eventually it was exposed as a fraudulent mix of human and ape fossils. However, it is worth noting that dentists who examined the skull when it was first discovered dutifully reported file marks on the teeth (which had been filed down for a better fit). Their report was ignored for well over a generation because of what people wanted to believe.

We would be foolish to assume that all frauds are automatically discovered at some point. Claims about data of a non-replicable nature (such as observations of natural phenomena made at a certain point in time), for example, are virtually impossible to be proved fraudulent without a time machine! Nor is the fact that a study can be repeated a guarantee against error. For a dramatic example, consider the perpetuation of the false teaching that human fetuses have gill slits. This invention of Ernst Haeckel was based on sketches conclusively exposed as fraudulent in 1874 - over one hundred twenty years ago! Subsequent work in embryology has shown that humans never have gill slits, don't have genes that contain information for creating gill slits, and only get holes in their neck from mutations or developmental defects, which have nothing to do with functional respiratory apparatus. Even worse than Piltdown Man, the desire of evolutionists to believe in "evidence" for evolution has proved so strong that it seems the gill slit myth will probably never be fully stamped out. How much current scientific "knowledge" is based on falsehood yet undiscovered? What have you and I been taught as fact that is already demonstrably wrong, and we simply haven't been informed of its inaccuracy?

4. Scientism ignores the limits of science. Advocates of scientism frequently make claims that simply are not based on empirical science. They make these non-scientific claims in the name of "science" to give them an aura of respectability. For example, in astronomy you will sometimes see references to the putative existence of "dark matter" or the "Oort cloud." Often these references are such that it is taken for granted that these two things actually exist. In fact, as of this writing (9/8/96) there is simply no direct scientific evidence for the existence of either one. So why do some people write as if their existence were taken for granted?

According to the big bang theory, there should be about ten times as much matter in the universe as we can actually find. Rather than disbelieve the theory, many cosmologists simply assume that the rest of the matter exists, but is hidden "dark matter" that we can't see. If you don't believe the big bang theory, there is no particular reason to believe there must be "dark matter" out there.

Similarly, there is a problem with the solar system being billions of years old because the rate of decay of most comets as they orbit the sun is such that they are most likely only thousands of years old. Rather than accept an age of thousands of years for the solar system, it is postulated that beyond the solar system, beyond the Kuiper belt (an array of comets in the outer reaches of the solar system) in deep space there exist billions of comets in what is called the "Oort cloud." The cloud is named after Jan Oort, who first postulated that such a cloud exists, and that comets orbiting the sun are replaced occasionally with new comets from the cloud. When Dr. Oort died a few years ago many obituaries erroneously refered to him as the "discoverer" of the Oort cloud; in fact no observable evidence of it has even been reported. Jan Oort didn't discover the cloud; he invented it.

My point is not that dark matter or the Oort cloud don't exist. They could exist. The point is that both these ideas exist today because they are seen as the best way to reconcile a theory with disagreeable evidence. When people are misled to believe data exists when it does not, a disservice is being done to true science and the advancement thereof.

Dr. Moreland, in his book, also discusses other, philosophical, limitations to science that tend to get trampled over by scientism. I recommend it despite the fact that Moreland is not a young-earth advocate. It is my experience that philosophy of science is not the strong suite of advocates of scientism.

Objections to scientism and positivism are in no way a denial of the true worth of science. On the contrary, people who wrap the word "science" around them like Linus's security blanket and abuse it in defense of their own beliefs are about the worst threat to true science I can imagine. A creationist physicist once told me science is like a cow. Some of us will milk it to get all that we can from it, and others will plate it with gold and bow down and worship it. If one affirms that science conducted by human beings is a fallible enterprise (like anything else of human origin), the latter is not a sane option. Let's use science, not abuse it.

RECOMMENDED READING

Moreland, J.P., Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989), pp. 103-138, etc.

Veith, Gene Edward, Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994), pp. 34-35. This is part of the Turning Point series of books. All the books of this series that I have seen are very thoughtful and worth reading, and the authors of other books in the series which I have not read also have my respect, to the extent I am familiar with their work.

Chittick, Donald E., The Controversy: Roots of the Creation-Evolution Conflict (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1984), pp. 45-60. From the Critical Concern series, this book is aging gracefully and I also recommend it.

Return to Eric's InfoCenter Main Page Return to Reason & Revelation Page

(Created: 10 September 1996 - Last Update: 10 September 1996)