ABSTRACT
Our focus has been on Scientism and we have seen that it takes a number of different forms. We have critically assessed three of these forms of Scientism. We have found scientists that attempt to expand the boundaries of science, by claiming that (T1) the only kind of knowledge we can have is scientific knowledge, that (T2) the only things that exist are the ones science has access to, and that (T3) science alone can answer our moral questions and explain as well as replace traditional ethics. We now come to a fourth kind of Scientism, what I in Chapter 1 called ‘existential Scientism’, namely the idea that (T4) science alone can answer our existential questions and explain as well as replace traditional religion. The idea is that science cannot merely explain religion but also in some sense take its place; it can in the terminology of traditional religions, offer us salvation. We can and must put our faith in science or more exactly in scientific materialism (or scientific naturalism). Two key advocates for this kind of view are Richard Dawkins and Edward O. Wilson, and in what follows we shall critically assess their interesting and provocative claims.
