scientisms

Noun

scientism (countable and uncountable, plural scientisms)

1. The belief that the scientific method and the assumptions and research methods of the physical sciences are applicable to all other disciplines (such as the humanities and social sciences), or that those other disciplines are not as valuable.
   • Finally, with good reason, this psychology aims to be a psychology of a purely empiriological type. It is pervaded and overwhelmed on every side, however, by a pseudometaphysics of the most vulgar character, which Freud is all the less anxious to dispense with as he imagines he has no philosophy or...1964, Jacques Maritain, “Freudianism and Psychoanalysis [Freudisme et psychanalyse]”, in William Birmingham, Joseph E. Cunneen, editors, Cross Currents of Psychiatry and Catholic Morality, page 351
2. The belief that all truth is exclusively discovered through science.
3. (rare) A pseudoscience.
   • The line is straight out of eugenics, the deeply dishonest scientism that in the early 20th century convinced many people that criminality, poverty and a host of other ills were all inherited.2024 October 14, Dan Vergano, “Trump’s Racist Rants against Immigrants Hide under the Language of Eugenics”, in Scientific American, archived from the original on 14 Oct 2024