The various sciences, or branches of science, have accomplished astonishing and astounding advances in our knowledge and use of physical phenomena. This is to say in their knowledge, because mine in these areas falls short of theirs. Yet, I think I have a respectful and reasonable recognition of what science I do not understand and, unlike many of them, I recognize what science is not. I wish I could see more such humility from more individual scientists and from sciences in general.

Scientists acquit themselves and serve us better when they confine their claims of expertise to science and not venture into philosophy. But much science dogma is not science at all, but philosophy in which scientists as scientists have no competence.

I have little specific knowledge of the sciences, but I do know philosophy. This was my undergraduate major, and my masters’ included it until it was the larger part of my Ph.D.

Philosophers perceive their discipline as “second-order” or a service discipline. It studies the assumptions, concepts, and argument forms of other disciplines, including science.

This is the original concept in the creation of the ultimate research and teaching degree of Doctor of Philosophy. A person becomes established in a field by the time the bachelor’s degree is earned. A person who earns a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, for instance, is considered a chemist. With graduate study and research, the person masters chemistry and this is recognized with the award of a Master of Science degree.

With mastery achieved in chemistry, if the person wishes to qualify to teach chemistry and do original research, the master chemist needs to learn how to think about the field of chemistry, understand its presuppositions, assumptions, and recognize its limitations. This is to say, the chemist thus acquires a conceptual understanding of chemistry beyond the mastery of the practice of chemistry.

However, the sciences have reached a point where the entire Ph.D. program is narrowly focused on advance practice with little attention to the theory of the particular science. There is no philosophy at all, and few scientists have taken even the undergraduate introduction to philosophy course.

This is not to complain scientists are not philosophers but that they talk as if they were.

Philosophers investigate questions of philosophy about science. There is an academic discipline of the history and philosophy of science, but these are not practicing scientists. These latter, in contrast, investigate questions of science about a specific realm of scientific study. In this is the competence of scientists, not the former. It is the philosopher of science who defines what science is and identifies what science is not.

A body of doctrine that emerges by scientists going beyond science as if experts is termed “scientism.” It claims “science is the very paradigm of truth and rationality.” If something cannot be empirically investigated and verified, it is judged either untrue or not rational. When a chemist asserts he sees no evidence of God in his test tube or in her beaker over a Bunsen burner, they speak not as chemists but as if they were a philosopher (in fact, as a fool).

The claim of scientism that there is no knowledge that is not scientifically derived cannot itself be scientifically derived. It is a philosophic assertion. This has left scientific investigation and intruded into philosophic speculation.

This is understandable. Just as the wood chopper pays little attention to the forest, the bench chemist is unconcerned about life itself. Both are so narrowly focused they lack perspective on the whole.

Science can neither justify its (often unconscious) presuppositions nor validate its non-empirical conclusions.

This is not to assert scientists may not philosophize, but that they must know and acknowledge when they speak as scientists and when they speak outside their expertise and as lay philosophers.

Most important for most readers here is that they are under no obligation to believe a philosophic conclusion because it comes from a scientist. In fact, it is unscientific to do so.