The Final Verdict on Scientism

By Jeffrey A. Tucker 5/23/2025Updated: 5/23/2025 @ Epoch Times

There are certain figures in the history of ideas who have exercised wild influence over the course of human affairs. We know some of their names (Aquinas, Locke, Jefferson, Marx, Darwin, Einstein, Keynes) but other mighty figures are less well understood in our times, such as G.F. Hegel, Sigmund Freud, and many others.

One in particular stands out as something of a hidden architect of the ethos and aspiration alive in the West since his life and works. This is because of his strangely enduring legacy, which might have only recently faced a genuine reckoning.

The man is Henri Saint-Simon (1760–1825). Just about the only thing people know about him these days is that he was a proto-socialist before Marx. The trouble is that this is not true: he never used those words and never advocated for collective ownership of the means of production. He was instead the high priest of technocracy, a cause he pushed with missionary zeal all in the name of lifting up the poor and working class.

Saint-Simon’s biography is peculiar enough. Born of aristocratic French lineage, he often claimed without evidence to be a descendant of Charlemagne (of course!). He was witness to the great event that defined his early and formative years, the French Revolution and the fall of the status of the monarchy.

We cannot imagine in our times the implications of this event for European intellectuals. All government and academia since the late Middle Ages had been formed out of the presumption that hereditary monarchs were the best custodians of civic life. From that came the strong belief that culture, religion, and the best ideas flowed through and from the aristocracy. Seeing the fall of that great idea shattered everything that many generations had believed about the world around them.

For Saint-Simon, there was an earlier chapter of his life that set the stage for his ideas. At age 17, he joined the French army (1777). France was allied with the American colonies against the British crown. The French organized an expeditionary force under the command of Comte de Rochambeau. Saint-Simon was a junior officer. Incredibly, he participated in the Battle of Yorktown, Virginia, where Washington and Rochambeau combined forces against British General Cornwallis. The British forces surrendered.

He took from this wild experience in the New World the notion that monarchies were likely doomed with the ascendance of superior technical prowess backed by democratic forms of government, provided they were led by elites—such as himself. When that experience mutated into the French Revolution, he was ready to write and evangelize for his new theory of society, government, and history. He gathered followers who long outlasted him.

My first encounter with his ideas was from F.A. Hayek’s overlooked masterpiece, “The Counter-Revolution of Science.” The core idea is that in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a new conception of science was born that reversed a previous understanding, which had been largely characterized by attachments to scholasticism. This view saw science as the discovery of truths that belonged to everyone: an objective search for natural laws and patterns that implied no particular normative action.

Saint-Simon, inspired by the discrediting of aristocracy and impressed by the advance of technology, had a different view. Science is not a process of discovery by research but a codified end state known and understood only by an elite. This elite would impose its view on everyone else. Hayek called this “the abuse of reason” because genuine reason defers to uncertainty and discovery while scientism as an ideology is arrogant and imagines it knows what is unknown.

Simply put, Saint-Simon was an elitist but not in the conservative way we associate with lineage and heritage. He dreamed of a world without privilege of birth or inherited wealth. The aristocracy can be damned. He imagined a world of what he called merit but it was not merit by means of hard work and enterprise as such. It was a world run by geniuses or savants who have unusual intellectual gifts. They would comprise the managerial and ruling elite of society.

His preferred system of government would consist of 21 men: “three mathematicians, three physicians, three chemists, three physiologists, three men of letters, three painters, three musicians.” It was the council of 21! He imagined that they would get along well, not be corrupt in the slightest, and would rule with overwhelming benevolence.

We would find out who these people are by having votes placed at the grave of Isaac Newton (Saint-Simon’s god of choice) and eventually the consensus concerning the elite council would be chosen. They would not be a government as such, at least not as traditionally understood, but elite planners who would use intelligence to shape the whole society the same way that scientists understand and shape the natural world.

You see, to his way of thinking, this is far more rational than having an hereditary aristocracy in charge. And these men would in turn deploy their rationality in service of society, which would be enormously inspired by it. Saint-Simon wrote:

“Men of genius will then enjoy a reward worthy of them and of you; this reward will place them in the only position which can provide them with the means of giving you all the services they’re capable of; this will become the ambition of the most energetic souls; it will redirect them from things harmful to your tranquility. By this measure, finally, you will give leaders to those who work for the progress of your enlightenment, you will invest these leaders with immense consideration, and you will place a great pecuniary power at their disposition.”

