Scientism

[Eric the Green]

(07-07-2019, 07:14 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Academics have always tended toward socialism, and starting with boomer academics, have had no problem with using their professorships to brainwash their students.

But Bill's question is whether Democrats are believers in scientism.

"the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methodology and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measured or confirmatory."

from brower's post.

This is a more basic critique than Bill's good points about how supposed "science" can be used to support bad value judgements.

Some of us of the Green meme persuasion are against scientism, but still accept, refer to and laud science when not accompanied or directed by the philosophy of scientism.

Democrats today usually are cohorts of what I call the Lemon meme. That is the Orange meme of Spiral dynamics, but in it's later form which emphasizes socialism or the promotion of social programs and collective responsibility as a corrective to the excesses of Orange in its original form, which was individualist, competitive market capitalism as well as supportive of democratic and classical liberal values.

Academics are usually the best informed and most concerned people in our country, and are intellectual. So they inclined toward both aspects of the Lemon meme: its social concern and altruism, and its tendency toward scientism and physicalism. That is not true of all academics, however. Some may be Orange, and some may be Green. And the brainwashing consists mostly of just passing on what they know to their students. 

People outside the academy, whether former or current students or faculty, or much more likely to be Republicans or Trump supporters, as polls show. From the liberal Lemon or Green point of view, their lack of education contributes to their liability to be brainwashed by the memes promoted by traditionalists (such as religious right promoters of the Blue meme) and the wealthy elite (promoters of trickle-down economics and destruction of the welfare state).

The "shift" Bill mentions toward support of science among Democrats is largely due to how conservatives have used unscientific notions to promote the views of these two elites. The religious right is used to suppress freedom movements like feminism and LGBTQ rights, and the trickle-downers oppose and deny climate science because government programs to deal with climate change might bring down more taxes and regulations on their business and financial schemes.