Scientism, philosophy, and the Big Bang

Regular readers of this blog and my main one both know that I like to comment at times on the issue of "scientism," which is, in a nutshell, certain scientists overblown claims for science, that it has explanatory power, or will at some day, and explanatory frameworks for many things that are rightly regarded as philosophical.

Aesthetics would be a great example.

"De gustibus non disputandum" Romans said 2,000 years ago, and it's just as true today.

Science has basically nothing to tell — certainly, hard sciences have basically nothing to tell — about why I think Mozart is overrated by many people. He IS and you shut up!

In some instances, the social sciences may indeed have some explanatory value, but even there, it's overblown. The hard sciences, though, are where scientism really hits the road.

And, last week, with Roger Penrose getting the Physics Nobel for his work on black holes, his naysayers on his anti-Big Bang ideas popped up.

I have little doubt Ethan Siegal knows cosmology well. Philosophy, including philosophy of science or more narrowly, philosophy of physics, )per the likes of Massimo Pigluicci postulating "philosophies of ..." for separate hard sciences at least) not so much, it would seem, per this anti-Penrose diatribe.

He says, near the end:

This presents a tremendous challenge for cosmology, and for science in general. In science, when we see some phenomena that our theories cannot explain, we have two options. 

1. We can attempt to devise a theoretical mechanism to explain those phenomena, while simultaneously maintaining all the successes of the prior theory and making novel predictions that are distinct from the prior theory’s predictions. 

2. Or we can simply assume that there is no explanation, and the Universe was simply born with the properties necessary to give us the Universe we observe. 

Only the first approach has scientific value, and therefore that’s the one that must be tried, even if it fails to yield fruit.

Uhh, wrong!

Accepting there is no explanation is itself of scientific value. It cuts down on possible pseudoscience; it allows scientific inquiry to be directed more productively, and other things.

And, in terms of philosophy of science, it leads to some epistemic humility. (That itself is something lacking in spades among many scientism practitioners.)

Siegal needs to read himself some early Wittgenstein and learn when to be silent.

Now, at times, explanations manifest themselves years or decades later. Planck's solving of the blackbox radiation problem, directly tied to Siegel's post, is one such answer.

BUT.

Even that is not guaranteed. Siegel acting like scientific answers are guaranteed is textbook scientism.