In Stephen Dilley’s article As Above, So Below, he refutes claims made by advocates of “scientism” and asserts that non-empirical virtues are equally compatible with science and do point to a creator. Scientism defined by Stephen Dilley is the “claim that science provides a superior—or exclusive—means of gaining knowledge” (12). Dilley disputes the claim that achievements made by mankind have been made exclusive using empirical methods and says, “science itself is at odds with scientism” (12).
Dilley divides scientism into two camps: robust scientism and moderate scientism. Robust scientism is the camp of scientism that claims, “scientific theories are the only beliefs appropriate” (12). The author says that scientism itself is not a scientific theory but a “prescriptive claim about what a rational and informed adult ought to believe” (13). Moderate scientism is the camp of scientism that says that science is a “privileged way of knowing” and although non-empirical methods might yield the same results, science is the “best, most rational, most justified” method of seeing the world (13).
Dilley’s first objection to scientism is that faith is essential for theories that go beyond empirical data. The second is hope that enables scientific success. Dilley argues that without hope, scientific progress would “grind to a halt” (14). Finally love plays a part in illuminating the truth. Steven Weinberg says that “physicists have been guided by their sense of beauty not only in developing new theories but even in judging the validity of physical theories once they are developed” (14). With these objections, Dilley says that faith, love, and hope are indeed compatible with science just as much as religion. Dilley concludes by saying if advocates of science would truly look at non-empirical data in search of the evidence, they would see the truth and evidence for God.
Dilley makes a point of the scientific community choosing to believe in heliocentrism because of non-empirical factors but does not consider the empirical data. Ironically it is the church that persecuted Galileo and Copernicus for considering empirical data when supporting heliocentrism. I would argue that today people believe heliocentrism not because they look at the non-empirical factors but because they look at the empirical. When Dilley says that “progress would grind to a halt” without faith, he undermines the achievements of many great thinkers. It would be foolish to think that faith is more important than empirical data (14). My main objection to Stephen Dilley’s thesis is that non-empirical factors are just as important as empirical factors when searching for the truth. Dilley simplifies many complex arguments over spans of time by generalizing the sceptical community under terms such as scientism and glosses over objections made by such proponents of scientism.