We presently live in an era dominated by scientism, an ideology that
believes that science (and its rationalist foundation in modern
epistemology) has an undeniable primacy over all other ways of seeing
and understanding life and the world, including more humanistic,
mythical, spiritual, and artistic interpretations. In being critical of
scientism as I am, I am not against science per se: modern science and
its ways of understanding and knowing the world are valuable, and we
should be grateful for them. But it is the hegemony of the habits of
mind that manifest pervasively in education that privilege science
education, career, and research over other modes and branches of
learning and knowing that I have problems with. I have too often
witnessed parents overtly or subtly discouraging their children from
following artistic or humanistic aspirations and pushing them for
training and careers in Science, Math, Business, and Technology. In this
society we say in a thousand and one ways that money, security, power,
and ultimately fulfillment reside in these disciplines and not in the
Arts, Humanities, and Philosophy. We valorize scientists, and even when
they speak on subjects outside their domain of expertise, we take their
opinions and pronouncements as definitively authoritative. When Science
speaks, people listen. This hegemonic attitude towards Science and other
subjects that require the exercise of our rational and intellectual
faculty is reflected in educational research as well.
