Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

Here the author discusses the origins and uses of social science, which led to what he terms “Scientism.” Social science developed from intellectuals at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris during the 19th century. Figures like Auguste Comte came to believe that the same methods used in the natural sciences could be used to study society and human behavior, which could then uncover universal laws to organize society. To this, Postman adds the notion that “faith in science can serve as a comprehensive belief system that gives meaning to life, as well as a sense of well-being, morality, and even immortality” (147). These ideas taken together is what he means by Scientism.

Postman goes on to distinguish between the natural sciences and the social sciences. The former refer to processes of the natural world while the latter refer to practices of human behavior, and the two cannot be equated despite similarities in studying them. He reviews the use of math to quantify and of observation to draw conclusions, giving examples to show that they can be employed in a wide range of activities that are not called science. For example, the objects studied in the natural world cannot “know” they are being studied or respond in any way to this fact, whereas humans can.