As far as my observation goes, the most common stereotype about New Atheists is the alleged Sciencism of New Atheists. One of the Jester’s Privileges Neotheists enjoy is to be able to attribute smirches into New Atheists without citing them, without quoting them, without backing it up, without demonstrating it, without defending it or without any reference. Today, we will explore one hoax of New Theism: That New Atheism relying on Sciencism and we will see New Theists do not back up their claims and at time they attempt, they fail badly.

In this blog, I am using a slightly different terminology for a person who adheres to the principle that science is the only way of knowing. This view is named scientism and its adherents are called scientists but in order to avoid ambiguity, I am going to use sciencism and sciencist.

The allegation on New Atheists being Sciencist, is the one with Jester’s privilege: Just stigmatize New Atheists of being sciencist (or anything you want), and that is all: You can get away with it, no one will ask for citation, they do not even understand that claims need to be backed up. Here, unlike New Theists, I will quote them and give references. On this hoax, as you will see here, there are many New Theists, that assert that the New Atheists are sciencists, do not derive their conclusions from the words and acts of New Atheists, New Theists do not quote a view of New Atheists and demonstrate that the quoted view corresponds to sciencism – New Theists either just describe New Atheists as sciencists or they make fallacious, irrelevant and wrong conclusions when they barely cite. They almost never point out a view or a behaviour of New Atheists that allegedly corresponds to Sciencism.

First, let me clarify several things: There is nothing wrong with being sciencist – that is not something I am objecting to here. Rather, to stigmatize New Atheists as sciencist, in order to discredit New Atheists in the eyes of those who think that sciencism is wrong, is what I am objecting to here. In a sense, I am exposing one of the lies of New Theists. Now, we shall begin by defining what sciencism is, what constitutes sciencism etc. Unless stated otherwise explicitly, all emphasises on the quotes are added by me.

SCIENCISM

If you look at some definitions on the internet, Wikipedia for example, sciencism is summed up as “the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality“. But, we shall evaluate it in our context, which is that of New Theists, sciencism is the view that science is the only way of learning the reality we are in.

Indeed, when responding to New Theists, Victor Stenger defined sciencism (2009, chapter: The New Atheism Summarized) as such:

Theistic critics accuse New Atheism of “scientism,” which is the principle that science is the only means that can be used to learn about the world and humanity

In another chapter, Stenger made similar definition:

The atheist view is not what some believers derogatorily call “scientism,” the view that science is the only source ofknowledge.

New Theist Crhistopher Cotter quotes Massimo Pigliucci’s definition:

a totalizing attitude that regards science as the ultimate standard and arbiter of all interesting questions; or alternatively that seeks to expand the very definition and scope of science to encompass all aspects of human knowledge and understanding.

New Theist Edward Feser also gives similar definition (2008, chapter 3, the section “What Aquinas did not say):

Of course, they might respond by claiming that scientific reasoning, and
maybe mathematical reasoning too, are the only legitimate kinds, and seek thereby to rule out metaphysical arguments from the get go. But there are two problems with this view (which is known as “scientism” or “positivism”).

To summarize, What New Theists mean when they assert that Candid Atheists are sciencists is that Candid Atheists hold the idea that science is the only way of acquiring knowledge. Now, let us proceed into assertions.

The hoax: “New Atheists are sciencists”

As seen from above, in order to conclude that New Atheists are Sciencists, New Theists have to demonstrate us that New Atheists have a view/principle on science being the sole way of acquiring knowledge or New Atheists dismissing everything other than science. Let us review the assertions by the New Theists and see how none of them even attempts to demonstrate that any view held by the New Atheists corresponds to Sciencism.

In the first sub-heading of the first chapter of his supposed refutation of New Atheism, New Theist Ed Feser (2008) accuses us (New Atheists) of holding the view that “the only rational considerations relevant to the question [of god’s existence] are scientific ones, rather than philosophical” but he makes no citation, no quotation, no excerpt, no any kind of backing up or demonstrating this assertion of his – nothing. He just asserts so and does nothing.

