Letter: Letters: Science and soul

From MARK VERNON

As a student of both science and philosophy, I was saddened by the hostility
shown by the scientist Peter Atkins (‘Will science ever fail?’, 8 August)
towards the philosopher Mary Midgley (‘Can science save its soul?’, 1 August).

Midgley defends science but attacks scientism, the extension of science
into regions beyond its competence. Atkin’s reply begins with a fierce ad
hominum argument accusing Midgley of being motivated by fear. There is no
evidence for this in her article; and the claim that her alleged fear is
‘subconcious’ is unverifiable. Atkins himself therefore breaches the proper
competence of science straightaway. Neither is there any evidence that
Midgley’s views are grounded in, or responding to, any religious doctrine;
yet Atkins assumes, bizarrely, that an attack on religion counts as an attack
on Midgley.

Atkins’s central assumption is that science is the only legitimate conception
of inquiry; but science is not itself competent to verify this claim. Similarly,
the claim that science is omnicompetent is necessarily issued from a standpoint
outside the scientific domain. That the domain of science has expanded in
the past is no guarantee of its omniscience in the future.

I doubt that it is in the nature of science ever to arrive at a destination
– but imagine that it did so. Would science then provide an objective and
testable formula for the best application of its own powers? No, because
there cannot be a science of values. Value judgements cannot in principle
be measured or compared scientifically: but they are amenable to conceptual
analysis, which is the proper province of philosophy.

Scientists tend to denigrate philosophy for the very bad reason that
it’s not science. But philosophy is a distinct, rational and legitimate
conception of inquiry – one that reaches the parts other conceptions of
inquiry cannot reach.

Mark Vernon Gosport, Hants