# Of delusional believers and naive positivist scientism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 24, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-delusional-believers-and-naive-positivist-scientism/507529 "2009-08-24T18:05:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 26
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-delusional-believers-and-naive-positivist-scientism/507529/26 "2009-08-24T22:15:04Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Why should I clarify anything? **SenorBeef** and **RedFury** are both trying to read the tea leaves of my obscure in-jokes that I like to make to myself and that’s kind of amusing, but I’ll bite anyway. You can’t act as if it’s unreasonable that people misinterpreted “in jokes” with yourself. I [asked](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11434756&postcount=43) for clarification, to see if you were mocking the claims in that thread that Sylvia Browne was a fraud, and you chose not to respond. > [@](#): > > I actually don’t even really know what naive positivist scientism actually means in totality. I was cribbing it from [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11471472#post11471472) by **Maeglin**. As **Maeglin** and I are friends IRL and he introduced me to this message board I kind of assumed he was referring to my tendency to get annoyed at people using skepticism as a signifier of group identity rather than being a rational tool. Why can’t it be both? Philosophical outlooks are often both a world view/set of beliefs and social groups based on that outlook. > [@](#): > > **SenorBeef** couldn’t have gotten his analysis of me more wrong. I don’t have any problem with science, and in fact I can hang out with real scientists and have a grand old time. A friend of the family is one of the premier geneticists in the world and he and I stayed up drinking beer together last time I stayed at his home. It’s not him, it’s not **Maeglin** , it’s not **Sentient Meat** and it’s not **Voyager** who I have a problem with. I don’t think you reject science in its entirety. I think that you may be one of those people who feel that science is a fine tool in a limited scope, but it’s not any sort of authoritative source of objective truth - or at least there exist things outside of the scope which can be measured by science. Which can then be used to justify various forms of woo. > [@](#): > > It’s the dilettantes who want to associate with their betters, those who actually ARE skeptics and think that by calling themselves skeptics it magically makes them so. Could you give examples? Incidentally, the people who seem more interested in calling themselves skeptics are the least skeptical people - if you watch any sort of ghost hunter or cryptozoology show they’ll always start with “I’m a skeptic, but…” Sort of like those people who say “I’m not racist, but …” > [@](#): > > For the most part I don’t have a problem with **SenorBeef** ’s take on things, I agree with him a lot more often than I disagree with him. Yeah, I’m pretty awesome. > [@](#): > > I believe in Qi because I have worked with arts such as Shiatsu that base their premise off of Qi and it actually works. > > … > > So basically when people dismiss Qi they are expecting me to dismiss something that I have been on both the giving and receiving end of and know that there is SOMETHING there. I don’t try to explain it scientifically, I am perfectly comfortable with the fact that I cannot explain it scientifically, and that’s that. If it actually works, then there’s some physiological mechanism behind it that doesn’t rely on woo like vitalism. I mean - a shaman from a tribe that knew the fever reduction properties of willow bark might’ve thought it was a gift from the spirits, which doesn’t mean that it didn’t work - but his reasoning was flawed and relied on the paranormal when a measurable biological effect was the actual cause. > [@](#): > > What’s even more interesting about Shiatsu is that Qi skeptics often are not benefitted by it. This is like the “psychics”, who upon being asked to conduct their talents under blinded conditions, claim to be inhibited by a “negative energy field” generated by the skeptics. Funny, that - the trick only works on people who are willing to be fooled by it. > [@](#): > > So it tells me that there is some layer of belief in which it works. It doesn’t matter to me whether or not it’s psychosomatic, because I don’t put the same stock in the term ‘psychosomatic’ as a dismissal. Just because something is psychosomatic doesn’t mean it’s not real. There is a level where there is the power of mind over matter. The very existance of mind is the proof that mind over matter does exist. For instance I just picked up a pair of metal scissors on my desk and put them back down. I made a choice in my mind to manipulate iron molecules and transport them through space. My mind impacted the external physical world. This is the very essence of a placebo effect. No doubt that people’s expectations can change their perception of the effect of something. That doesn’t mean that there’s some nebulous hidden woo behind it - it is a well understood, well documented psychological effect. The more introspective