Like Ed Feser, John Gray (2018) similarly asserts that “The new atheists are unwitting disciples of Comte’s Positivist philosophy.” And again, just like Ed Feser, John Gray does not back up his claim, nor does he see a need to do so: like most New Theists, John Gray too stigmatizes New Atheists baselessly.

In his article named “New Atheism and its critics“, Whitley Kaufman talks about criticisms directed at New Atheism, characterizes it as “scientis” but unlike New Theists, Whitley Kaufman gives references (despite misquoting them, which I will demonstrate in the next section). Here is the attempt of Whitley Kaufman:

The New Atheist position may be characterized as “scientism”: the conviction that science is the only true source of knowledge, a position overwhelmingly rejected by contemporary philosophers. Jerry Coyne even insists that no
other academic disciplines such as social science, literature, philosophy, and even mathematics can produce any knowledge at all, except when they use the methods followed by “professional scientists” (2015, p. 186). Dawkins
goes so far as to characterize scientists as a “specialists in what is true about the world” (2003, p. 284).

Christopher R. Cotter (2017) states that “the New Atheists’ engagement with religion is akin to scientism” and he cites two New Theist authors who described New Atheists as such but offers nothing to demonstrate his claim other than quoting the two even though he states the following in the section 3.6.3 “Finally, I wish to turn to the widespread notion that the New Atheists are proponents of closed-minded scientism“. Cotter continues:

An argument connecting New Atheism with scientism is convincingly advanced in Pigliucci (2013), and by Stephen LeDrew who states that ‘Popular Atheism today is becoming more and more indistinguishable from scientism and a drive to secure the cognitive, moral and ultimately political authority of the natural sciences’ (2012, 71). Thus, without going into these arguments in any more detail, in what follows I shall simply assume that ‘New Atheism’ and scientism’ are effectively interchangeable.

As you see, this New Theist too does not see a need for backing up his claim – they just take it for granted. Cotter proceeds on arguing that sciencism is closed-mindedness. As he does not offer anything to demonstrate that New Atheism corresponds to Sciencism, let us appeal to the two New Theist authors he appeals to: Pigliucci (2013) and Stephen LeDrew (2012). The article by LeDrew that was quoted by Cotter is “The Evolution of Atheism Scientific and Humanistic Approaches.” There, LeDrew boldly asserts the following:

Popular atheism today is becoming more and more indistinguishable from scientism and a drive to secure the cognitive, moral and ultimately political authority of the natural sciences, and thus betrays a long tradition of humanistic atheism derived from Enlightenment moral and socio-political critiques and later socialist projects

Contrary to Cotter’s bold assertion, LeDrew’s work offers no argument connecting New Atheism into Sciencism. LeDrew talks of Michael J. Buckley’s work on arguing that atheism emerging from the harmony of religion and science. And then, he talks of impact of Newton’s discoveries on science-religion relations but offers nothing to back up the assertion that New Atheists seeing science as the only way of acquiring knowledge. He goes onto narrating the evolutiuon of Scientific Atheism, Humanitarian Atheism, New Atheism etc but offers nothing to demonstrate that New Atheists are Sciencist. With that said, let us look into Cotter’s second resort: Massimo Piggliucci’s work titled New Atheism and the Scientistic Turn in the Atheism Movement. There, finally, there is a New Theist who understands that assertions should be backed-up. Here is his attempt:

The New Atheism approach to criticizing religion relies much more forcefully on science than on philosophy. Indeed, a good number of New Atheists (the
notable exception being, of course, Daniel Dennett) is on record explicitly belittling philosophy as a source of knowledge or insight. Dawkins says that the “God hypothesis” should be treated as a falsifiable scientific hypothesis; Stenger
explicitly—in the very subtitle of his book—states that “Science shows that God
does not exist” (my emphasis); and Harris later on writes a whole book in which he pointedly ignores two and a half millennia of moral philosophy in an attempt to convince his readers that moral questions are best answered by science (more on this below). All of these are, to my way of seeing things, standard examples of scientism. Scientism here is defined as a totalizing attitude that regards science as the ultimate standard and arbiter of all interesting questions; or alternatively that seeks to expand the very definition and scope of science to encompass all aspects of human knowledge and understanding.

