ABSTRACT
This chapter emphasizes the widespread occurrence of scientific fundamentalism across almost all the sciences, and the damaging effects that can occur when this is allowed to influence social practice. In the religious context, fundamentalism broadly can be seen as a movement emphasizing strict adherence to basic principles, accompanied by a belief in the infallibility of some literally interpreted holy books and associated doctrine. In the Christian case, it has stressed the infallibility and historical accuracy of the Bible, and so is very hostile to literary criticism. Another form of scientism, and therefore also of fundamentalism, is the reduction of human motivation and action to the products of pure reason. Fundamentalism in this sense is one of the most ancient of human traits, a problem across all subjects and across the ages. Another clash of fundamentalisms as regard human nature is that between the cultural and biological views. The chapter argues that reductionism is another form of scientific fundamentalism.
