Why are these so many logical positivists and scientism supporters around these days? What happened? Are we re-running the 20th century but with a different random seed and the tech BS parameter set higher?
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I think I see what you mean. Dawkins and deGrasse Tyson have said some very silly things about philosophy, for example. The only pop scientist I can think for your challenge is Sean Carroll, though that depends on what you mean by pop scientist.
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Just a reminder: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism …
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I don't know whether Dawkins and deGrasse Tyson endorse logical positivism itself, but they certainly have expressed views suggestive of scientism. I know that accusations of scientism are often thrown around in an asinine manner, but there exist some genuine examples of it.
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I do know and they are not logical positivists by any stretch of the imagination. 1 Many people are deep essentialists and focus on “what matters”. 2 Some are much more existentialist (Dawkins: gradualist) and focus on “what is”. 1 will accuse 2 of scientism.
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This article is written by a 1 on Dawkins, who is as 2 as people get: https://www.philosophersmag.com/footnotes-to-plato/108-richard-dawkins … The article seem to address content sometimes but doesn’t actually. But also highlights perception, what people experience, etc.; thinks TGD is bad theology.
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I'm not sure that Pigliucci would accept the label of "essentialist", though that too depends on what you mean by it. In any case, I think he has said something worthwhile against scientismhttps://aeon.co/essays/the-string-theory-wars-show-us-how-science-needs-philosophy …
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I don’t think he is the first example of an essentialist, no. But compared to Dawkins almost everybody is. The questions to ask are: is it factually wrong? Is it morally wrong? Is it perceptually wrong? Dawkins isn’t often wrong on the first two. But acts like a butcher on last.
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(And another mistake in Gould/Dawkins is to think Dawkins is a reductionist. Genes are what replicate, that drives all other effects. But cooperating genes are better than any single gene. System effects are important but not primary.)
End of conversation
New conversation -
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None are. But I am sure you will give us an example and an argument, then we can see.
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