So, after finally finding a New Theist that understands that assertions should be backed up, let us proceed with rebutting the hoax.

No, New Atheism Is Not Sciencism

I want to start by pointing out the New Atheist who directly and explicitly debunked this hoax of New Theists.

Enlightenment, rationalist and free-thought proponent Victor Stenger debunked this myth of anti-rationalist and free-thought opponent New Theists and challenged them to show a single case where New Atheists demanded that everything should be scientifically established. Let us begin with Victor Stenger’s (2009) challenge to New Theists:

Theistic critics accuse New Atheism of “scientism,” which is the principle that science is the only means that can be used to learn about the world and humanity. They cannot quote a single new atheist who has said that.

Here, Stenger explicitly states that New Theists who allege that New Atheists are sciencists can not quote a single New Atheist who has made such demand. Stenger continues:

We fully recognize the value of and participate in other realms of thought and activity such as art, music, literature, poetry, and moral philosophy. At the same time, where observed phenomena are at issue, we insist that scientific method has a proper role. This includes questions of the supernatural and the existence of any god who actively engages in the affairs of the universe.

And those are not the only case where Stenger rebutted this hoax of New Theists. Here is another case from the same book:

The atheist view is not what some believers derogatorily call “scientism,” the view that science is the only source of knowledge. Atheists appreciate the beauty of art, music, and poetry as much as believers, along with the joys of love, friendship, parenthood, and other human relationships. We love
life even more than the believer, because that is all we have. We only insist that when anyone makes a claim about the world of our senses, that science and reason be allowed to test that claim.

As can be seen from Stenger’s statements, there is no such thing as “everything should be tested on science” – rather, we argue that the assertion of “there existing a god” is a scientifically testable assertion and we New Atheists do not assert it without any back-up, contrary to New Theists. Victor Stenger for example has an article named God Is A Testable Hypothesis in which Stenger argues and elaborates that some asserted traits of god is empirically testable and demonstrable.

Let us, for a moment, assume that the existence of god is not scientifically testable in any way and Stenger’s elaboration is refuted (like Ryan Falcioni attempted), how does that make us sciencist? Demanding god be proven scientifically does not correspond,nor entail, to demanding everything be scientifically proven, nor does equate to demanding or assuming everything is scientifically provable. New theists should be educated that a criteria you have towards the existence of god is not necessarily a criteria you put forth for everything. For example, these New Theists will (and they do) argue that philosophical reasoning is sufficient to accept god exists – does it mean that they think philosophical reasoning is sufficient for everything? Absolutely no: they try clothes when they buy, they see and test a car when they buy, they test all those things empirically, which shows us that a criteria they have for belief in god is not necessarily the same criteria they have for each and everything. New Theistic hoax on New Atheists being sciencist relies on assuming that “demand for god is equal to demand for each and every thing“, which is obviously not the case as we see here. Let me reiterate again: Even if Dawkins, Stenger etc were all wrong in their position on religions or god’s existence being a scientifically testable hypothesis, it still does not equate to sciencism, as asking for scientific evidence for 1 thing does not equate to asking scientific evidence for everything. It is a shame that people that, seemingly, fails to understand it is accredited as philosophers. I am at loss here in regard to good faith. Which is a better faith: 1) to conclude that accredited philosophers like Ed Feser, John Gray etc fail to understand that a criteria for god does not equte to criteria for everything 2) to conclude that accredited philosophers like Ed Feser DO understand that that a criteria for god does not equate to criteria for everything BUT are just a charlatan that decieves people so that free thought proponents and rationalists like Victor Stenger, Richard Dawkins etc are dismissed, smirched and discredited? In both cases, is it possible to not see these New Theists as charlatans

Now, let us proceed into Massimo Piggliucci’s attempt, as he seems to be the only New Theist who seems to have understood that assertions should be backed up,unlike other New Theists like Edward Feser.

Now, we have another partial-attempt by Whitley Kaufman. We shall proceed into his attempts as we have seen that Piggliucci fails.

