Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

186 Scientism and Values
by new concepts to other biological laws. At present the limitations
of the law are apparent in the facts it interrelates, and the
few predictions it permits.
The study of differentiation has produced all. enormous collection
of facts. These facts deal with changes that occur in organisms
as they grow and mature. Most of the facts have come from observations
of gross and microscopic structures as they change
during the development of an adult from a zygote. The observations
have revealed structures and activities that are so complex
that no theory has yet been produced which is even partially adequate
in providing a general explanatory system with fruitful
predictive powers. Several broad and important generalizations
arrived at by simple enumeration are present, but there is as yet
no general theory comparable to the theory of evolution or the
gene theory which are so fruitful in other areas of biology.
2. Educational Growth
Educational growth is a much confused concept. A goodly
portion of the confusion arises from the willingness of many individuals
to accept weak, tentative hypotheses as truth or as a
good approximation of truth. Additional confusion arises from an
extrapolation (sometimes willfully, but more often unwittingly)
of a small understanding of biological growth into the area of
educational growth. Some basis for analogy between the two
exists, but it remains analogy, and good scientists would not use
knowledge of the biological growth of babies as an argument to
support an idea concerning the educational growth of children.
Examples of this kind of argument are noted below under Resistance
to Displacement and Convergence and under Developmental
Theory in Education.
The term "growth" as used in its fullest sense in the science
of education subsumes both the biological growth of human
beings and all other aspects of human growth such as intellectual,
artistic, personality, social, moral, emotional, and perceptual
growth (3, 8, 12). Physical growth in humans is determined by
the same kinds of methods that can be used on almost any higher