[WikiEN-l] Response to Anthere's claims

Tue Jul 1 14:55:08 UTC 2003

RK wrote in part:

>Anthere wrote:

>>And that is no reason to disperse all the
>>non-scientific points in other articles to keep just
>>the scientific point. I think that here, that is the
>>scientism of User Royal We that makes him try to push
>>away all non-scientific points away. This is bad.

>I do not like it when people make accusations of
>"scientism".  It is a perjorative word, used to demean and
>insult.  (Anthere's charge, by the way, is false.  I am not
>an adherent of "scientism". Frankly, I have never met
>*anyone* who is.)

Back during the conflicts over [[Knowledge]],
I discussed the controversies there and in the Gaia articles
with a friend of mine (a fellow mathematics student).
What I said gave him a negative impression of RK,
which should be no surprise since I was sympathetic
to his opponents in those cases.
But I discussed only what he said and did,
never what other people had said /about/ him.
I certainly never mentioned scientism.
Yet my friend's first response was
"Sounds like scientism."  (More below.)

>Also, I have never tried to prevent these non-scientific
>points of view from being presented.  Ever.  Her claims to
>the contrary are bizarre and baseless.

Of course, Anthère above did not say that.
I'd say that you like to make science
(or philosophy in the tradition of Artistotle,
in the case of the [[Knowledge]] debate)
the core of any article that it impinges upon,
reserving other considerations for the fringes.
You also insist that science is the only (or best) judge of truth
and seem to want Wikipedia to reflect this POV.
(I say this despite my own sympathy for that POV.)
This agrees with Anthère's text above.

Now, this may or may not be what "scientism" means.
It fits with what my friend said, and with what EofT said,
but it doesn't have much to do with what's on [[Scientism]].

-- Toby