Dismantling Whitley Kaufman’s Case

We have already quoted Kaufman’s attempt. Kaufman’s case is blatantly false or misleading I should say. Kaufman said:

Jerry Coyne even insists that no other academic disciplines such as social science, literature, philosophy, and even mathematics can produce any knowledge at all, except when they use the methods followed by “professional scientists” (2015, p. 186).

Blatantly false! Quoted differently! Coyne does not insist that other disciplines can not produce knowledge except when they use methods of professional scientists – it is blatantly false. What Coyne said was (quoted below) that those disciplines produce knowsledge only when they use the methods of science, nothing about if those disciplines can or can not produce knowledge. Coyne is descriptive there, not prescriptive.

It is both a strawman fallacy and a report that muddles Coyne’s stance. If you read the related chapter of the book Faith versus Facts by Jerry Coyne, which is the context of the citation above, Coyne is opposing Francis Collins on “The spiritual world provides another way of finding truth“. Here is what Jerry Coynse says in his book Faith versus Facts: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible (excerpt from the chapter “Is Science the Only Way of Knowing?”):

But these “other ways of knowing,” as they’re commonly called, include more than spirituality and religion. Additional candidates are the humanities, social science, art, music, literature, philosophy, and mathematics. The whole panoply of “other ways” is touted not just by advocates of the humanities defending their bailiwick, but also by theists who want to use their own “ways of knowing”—faith, dogma, revelation, scripture, and authority—to buttress their claims about the divine.

I will argue that insofar as some of these disciplines can indeed yield knowledge, they do so only to the degree that their methods involve what I’ll describe as “science broadly construed”: the same combination of doubt, reason, and empirical testing used by professional scientists. Economics, history, and social science, for instance, can certainly yield knowledge. But religion doesn’t belong in these ranks, for its “ways of knowing” can’t tell us anything with assurance.

This is taken from the 2nd and 3rd paragraph. Reading Kaufman’s work, a reader will arrive at the impression that Coyne dismisses every knowledge or the possibility of knowledge being produced via other disciplines by using methods other than scientific method but that is not what Coyne is doing. What Coyne is doing is to describe the way those disciplines yield knowledge. Coyne is descriptive there, not prescriptive – Coyne is not dismissing anything there just because that is not scientific, Coyne is not over-ruling anything with science and as thus not a sciencist at all. Kaufman’s case is completely misleading and muddles the picture.

Then, Kaufman equates Dawkins’ characterization of scientists as “specialists in what is true about the world” into sciencism but does not not back up, does not offer any explanation on why that would make Dawkins sciencist. Dawkins did not characterize science or scientists as the only source of truth. Philosophers characterize philosophy as the search of truth, for example – does it entail that philosopher see philosophy as the only way of knowing and dismiss science? The religious characterize religion as the truth – does it entail that the religious characterize religion as the only way of knowing and dismiss science? If not these two, then why is Dawkins stoned for saying scientists are specialists in truth? Thıs attempt too fails. The quote is from the book by Dawkins named A Devil’s Chaplain. Read the context, there, Dawkins is describing how scientists work. There is nothing there that can be called sciencism. Dawkins then talks against relying on tradition, authority and revelation but does not attack other disciplines like philosophy, mathematics and logic. No sceincism.

Conclusion and More

We see that New Theists deploy a propaganda line attributed to Nazi Joseph Goebbels, who himself was the chief propaganda executive of Adolph Hitler: “Repeat your lie thousand times, then your life will be seen as a fact“. As I have shown here, New Theistic accusation of New Atheism being sciencism is usually baseless and taken for granted due to the Nazi strategy the New Theists deploy: They just repeated it and now it is seen as an undisputable common knowledge. New Theists spread this lie as we have seen here and they obtained Jester’s Privilege: Just say anything you want and you have immunity.

As I have stated at the beginning, New Theists spread many hoaxes about New Atheists, with the intention of discrediting New Atheists. In his article named “What is really new about New Atheism?”, Political Scientist (not sciencist) Steven Kettel notes it:

The construction and subsequent popularisation of the label “new atheism”, then, did not stem from a disinterested attempt at classifying a new form of non-religious thought, but was part of a politically motivated campaign to discredit and delegitimise the views of leading atheist advocates.

