Difference between Science and Scientism

Well, depending on how literally you want us to read this, it is demonstrably false.Nobody (to my knowledge) has ever claimed that science is the best way to get to truths in many different areas. Aesthetics, for example. Some may claim an ability for science to get to truths in morals and ethics, but I've never seen a compelling argument in favor of the idea, and the vast majority of those who have considered the idea have rejected it.Most scientists, I think, would reject the notion that science has anything relevant to say about whether gods exist. The question of the existence of god is one of faith and, as such, is outside the realm of scientific inquiry. Here, I think, you are relying on a shifting of meaning.Science "explains" the supernatural by, in effect, showing how the same result can be achieved without appeal to the supernatural. In essence, science explains the supernatural by eliminating it. As applied to your example, science attempts to show how the idea of gods can appeal to humans even in the absence of any such being.In addition, I think that your thesis is vulnerable to attack by pointing out that it appears you are trying to make a boogie man out of Darwinism. You are broadly correct when you point out that pre-Darwin, science was based on a creation paradigm. (BTW, I'm quite unclear exactly what you mean by paradigm. In a few places, your usage is inconsistent with any definition of the term that I've ever seen.) And, you are broadly correct when you point out that post-Darwin, science instead is empirically based and incorporates the idea of methodological naturalism. However, by saying it in the way that you do, it appears that you are attempting to lay the "blame" for this shift at the feet of Darwinism. You certainly offer no argument in support of this thesis, and it's not one that is obviously true. Instead, science gradually moved away from the idea of attributing causes to gods, replacing that with methodological naturalism, and evolution was part of that movement. But it certainly wasn't the only, or even necessarily the main, driving force. It was a realization that goddidit was unsatisfying as an explanation and useless as a basis for predictions, but that empirical investigation was superior for both purposes.If you do intend to blame Darwin for this shift, either exclusively or primarily, you need to provide support for that claim. If you do not, you need to rework your thesis to avoid giving the impression that you are trying to blame Darwin.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Every once in a while, you write something that makes it sound like you actually want to have a constructive conversation with someone. Then you go and ruin it all with swill like this: You'd be a lot more likely to get people to engage you in an intelligent exchange of ideas if you could refrain from sounding like an arrogant ass.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Tentatively. This is hardly your first time here, or the first time you'd acted this way, so we'll see how long you behave. Yes, you frequently rely on shifting things around, as we see later on in the very same post. I didn't say that. I said Science explains supernatural phenomenon only to the extent that it is capable of showing how a claimed example of a supernatural phenomenon is actually quite mundane. I refuse to go down that rabbit hole with you again unless and until you provide specific examples from scientific publications where a scientist working in the field of biology claims that any statement about the existence or non-existence of god is a necessary part of the ToE. Too many people have tried too hard in the past to engage you on this topic and found there was nothing there to refute but your own idiosyncratic ideas about what the ToE and science consist of and, quite frankly, I have no interest in discussing your idiosyncracies any longer. Even assuming the figures you provide at the end of that quote are true, that rather misses the larger point that I was making.I will agree with you for purposes of this thread that Darwin's work effected an overhaul of biology, but this thread is about science as a whole, not just biology. The fact that there was one seminal piece in one field of science is completely insufficient to show that it was single handedly responsible for a complete revolution in all of science. All you have here is a fuzzy description of a rather small piece of the history of scientific investigation to which you have grafted a particularly egregious example of post hoc, ergo propter hoc.There simply are no conclusions to be drawn from your tiny little slice absent a much fully exploration of the topic, including an in depth analysis of what was happened at the same time, and many generations before and after that, in other fields of science.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Quite to be expected, since in fact it is.You really need to ponder your statement for a time. Those who are most informed about the ToE believe that it is neutral toward the supernatural. In other words, they believe it takes no position on the existence or nonexistence of god.You don't suppose you could have been in error all this time when you thought otherwise, do you?

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat