Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

206 Scientism and Values
In the earlier technological age, Ostwald's "energetic imperative"
to use energy so as to achieve maximum effect with minimum
energy-expense was a fair statement of the aims of physical
engineering. Modern psychological engineering is essentially based
upon the principle of waste, of which any chromium-laden, overpowered,
long-finned, once-a-year traded-in car is an example.
Again, the "dislike which our whole generation shows for all
commercial activities" and for the "merchant" 10 is now countered
by the cultural emphasis on the salesman in prestige and in
monetary reward.
A final quote from Hayek's book may be interesting: "Not only
the ancient languages were reduced to a minimum and in practice
almost entirely neglected, even the instruction in literature,
drama, and history was very inferior, and moral and religious instruction,
of course, completely absent." 11 This reads like an
excerpt from an editorial published in the post-Sputnik debate
on American education. As a matter of fact, it is a description of
the school reform of 1795 in revolutionary France shortly after the
Reign of Terror.
Hayek was well aware that scientism leads to "conscious planning
of social phenomena." However, at this time he could refer
only to political ,and social engineering and, in particular, economic
planning,12 which latter he analyzed in his The Road. to
Serfdom. Since he wrote his study the new development of
"human engineering" has emerged. The phenomena of "mass
man," "organization man," "hidden persuaders," baby's education
and sexual intercourse directed by how-to-do books available at
the corner drugstore, and a variety of others, are all corollaries to
this theme. The criticism, against scientism does not appear to be
any longer that it is a misapplication of science in fields where it
does not belong; rather, in recent years scientists have become
only too competent in behavioral and social science and in their
technological application. The following discussion suggests a
few consequences arising from this fact. The scientistic credo can
roughly be summarized as follows:
Our knowledge of the laws of physics is excellent, and consequently
our technological control of inanimate nature is almost