But why? one might ask: why need for discrediting New Atheists? Steven Kettel’s another work features good answers for this question. Because We New Atheists stand against all this oppression of theists, we challenge their self-assigned privileges, we stand against all those cruelties the religious inflict upon others. That is why, since the beginning, they have spreaded all these lies just to be able to dissuade you from us. Here are some excerpts from Political Scientist Steven Kettel’s academic work titled “Politics of New Atheism“:

Claiming that religious views have enjoyed a cosseted and excessively privileged status for far too long, and that they should be accorded no
more respect or special treatment than any other viewpoint or opinion, proponents of new atheism call for religious beliefs to be exposed to scrutiny wherever they are found in precisely the same way that one might critique
politics, literature or art.

These organizations are actively involved in a number of common campaign issues. One of the principal themes is their opposition to religious influence over public policy. Key areas include social service provision, such as the faith-based initiatives of George W. Bush, or the Big Society agenda of the British Coalition government; healthcare, including support for assisted dying
and opposition to restrictions on reproductive rights and scientific research, such as that involving the use of embryonic stem cells; education, largely centering on the issue of creationism in the U.S, and on faith schools and
compulsory worship in Britain; and civil rights, involving religious exemptions from equalities legislation, and discrimination on issues such as housing, employment and same-sex marriage

I can go on. Just today, Muslim controlled Afghanistan banned education for women completely. Everyday, homosexuals are under oppression of theists, pregnant women are under harassment of theists, both muslims and christians. Just this month, Muslim Qatar hosted the World Cup, largest sporting event, and interfered on sex life, dressing and beverage of visitors, under the Islamic rules – none of these are labelled as “intolerant, aggressive, dogmatic” by the so-called critiques of New Atheism but when We New Atheists stand against all of these, we are labelled “intolerant, dogmatic and aggressive” and that is one part of the answer why these theists spread lies to discredit New Atheists.

The sad part is, we do not engage these New Theists academically. We should!

New Atheism – RationalMinded People of the World, Unite!

REFERENCES:

1. Byrnes, S. (2006). When It Comes To Facts, And Explanations Of Facts, Science Is The Only Game In Town. New Statesman 10 April 2006. Erişim adresi: https://web.archive.org/web/20111016131703/http://www.newstatesman.com/200604100019 
2. Carroll, S. (2013). Let’s Stop Using the Word Scientism. Blog yazısı. Preposterousuniverse.com websitesi. Erişim adresi: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/08/14/lets-stop-using-the-word-scientism/ Erişim tarihi: 15.01.2023
3. Coyne, J. (2015). Faith versus Fact: Why Religion and Science are Incompatible. Penguin Random House LLC: New York
4. Cotter, C. (2017). New Atheism, Open-Mindedness and Critical Thinking. İçinde: Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures. Volume 21, s. 33-51. Ed: Cotter, C., Quadrio, P. A. ve Tucket, J. 
5.  Dennett, D. (2006). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Viking Penguin Group: New York. 
6. Feser, Edward. (2008). The Last Superstition: a Refutation of New Atheism. St. Augustine’s Press:
7. Gray, J. (2008). Seven Types of Atheism. Penguin Random House UK.
8. Kaufman W. (2019). New Atheism and its critics. Philosophy Compass.
   2019;14:e12560. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.1256  
9. LeDrew, S. (2012). The Evolution of Atheism: Scientific and Humanistic Approaches. History of the Human Sciences 25(3) 70–8. DOI: 10.1177/0952695112441301 
10. Peterson, Gregory R (2003), “Demarcation and the Scientistic Fallacy”, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 38 (4): 751–6
11. Pigliucci, M. (2013). New Atheism and the scientistic turn in the atheism movement. Midwest Studies in Philosophy XXXIII, 37, 142–153. https://doi.org/10.1111/misp.12006
12. Shepherd, A. P. (2021). Challenging The New Atheism: Pragmatic Confrontations in the Philosophy of Religion. Routledge: New York.
13. Stenger, V. (2009). The New Atheism: Taking Stand for Science and Reason. Prometheus Books: New York.
14. Stenger, V. (2012). The God Hypothesis. New Scientist, 17 March 2012, s. 46-47.