and rational you are, the less such things work. This can be unfortunate sometimes when you can’t fool yourself into believing something that would ultimately be pleasant and beneficial to you. Which was part of what I was talking about in my previous post - often people feel better with a palatable reality they create for themselves and are hostile towards people who attempt as best they can to determine objective reality. > [@](#): > > As this applies to the Dope, I use the term, I think a lot of people around here have too high an opinion of their own ability to be rational. When I use the term scientism perjoratively I am referring to those who believe that science is something that belongs to them and not to others. This seems like a straw man to me - maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but I can’t think of any examples of behaviors that could be described that way by rationally inclined people. > [@](#): > > IE, **SenorBeef** engaged in the fallacy with his analysis of my thought process. He thinks that I have some problem with science itself, I don’t, not at all, none whatsoever. I didn’t engage a fallacy. I made a guess, based on what you’ve said on the board. I may be wrong, but I’m not claiming it to be rigidly logical or the absolute truth. I also didn’t mean to imply that you were against science entirely. I suspected (and you made it clear in this post) that you think science serves some role, but that there’s a metaphysical realm beyond the scientific. Effectively, this allows you to believe anything you want about existance while still claiming to believe (and probably actually believing in) the scientific process and scientific knowledge. So I was right - you don’t reject science, but you’ve decided whatever you believe is beyond the scope of science superscedes it in your world view. This can be used to justify lots of unscientific beliefs. > [@](#): > > What my problem is with people who use science as a totem for groupthink, as a way to cement belonging. They ridicule others, like myself in order to cement a bond with other individuals who share a similar outlook. This is the same sort of in-group/out-group behavior that characterizes any system of belief. Science is not a religion but Scientism IS a pseudo-religion. I partially agree with this statement. There is a tendency to relate to those with similar beliefs. And religion does serve as a way to socially bond and form communities. Atheists are left out in this regard - so it makes sense that they group with other likeminded people to form the same sort of social bonds. However, because they may be forming groups along the same lines for the same reasons does not mean the rationality of their beliefs is equal. If a group forms based on mutual interests in science and skepticism, it’s not like they suddenly lose their focus on rationality and empircism and blindly adhere uncritically to a group of beliefs. This, again, was what I posted about in my last post - trying to say “oh, those skeptics are the same as any believer, just with a different set of beliefs” > [@](#): > > In short scientism is a form of idolatry. It’s like the Groucho Marx joke, “I don’t know what is but I’m against it!”, well this is the inverse of that. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m for it! It’s Scientific!”, it’s like Science Fiction science. A love of science that treats it more like people treat mythology than as an analysis of cold hard facts. If I use the term scientism I am usually poking fun at people who think they are a lot smarter than they actually are. It’s incredibly conceited and all too common around here for people to conflate a problem I might have with a few individuals with science as though they = science. Maybe I’ll just call it trying to hide one’s idiocy behind the theory of relativity from now on. 😉 I might be able to agree or disagree if you provided examples. In general, I don’t see a lot of what you’re describing on this board. If anything, your post describes people who try to integrate scientific sounding language into their woo - like all the new age movements that attempt to use “quantum physics” to describe how their belief works - based on it sounding scientific and yet being confusing to almost everyone. Science is not a collection of facts, it’s an ideology and a method. It’s the best method we’ve devised to understand nature. Our information is incomplete and imperfect, and scientific knowledge changes to reflect that as we gain more information. I don’t think people who appreciate science essentially worship a set of facts and knowledge as sacred - I think they tend to be interested in knowledge and critical thinkers. > [@](#): > > Anyway, I’ll see how this progresses as I have very little faith that people actually wanted a serious discussion, they just wanted an excuse to talk trash about mswas and make fun of him for shit they don’t even understand and have made no serious effort to try to understand. Sir, I can assure you that I can talk trash to you and make fun of you while also giving a serious effort to understand 😛 --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-delusional-believers-and-naive-positivist-scientism/507529)._