Monopolizing Knowledge: Scientism vs. God

Monopolizing Knowledge
Ian Hutchinson
http://www.amazon.com/Monopolizing-Knowledge-Ian-Hutchinson/dp/0983702306

Can real knowledge be found other than by science? In this unique approach to understanding today's culture wars, an MIT physicist answers emphatically yes. He shows how scientism --- the view that science is all the knowledge there is --- suffocates reason as well as religion. Tracing the history of scientism and its frequent confusion with science, Hutchinson explains what makes modern science so persuasive and powerful, but restricts its scope. Recognizing science's limitations, and properly identifying what we call nature, liberates both science and non-scientific knowledge.

Ian Hutchinson was born in England and educated at Cambridge University. He obtained his doctorate and his charming wife, Fran, from the Australian National University. He is Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, where his research group explores the confinement of plasmas hotter than the sun's center, aimed at producing practical energy from nuclear fusion reactions, the energy source of the stars. Ian has written and spoken widely on the relationship between science and Christianity. His new book "Monopolizing Knowledge" explores how the error of scientism feeds today's culture wars.


Customer Reviews
September 28, 2011
By Sunshine

Here is a book that is a must-read for culture-leaders; I found it very insightful. This MIT scientist author has put his finger right on the mark of where we as a society have gone wrong in terms of understanding the power and boundaries of science. As a scientist myself, I love science as a wonderful tool for studying the natural world. But by elevating science to be the final arbiter of all ideas and concepts and even history, some part of society have let science become 'scientism', a kind of religion of its own, and a distortion of true science. Hutchinson points out that scientific facts and truths are extremely important -- he lives them out in his own research -- but there are indeed other kinds of truths and facts: historical facts, religious truths, morality, etc. The erroneous view of science as as the ONLY source of truth that will somehow explain everything is harmful to true science and also to society as a whole and the way we understand truth and values.


September 18, 2011
By Anthony Freeman
Assumption is the mother of all ... well stuff ups. This book asks some of the tough questions of some eminent people who seem to be unable to see the tree's for the forest as well as being blind to the beauty of the forest itself. Very thought provoking. Common sense 1 : humanism 0

I posted a video presentation by Hutchinson in the following thread
https://wwws.forummotion.com/t998-monopolizing-knowledge-scientism-and-it-s-dismissal-of-culture-and-faith