Ten Arguments for Scientism

A view that is widely popular in the academy and in popular science writing these days is scientism, roughly, the view that only science provides true knowledge. In one of the stronger versions, advocated by Alex Rosenberg and Richard Dawkins, natural science reliably delivers knowledge, whereas common sense sources of belief, such as moral intuition, memory, religious experience, and introspection, do not. In this talk, we discuss ten reasons that scientists and philosophers have put forward in defence of scientism. The aim is to show that many reasons that are often considered as good reasons to embrace scientism do not count in favour of scientism at all. The talk concludes by stating what such a significantly weaker version of scientism would amount to and provide some suggestions as to how Christians can deal with scientism when they encounter it in their own field.