The Science of Scientific Scientism

Dear George,

There is nothing like a rousing culture war to distract the proles while our Corporatists plunder their jobs, their wages, their benefits and their overall quality of life. Abortion and gay marriage fill this bill quite nicely, but the culture war that really brings home the bacon is the struggle between evolution and creationism. That one has a particular bite to it because it involves the corruption of our nation’s youth by the heathen forces of secularism.

Pundits like to characterize the Darwinian battle as one between science and religion, and it is important that it be framed in this manner because it helps your campaign to discredit science. Science is a threat to the Corporatist State because it deals with objective realities thus making it more difficult for your administration to create its own reality.

However, if we are to control delusion, we must understand its dynamic. So, it is necessary to point out that the evolution/creationism debate has nothing to do with either science or religion. Rather, it is a struggle between secular fundamentalists (Secfunds) and religious fundamentalists (Refunds). Both commit the error of literalizing the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis.

Both buy into the quizzled quackery of cosmic materialism. The Secfunds believe we are the product of a random series of accidents while the Refunds dress God is greasy work clothes, hand him a tool box, and set him to work constructing a world. Secfunds deny God while Refunds rob him of his omnipotence by reducing him to an itinerant tinkerer.

One warning: under no circumstances must pure science be allowed to participate in this war. Always remember the distinction between science and scientism. All science can say is that a given phenomenon cannot be confirmed scientifically, at this time. Scientism carries this a step further and states that because a given phenomenon cannot be proved scientifically, it does not exist.

Neither Secfunds nor Refunds have any understanding of the metaphor as a tool with which we understand that which is beyond scientific articulation. The reason America has such tasty culture wars over religion is that we are raised to be technicians. The technician demands a language that is explicit in its expression. “Say what you mean,” is the mantra of the technician. Consequently, they have no tolerance for metaphor. Their dogma is one word, one meaning. Poetry is a foreign language and the qualitative little more than a superstition.

I might also add that scientism is an invaluable tool in the growing debate over global warning. Because no definitive proof exists that human activity is speeding up global warming, scientism can say, with confidence, that melting polar caps are part of a natural cycle and that we can continue to befoul the earth with impunity.

Our technocratic society has given us a sterility of thought that makes the mindless dispute between Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve possible. It keeps the proles distracted while you continue to pick their pockets to pay for your foreign and domestic misadventures.

Once again, giants are roaming the earth.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones