ABSTRACT
The culture into which the Creel Committee was introduced was turbulent and divided. From 1865 to 1900, 100 million immigrants had entered the United States. Science was delivering the goods. The impersonal, objective, and efficient values as measured by money and science were widely seen as the path to social progress. Science would bring order, understanding, and predictable modification to human world. Veblen describes the implications of what he saw as a 'matter-of-fact' culture emerging in 'modern civilization' under the sign of science. In machine age, Veblen argues, the causes at work are conceived of in 'a highly impersonal way'. Men have learned to think in the terms in which the technological processes act. Veblen demonstrates that the provenance of pragmatic knowledge is entirely different from that of science. The various confusions among science, method, technology, and knowledge in evidence in early 20th century America can be explained by the rise of pragmatism as the philosophical foundations of American scientism.
