{"id":64987,"date":"2023-02-09T09:55:06","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T14:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64987"},"modified":"2023-02-09T09:55:06","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T14:55:06","slug":"sciencism-is-religious-fundamentalism-by-another-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64987","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Sciencism\u2019 Is Religious Fundamentalism by Another Name"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article-title-section\">\n<h3 class=\"top-article-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybell.com\/all-articles\/news-analysis\/sciencism-elite-conceit-and-the-search-for-meaning\/\">\u2018Sciencism\u2019 Is Religious Fundamentalism by Another Name<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article_main\" class=\"article_text\" data-find=\"_1\">\n<p><em>\u201cI know only one thing: that I know nothing.\u201d<br \/>\n-Socrates<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been reading \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Xe56cz\">The Science Delusion<\/a>\u201d by Rupert Sheldrake, a timely treatise on fallible humans\u2019 hubris.<\/p>\n<p>It ought to be required reading for all public school children, so that they may understand how little the authorities actually know about life on Earth, how it works, and what it means (if anything.)<\/p>\n<p>Knowledge is provisional. It\u2019s multi-pronged. It\u2019s contingent on the observer. And it\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n<p>Exhibit A is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/plus.maths.org\/content\/physics-minute-double-slit-experiment-0\">the infamous double-slit experiment<\/a>\u00a0of quantum mechanics fame, which defies the laws of physics previously considered absolute fact.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Quantum mechanics and the double slit experiment\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nmxwVU88Bd8?feature=oembed\" width=\"550\" height=\"309\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The double-slit dilemma stretches the limits of my understanding of physics. I understand it shows\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/bring-science-home-light-wave-particle\/\">light behaving like a wave and a particle at the same time<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2328087-can-particles-really-be-in-two-places-at-the-same-time\/\">the same particle on dual paths simultaneously.<\/a>\u00a0These are substantial things for physicists to have been wrong about for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What discovery tomorrow will similarly undermine basic tenants of 2023 scientific knowledge?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is the problem with orthodoxy of any kind. It\u2019s a major flaw in conservative thinking in general. By \u201cconservative,\u201d I don\u2019t mean the right-wing political ideology but the unwillingness to embrace new ideas in favor of old ones for no other reason than they are already established.<\/p>\n<p>Whereas the high priest class once dominated the social hierarchy,\u00a0<em>sciencism<\/em>\u00a0is the trendy new religion of the intellectual elite \u2013 equally dogmatic in its epistemological approach to studying the natural world.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybell.com\/all-articles\/news-analysis\/what-nietzsche-really-meant-by-god-is-dead-and-why-that-matters-today\/\">God died (metaphorically) unceremoniously about 200 years ago<\/a>. But because there\u2019s good evidence humans actually require someone or something to revere and to center culture around as a source of meaning, the bearded, robed God of the Bible was replaced with technocratic Science\u2122, and scientists, as the object of worship in industrialized society.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Sciencism\u2019 Is Religious Fundamentalism by Another Name \u201cI know only one thing: that I know nothing.\u201d -Socrates I\u2019ve been reading \u201cThe Science Delusion\u201d by Rupert Sheldrake, a timely treatise on fallible humans\u2019 hubris. It ought to be required reading for all public school children, so that they may understand how little the authorities actually know [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31075,33680,705,33679,15276],"class_list":["post-64987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-ben-bartee","tag-religious-fundamentalism","tag-science","tag-sciencism","tag-the-daily-bell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64988,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64987\/revisions\/64988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}