So there you go: the elite get unlimited power and unlimited money and everyone will aspire to act like these people and this aspiration will improve the whole of society. It reminds me of the pre-modern system in China in which only the best students could enter into the class of the Mandarins, which were the 9 levels of high-ranking officials in Imperial China’s government.

Indeed, Saint-Simon invited his followers to “consider yourselves as the governors of the operation of the human mind.” He imagined “spiritual power in the hands of the savants; temporal power in the hands of the possessors; the power to nominate those called to fulfill the functions of the great heads of humanity, in the hands of everyone.”

Saint-Simon lived a life that oscillated between wealth and poverty, and regretted that condition would befall any man of his genius. So he cobbled together a political theory that would protect him and his ilk from the vicissitudes of the market. He wanted a permanent class of bureaucrats that would be completely insulated from the liberal world that had been celebrated only a quarter-century earlier by the likes of Adam Smith.

His writings inspired Auguste Comte and Charles Fourier, who agreed that science should assume the mantle of leadership in the social order. Here was the core of what Hayek called the “counterrevolution of science.” It was not science but scientism in which freedom for everyone is a hell, geniuses seizing control was the transition, and permanent rule by savants to shape the human mind was heaven on earth.

The best book I’ve seen that captures the essence of this dream is Thomas Harrington’s “The Treason of the Experts.” They turn out to be not altruists or competent overseers of society but cowardly sadists who rule with career-driven cruelty and refuse to admit when their “science” produces the opposite of their stated goal.

“Scientism” as an ideology is the reverse of science as traditionally understood. It is not supposed to be the codification and entrenchment of an elite class of social managers but rather a humble exploration of all the fascinating realities that make the world around us work. It is not about imposition but curiosity, and not about norms and force but facts and an invitation to look more deeply.

Saint-Simon celebrated science but became the anti-Voltaire. Instead of freeing the human mind, he and his followers imagined themselves to be governors of it.

Why do I say that his hegemonic influence is at an end? Because it is clear to many and even most people that science massively abused its power and privilege, foisting on the world a series of products and schemes that ended up achieving the opposite of their stated purpose, while enriching themselves in the process. The Saint-Simonians did indeed take over the world, with full triumph in the 21st century, with the apotheosis of their temporal power embodied in the pandemic response that now stands fully discredited.

It could be a full generation before we see the paradigm fully shift away from this technocratic outlook, but if my reading of the waves of history is correct, they have already been knocked off the mantles of prestige and power. Perhaps we can, after a long struggle out of this thicket, rediscover more credible uses of science and more humane ways to govern the world.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press, as well as 10 books in five languages, most recently “Liberty or Lockdown.” He is also the editor of “The Best of Ludwig von Mises.” He writes a daily column on economics for The Epoch Times and speaks widely on the topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture. He can be reached at tucker@brownstone.org

Experts Should Be on Tap, Not on Top!

John Adams,

The title to this article is from an alleged quote from Winston Churchill (and others) , and I couldn't agree more.  On August 25, 2020 Edward Feser published a Claremont Institute’s American Mind article entitled, Scientism: America’s State Religion, and he starts out saying: "We are hostages to the clerics of an intolerant faith."  An excellent article, though in reference to COVID-19 I wish to add a few observations of my own.

First, we must remember that as a society we no longer look to ourselves, our families, our friends, and our churches and community groups to deal with major challenges. We now immediately look to politicians, and most of all those politicians who wield the most power. Virtually all politicians have very little knowledge about anything in particular. Successful politicians have mastered a few skills: telling people what they want to hear, stating broad and mushy goals with which few can take issue, and most of all, getting themselves re-elected. The latter skill takes precedence above all else.

Politicians therefore must become great experts in avoiding taking blame for any error or any misfortune. They must always have ways of deferring the responsibility for making problematic decisions onto someone else, lest they be stigmatized by any poor outcome; yet all the while positioning themselves to take the credit for any successful outcome.

