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Approaches superior to scientism include logic and reason, [[Romanticism]], [[faith]], and real science that does not assume what it pretends to prove.

Approaches superior to scientism include logic and reason, [[Romanticism]], [[faith]], and real science that does not assume what it pretends to prove.

According to [[Discovery Institute]], scientism is an effort to use the methods of science to explain and control every part of human life, in other words, the misguided effort to apply science to areas outside its proper bounds.<ref name="Magician">{{cite web |title=The Magician's Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society - Product Description|author=N/A |publisher=Discovery Institute Press |url=http://astore.amazon.com/discoveryinsti12-20/detail/1936599058 |accessdate= November 30, 2014 |quote=Belontemporary writers probe Lewis's warnings about the dehumanizing impact of scientism on ethics, politics, faith, reason, and science itself. Issues explored include Lewis's views on bioethics, eugenics, evolution, intelligent design, and what he called "scientocracy."}}</ref> [[C.S. Lewis]] was skeptical and highly critical of scientism as an ideology which in his view was confused with science and which tried to [[Reductionism|reduce]] everything that we can learn scientifically to materialistic blind undirected causes.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Magician's Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism|publisher=DiscoveryInstgician"/>

According to [[Discovery Institute]], scientism is an effort to use the methods of science to explain and control every part of human life, in other words, the misguided effort to apply science to areas outside its proper bounds.<ref name="Magician">{{cite web |title=The Magician's Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society - Product Description|author=N/A |publisher=Discovery Institute Press |url=http://astore.amazon.com/discoveryinsti12-20/detail/1936599058 |accessdate= November 30, 2014 |quote=Belontemporary writers probe Lewis's warnings about the dehumanizing impact of scientism on ethics, politics, faith, reason, and science itself. Issues explored include Lewis's views on bioethics, eugenics, evolution, intelligent design, and what he called "scientocracy."}}</ref> [[C.S. Lewis]] was skeptical and highly critical of scientism as an ideology which in his view was confused with science and which tried to [[Reductionism|reduce]] everything that we can learn scientifically to materialistic blind undirected causes.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Magician's Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism|publisher=DiscoveryInstgician"/></ref>

Scientism cannot be proven to be true through science itself, rendering it incomplete at best.<ref>[http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-scientism-self-refuting Is scientism self-refuting] by William Lane Craig</ref>  For other significant problems with scientism as far as its unworkability, please see [[William Lane Craig]]'s commentary on scientism entitled [http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-scientism-self-refuting "Is scientism self-refuting?"]

Scientism cannot be proven to be true through science itself, rendering it incomplete at best.<ref>[http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-scientism-self-refuting Is scientism self-refuting] by William Lane Craig</ref>  For other significant problems with scientism as far as its unworkability, please see [[William Lane Craig]]'s commentary on scientism entitled [http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-scientism-self-refuting "Is scientism self-refuting?"]

== Debunking Scientism ==

== Debunking Scientism ==

Scientism is in essence a [[gnostic]] culture applied onto realms of science hence scientism can be often debunked by pointing to the gnostic traits. As such it also exhibits many characteristics of [[moral relativism]]. For example, moral relativism doesn't follow its own rules, the rules it judges everyone else by.<ref name="Dobson">{{cite book

Scientism is in essence a [[gnostic]] culture applied onto realms of science hence scientism can be often debunked by pointing to the gnostic traits. As such it also exhibits many characteristics of [[moral relativism]]. For example, moral relativism doesn't follow its own rules, the rules it judges everyone else by.<ref>Dobson</ref>

   

   

=== Vagueness and word-spinning ===

=== Vagueness and word-spinning ===

Gnostic works are marked by [[psychological manipulation|manipulative]] vagueness, word-spinning and tedium, so is scientism. On top of that, it usurps the right to be labeled as "modern," yet it is in many respects expressing merely modernized pagan beliefs under the fig leaf of "science," it is often meticulous in detail and yet bristling with [[contradiction]]s and tendentious arguments, boldly [[Logic of possibility|imaginative]] and yet often already outdated.<ref name="Rappaport1997">{{cite book |title=When Geologists Where Historians, 1665-1750 |author=Rhoda Rappaport |publisher=Cornell University Press |place=Ithaca and London |year=1997 |pages=232 |isbn=978-0801-433863 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=30U3W2kI7foC |quote=}}</ref>  For example, the textbook legend of [[James Hutton|H on his wishful, speculative confusion of geological process with Newtonian physics....Hutton and Lyell were dedicated not to modern notions of geological dynamism but to antique ones of geological steady-state...The textbook legend of Hutton and Lyell seems dim and confused compared with that of Copernicus and Galileo.}}</ref> Another proponent of scientism, [[Darwin]], wrote books in a way that they were compared to a Victorian curiosity shop where the main message was somewhat lost in the clutter.<ref name="Larson">{{cite book

Gnostic works are marked by [[psychological manipulation|manipulative]] vagueness, word-spinning and tedium, so is scientism. On top of that, it usurps the right to be labeled as "modern," yet it is in many respects expressing merely modernized pagan beliefs under the fig leaf of "science," it is often meticulous in detail and yet bristling with [[contradiction]]s and tendentious arguments, boldly [[Logic of possibility|imaginative]] and yet often already outdated.<ref>{{cite book |title=When Geologists Where Historians, 1665-1750 |author=Rhoda Rappaport |publisher=Cornell University Press |place=Ithaca and London |year=1997 |pages=232 |isbn=978-0801-433863 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=30U3W2kI7foC |quote=}}</ref>  For example, the textbook legend of [[James Hutton]] on his wishful, speculative confusion of geological process with Newtonian physics....Hutton and Lyell were dedicated not to modern notions of geological dynamism but to antique ones of geological steady-state...The textbook legend of Hutton and Lyell seems dim and confused compared with that of Copernicus and Galileo.}}</ref> Another proponent of scientism, [[Darwin]], wrote books in a way that they were compared to a Victorian curiosity shop where the main message was somewhat lost in the clutter.<ref name="Larson">{{cite book

|author=E.J. Larson

|author=E.J. Larson

|title=Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory

|title=Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory