This book begins with an interesting premise; a distinction between the “simple sciences” of physics, chemistry etc. and the “complex sciences” of biology, psychology, etc. the authors argue that much of the thinking from the “simple sciences” has blead into the application of the complex sciences i.e. single-variate proximate explanations in medicine when a more effective lenses would be the complexities of evolutionary “whys”. The authors refer to this sloppy application of the wrong tools for a given problem as ‘scientism’ or interchangeably as ‘reductionism’. They also highlight several examples of this error at work, for example the problem of the mythical “average individual”. “This variation between us as individuals also contributes to the difficulty of predicting if a solution that worked for one person will work fore another.”
Scientism is loosely described by the following: “not only do we see words like ‘theory’ and ‘analyses’ wrapped around distinctly untheoretical and unanalyzed and often unanalyzable ideas, but worse we see the rise of a kind of fake numeracy in which anything that can be counted is and once you have measurement you tend to forego all further analysis. Once we have a proxy for something, a category, we think we know it. This is particularly true if the proxy is quantifiable If numbers can be attached to it, no matter how flawed those numbers might be. Furthermore, once we have a category we often stop looking outside of the categories for meaning.”
Heather then states that “Calling this scientism is a mistake … scientism is a bastardization of the tools of science” she advocated “reductionism” as a preferred term. In so doing, however, she is missing the soul of scientism. Reductionism is a valid but separate problem.
The authors ascribe the term ‘scientism’ to Friedrich Hayek, who certainly did much to popularize the term. However, C.S. Lewis, a philosopher and religious thinker, elaborated the concept before the famed economist. I don’t think the authors’ misattribution is coincidental; the soul of scientism, the “ism” suffix, is religious in nature.
Indeed this understanding underlies much of their criticism of the disciplines at odds with their thesis. The authors repeatedly criticize other scientists for blind adherence to a reductionist toolkit. “A combination of hubris and technical capacity has humans recreating this error over and over again” Hubris is the quality of trusting yourself instead of the gods. Hubris is the inability to admit when you are wrong and the source of the ism suffix. We label cultish and absolutist ideologies -ism (as in Islamism as opposed to Islam). In scientism you unquestioningly trust scientists; Scientism is the dogma of scientists. As the authors aptly noted at the end of the book, the faithful adherents of Scientism identify themselves with some echo of the slogans of “Trust The science!”.
At a BYU Commencement Address, Hugh Nibley famously remarked “’We have met here today clothed in the black robes of a false priesthood. … Why a priesthood? Because these robes originally denoted those who had taken clerical orders, and a college was a “mystery” with all the rites, secrets, oaths, degrees, tests, feasts, and solemnities that go with initiation into higher knowledge. But why false? Because it is borrowed finery, coming down to us through a long line of unauthorized imitators … and down through the centuries the robes have never failed to keep the public at a respectful distance, inspire a decent awe for the professions, and impart an air of solemnity and mystery that has been as good as money in the bank. The four faculties of Theology, Philosophy, Medicine, and Law have been the perennial seedbeds not only of professional wisdom, but [of] quackery and venality”.
Scientism then is not merely, as Hayek suggests, “slavish imitation of the method and language of Science” but also an unauthorized imitator of true religion.
The authors proceed to suggest several areas where applying reductionist simple sciences (physics, chemistry, engineering, etc.) are inferior to the evolutionary lense.
For 11 chapters the authors wove a spellbinding tale using evolutionary biology as a lens to view such diverse topics as medicine, culture, education, parenting, sleep, and food. I took notes, and much of what they said rang true and I could verify it with outside experience. Unfortunately, when it came to chapter 12 Brett lost me.
In middle school, there was a series of books that captured my attention for a while. Author Anthony Horowitz wove an enthralling tale about MI6 teen spy Alex Rider in a loosely James Bond fashion. Like many Spy Genre authors, Horwitz relied on vivid details to bring his stories to life. Over a dozen books he described missions involving the technical details of ubiquitous gun models and specifications, nuclear weapons, tsunamis, French cheeses, and an abundance of extreme sports. The last Alex Rider book I read took place in the Alps and involved a thrilling over-snow chase. Alex was mounted atop a make-shift snowboard made from sliced-up laundry implements. His pursuers were mounted on powerful black snowmobiles equipped with machine guns. The terrain was described as being very steep, densely forested, completely unskied, and chock-full of moguls: certainly a double black rating (the highest difficulty rating for ski/snowboard terrain).
Having grown up in the rural heart of the Rockies in an adventurous family, even as a middle schooler, I’d had the opportunity to ski, snowboard, snowmobile, and shoot. The scene, described by the British author (who obviously had zero experience with any of this) was patently absurd even to my novice eyes. Besides the laughable image of cutting up an ironing board and using it to traverse a double black and the greater absurdity of racing a snowmobile on such terrain (never mind shooting while driving), there was the glaringly obvious problem that moguls are formed by skiers as they weave across a slope and carve up the snow. The chase occurred on a slope supposedly densely populated with these obstacles but also had never been traversed by skiers: let alone the crowds needed to produce the phenomena. While the scene caused some tears of mirth, the thrill of Horowtiz’s writing had forever lost its appeal to me. I couldn’t take the next book at face value (dealing with sports of which I had no experience) when the one time I did know the material, Horowitz was wildly off the mark.
I’m afraid that Brett and Heather may have similarly scrapped their credibility. He began talking about markets, a field with which I have some expertise. He began well enough, correctly describing such core phenomena as Efficiency Frontiers but then started making bumbling mistakes that revealed him as a dilatant in that area. In a criticism of GDP as the univariate metric of a societies’ success, he remarked
“Imagine the introduction of a new type of refrigerator, one that would last much longer than other models, is similar in cost and is equal to them in performance. A healthy society would regard this as a good thing, as would most citizens. Reducing waste and pollution, conserving energy and materials and possibly limiting strategic vulnerabilities to the country from heavy dependence on foreign suppliers, but the effect of this fridge on the gross domestic product would be negative and so indicative of a problem.”
Before studying Econ and Business Strategy, I may have been taken in by this spurious argument; now, I can only groan in frustration. The allegory of the cheaper refrigerator is more than an interesting thought experiment; it illustrates the basis for an entire category of market competition. Firms are constantly competing with each other to produce more valuable products. A classic dimension of value is product durability. This is obvious in auto manufacturers’ race to create cars capable of lasting more miles (as evidenced by the increasing mileage warranty’s on vehicles) and spectacularly demonstrated in the mass transition from incandescent lightbulbs to LEDs, much longer lasting and more energy efficient. Indeed, both consumers and firms, including firms dedicated to ranking the quality (including durability) of products, such as JD powers, have a vested market interest in producing and consuming products, including refrigerators, that last longer. Capitalism does produce a society that would value Brett’s refrigerator.
However, as framed, Brett’s argument isn’t about individuals’ incentives, it’s about a centralized “society” disincentivized to pursue such innovation because it would lower GDP. I take issue with this unit of analysis, but I’m willing to meet Dr. Winestein on his chosen playing field. This category of innovation has a storied and well-studied history. It’s called “sustaining innovation”. Empirically, such innovations do not lower GDP. For example, an increase in computing power relative to cost doesn’t mean we buy fewer silicon chips to do the same amount of computing; it means we buy more computing power for the same amount of money. In turn that computing produces more value as measured by emergent transactions and therefore GDP goes up. The same could be said for lighting more and driving more (both things Brett mentions as negative). We agree that human consumption is constrained by the availability of resources, but Brett would seem to argue that it’s also constrained by what we “need”. Not so. It’s only constrained by what we can imagine; the human imagination is a long way from its limits. Brett goes on to formally rail against Planned Obsolescence, which is a total boogeyman.
Another faux pas I detected came as the authors were describing Cornucopianism in the technological frontier. They first acknowledged that the frontier is currently not a zero-sum game and compared it to early Americans filling the unexplored continent. The error comes when they posit that the frontier of technological achievement, like it’s hunter gatherer analog, will certainly meet with an uncrossable ocean. Brett cited the physical limitations on computing imposed by the size of the electron as evidence for the eventual collapse of the frontier into a zero-sum game. Yet again, he demonstrates ultracrepidarianism in this field. Both photon computing (photons are far smaller than electrons) and quantum computing, offer avenues to bypass the limits of the electron as a limiting unit of computing. Yet again, I would argue human production is only constrained by human imagination; and I mean that technically.
These errors are discouraging when I want to have found a thinker I can admire and imitate. I suppose a role model doesn’t have to be perfect to be imitable. Indeed theses errors are almost forgivable in light of the premise of scientism. Unfortunately, the Weinstein tribe seems to have swapped out one form of Scientism (reductionism) for another (Evolutionaryism?). consider these quotes, and mentally replace ‘evolution’ with “God, Allah, The Universe”, or any other unquestionable higher power, and you’ll find that each statement works equally well. Their application of evolutionary theory rests on a priori dogma that has blinded them to other possibilities.
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (Original quote by Theodosius Dobzhansky)
The appendix, we are told now, is vestigial. But vestigial is often code for “we don’t know what the function is”. has evolution really left us with an organ that is nothing but cost, poses risks to our health and can relatively easily be surgically removed? As it turns out the answer is no. Of course the answer is no…” – Why ‘of course’ unless you have a religious fervor about evolution to create the best of all possible worlds? What about evolution indicates ‘finished product’?
“Anything with a simple biochemical switch would almost certainly have been solved by selection by now if it were possible without triggering unacceptable tradeoffs, and if the problem being solved were really a problem.”
“In our quest for set and forget rubrics, we fall pray to reductionist thinking. What we need instead is flexible, logic based, evolutionary thinking with which to navigate.”
In the 21st century, nearly everyone accepts that evolution has created or limbs and our livers, our hair and our hearts, yet, many people still object when evolutionary theory is invoked to explain behavior or culture.“
“When all you have is a knife, a pill, and a shot, the whole world looks as though it would benefit from being cut and medicated” -Heather
And apparently when all you have is a copy of “on the origins of man” all the world looks to be in disarray “except in the light of evolution”.