I recently had an extended conversation with a young person who was totally convinced that science had all the answers to everything. Quite a claim. It was near impossible to develop a dialogue. Science as the explanation for all of life is referred to as ‘scientism’.

This issue of ‘scientism’ or science as religion is addressed in an excellent article by Age writer Barney Zwartz. Here’s a sampler:

Where Lightman really impressed me was his acknowledgement that science, as a  philosophical commitment rather than the specific practice of it, also requires  a leap of faith. He talks of the “Central Doctrine of science”: “all properties  and events in the physical universe are governed by laws, and those laws are  true at every time and place in the universe. Although scientists do not talk  explicitly about this doctrine, and my doctoral thesis advisor never mentioned  it once to his graduate students, the Central Doctrine is the invisible oxygen  that scientists breathe.”

Thus, the doctrine goes, though we do not know all the fundamental laws now,  and what we do know may change (as Einstein’s law of gravity replaced Newton’s),  they exist and are in principle discoverable by humans. But of course, as  Lightman admits, this cannot be proved. It is, as I said, a leap of faith.

Read Barney Zwartz’s excellent article (and some of the 235 comments!): Science as religion.

See my brief post, Science and faith.