The intellectual and practical successes of the natural sciences have led some to believe that there are no real limits to the competence of science, and no limits to what can be achieved in its name. So, there is nothing outside the domain of science, or no area of human life, to which science cannot successfully be applied; a scientific account can provide the complete story of the universe and its inhabitants; or, if there are limits to the scientific enterprise, science at least sets the boundaries for what humans can ever know about reality. Such views constitute ‘scientism’, and in recent years have been number of distinguished and influential scientists including Richard Dawkins, Francis Crick, Stephen Hawking and Edward O. Wilson.

Mikael Stenmark (associate professor of philosophy of religion at Uppsala University) helpfully identifies and evaluates a number of different forms of scientism. Engaging primarily with scientists rather than philosophers, and especially with evolutionary biologists, he focuses on four key claims: 1) the only kind of knowledge we can have is scientific knowledge (epistemic scientism, 2) the only things that exist are those to which science has access (ontological scientism); 3) science alone can answer our moral questions and explain morality and replace traditional ethics (a form of axiological scientism); 4) science alone can answer our existential questions and explain, and replace, traditional religion (existential scientism).

In a thorough and lucid critique, Stenmark argues that such claims cannot in fact be made in the name of science. Scientism typically combines certain scientific theories with a particular worldview or ideology (naturalism of materialism), and the latter are philosophies, not scientific theories. However, we ought to take ‘scientistic’ claims seriously, as science has shown itself capable of dealing with issues we previously thought it incapable of addressing. The limits of science need to be revisited continually, and we need to give attention to the latest scientific developments. We can learn important things about ourselves and other organisms form evolutionary biology. In conjunction with other non-scientific claims, scientific theories can confirm—or undermine—ethical, ideological or religious beliefs. Stenmark’s desire is to find a pathway between exaggerated (scientistic) and impoverished (postmodern social construction) views of science.

All this hardly breaks new ground. Furthermore, Stenmark’s preferred pathway is still rather modernist. In the discussion of the limits of science, the underlying assumption is that philosophical or religious commitments are ‘other reliable sorts of knowledge’ that are ‘outside and independent’ of science. However, an alternative, and well-supported, view is that such commitments are present from the beginning, and are intrinsic to, and inseparable from, science (cf. for example Polanyi’s contribution, to which no reference is made). This is especially relevant to a ‘big’ theory like evolutionary biology—and to Stenmark’s acceptance of it, which pervades much of his analysis. In the last sentence of the book, quoting Wentzel van Huyssteen, a prominent exponent of synthesis between evolutionary biology and theology, he states that his study:

provides support for the idea that ‘acceptance of evolutionary account of the origin of human intelligence leaves ample scope for humans to develop meaning values and purpose (including religious values, meaning and purpose) on a cultural level’ (142).

Such a claim itself cries out for critique philosophically, theologically and biblically.

In short, then a useful book as far as it goes, and to the extent that one agrees with the author’s own perspectives on science in general and evolution in particular.

---