http://www.sciam.com/2002/0602issue/0602skeptic.html
The Shamans of Scientism
by Michael Shermer
In 1998 God appeared at Caltech.
More precisely, the scientific equivalent of the deity, in the form of
Stephen W. Hawking, delivered a public lecture via his now familiar voice
synthesizer. The 1,100-seat auditorium was filled; an additional 400 viewed
a video feed in another hall, and hundreds more squatted on the lawn and
listened to theater speakers broadcasting this scientific saint's epistle to
the apostles.
The lecture was slated for 8 P.M. By three o'clock a line began to snake
around the grassy quad adjoining the hall. By five, hundreds of scientists
flipped Frisbees and chatted with students from Caltech and other
universities.
When Hawking rolled into the auditorium and down the aisle in his motorized
wheelchair, everyone rose in applause--a "standing O" just for showing up!
The sermon was his customary one on the big bang, black holes, time and the
universe, with the theology coming in the question-and-answer period. Here
was an opportunity to inquire of a transcendent mind the biggest question of
all: "Is there a God?"
Asked this ultimately unanswerable question, Hawking sat rigidly in his
chair, stone quiet, his eyes darting back and forth across the computer
screen. A minute, maybe two, went by. Finally, a wry smile formed and the
Delphic oracle spoke: "I do not answer God questions."
What is it about Hawking that draws us to him as a scientific saint? He is,
I believe, the embodiment of a larger social phenomenon known as scientism.
Scientism is a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations
for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and
embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life
appropriate for an Age of Science.
Scientism's voice can best be heard through a literary genre for both lay
readers and professionals that includes the works of such scientists as Carl
Sagan, E. O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond.
Scientism is a bridge spanning the abyss between what physicist C. P. Snow
famously called the "two cultures" of science and the arts/humanities
(neither encampment being able to communicate with the other). Scientism has
generated a new literati and intelligentsia passionately concerned with the
profound philosophical, ideological and theological implications of
scientific discoveries.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----This being the Age of Science, it is scientism's shamans who command our veneration.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Although the origins of the scientism genre can be traced to the writings of Galileo and Thomas Huxley in centuries past, its modern incarnation began in the early 1970s with mathematician Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, took off in the 1980s with Sagan's Cosmos and hit pay dirt in the 1990s with Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which spent a record 200 weeks on the Sunday Times of London's hardcover best-seller list and sold more than 10 million copies in 30-plus languages worldwide. Hawking's latest work, The Universe in a Nutshell, is already riding high on the best-seller list.
Hawking's towering fame is a result of a concatenation of variables that include the power of the scientism culture in which he writes, his creative insights into the ultimate nature of the cosmos, in which he dares to answer ersatz theological questions, and, perhaps most notably, his unmitigated heroism in the face of near-insurmountable physical obstacles that would have felled a lesser being. But his individual success in particular, and the rise of scientism in general, reveals something deeper still.
First, cosmology and evolutionary theory ask the ultimate origin questions that have traditionally been the province of religion and theology. Scientism is courageously proffering naturalistic answers that supplant supernaturalistic ones and in the process is providing spiritual sustenance for those whose needs are not being met by these ancient cultural traditions. Second, we are, at base, a socially hierarchical primate species. We show deference to our leaders, pay respect to our elders and follow the dictates of our shamans; this being the Age of Science, it is scientism's shamans who command our veneration. Third, because of language we are also storytelling, mythmaking primates, with scientism as the foundational stratum of our story and scientists as the premier mythmakers of our time.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Sep 22 2002 - 05:06:14 MDT