With COVID-19, politicians in general had zero expertise about viral epidemics. Hence they not only employed scientists, epidemiologists and doctors to provide guidance, they set up these “people of science” to take the blame for any bad outcomes.

In our hyper-emotive, hysterically individual-focused media environment, any bad outcome from a politically directed decision will immediately blow back on the politician. Grandma died? Video of the tearful family to follow (in PA, a Biden commercial showed a distraught woman blaming TRUMP for her elderly mother’s death in a nursing home because Trump predicted the virus would “blow over”, not Governor Wolf who ordered nursing homes to take infected patients from the hospital). Politician: Don’t blame me, I listened to the experts.

And with COVID-19, the shortcomings of the “experts” have been on full display. They knew little about their adversary, their predictive methods were shown to be arbitrary wild shots in the dark, their recommendations were often contradictory and irrational when applied to large groups or complex situations, etc.

But the “experts” served their purpose: they accepted blame shifting from weak and irresolute politicians who were completely inadequate to this challenge.

The sad part is that the “experts” have been so full of themselves and their unaccustomed power that they have willingly shouldered those burdens, and pretended that their knowledge and methods were up to the task. Instead of acknowledging their limitations, they arrogantly projected their facade of omniscience and omnipotence in directing public policy in a way never before attempted.

And that suited the politicians just fine.

Pennsylvania is a great example of this scenario. Governor Wolf has turned all authority over to our academically cloistered, economically ignorant, sadly confused Physician General, Dr Rachel (formerly Richard) Levine. In Pennsylvania, there is no broad forum to examine COVID-19 policies based upon medical, economic, social, and regional circumstances. Because if there was such a forum, Governor Wolf would be forced into making decisions for which he and his party could be blamed. Far better to turn everything over to his “expert” and fade into the background. With his media friends providing cover, he will be blameless at the end of the day for all the economic and social disasters of his policies. Because, you know, if we save just one life, it will all be worth it.. 

Nationally, this paradigm does not follow. Trump is perfectly capable of making hard decisions; and he has used the CDC and his medical experts to give guidance but not make binding decisions. While we cheered that Trump did not exceed his authority by making sweeping COVID-19 policy, we must acknowledge in retrospect that we lost our chance to bypass tin pot, chickenshit, blame shifting dictators like PA Governor Wolf, and his overreaching and intellectually/socially blinkered accomplice Dr. Levine.

I also want to say that any person of science with even the smallest grain of humility and intellectual honesty should immediately acknowledge Feyerabend’s arguments. Most published research simply can’t be replicated, and most of these failures are due to the many faults and limitations he describes.

Much science may illuminate small areas of interest, and be part of a halting and often unreliable progress in our understanding of our universe. The Einsteins, Newtons, and Watson/Cricks are very rare indeed (and we certainly would not have wanted any of them to make broad social policy). We also know that not only is our ability to observe an event limited by an absolute level of underlying uncertainty, but the very fact of our observation changes the event itself. Science itself has proven its limitations in studying our universe.

Scientism: America’s State Religion

As our nation finds itself wracked by violence and threatened with regime failure, questions of authority become ever more urgent. We believe authority in a free society rests with the people and their representatives, and we abhor the theft of that authority by “experts” from our bureaucratic ruling classes. We present this essay to help expose and articulate one important way in which authority has been stolen from the people and given over to unelected dictators in the name of “Science.”—Eds.

Edward Feser 8/25/2020

Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) was the enfant terrible of late 20th-century philosophy of science. He delighted in mischief, juxtaposing vast knowledge of science and its history with antics like egging on creationists, playing devil’s advocate for astrology, and calling for the “separation of science and state.”

He has nevertheless secured a place in the canon, because he is brilliant, extremely well-read, and funny—and his views, when correctly understood, are important and challenging. No doubt it helps that he is a man of the Left, despite saying things that were often criticized for giving aid and comfort to the religious Right.

Feyerabend was once labeled “the worst enemy of science” by the prestigious journal Nature. But even a casual reader can see that what Feyerabend actually opposed was scientism, the transformation of science into an ideology and of its practitioners into a secular priesthood.

“I think very highly of science,” he once wrote, “but I think very little of experts.” In his view, scientists too often made of science a “tyranny,” claiming rights over the direction of public policy shared by no other interest group in a democratic society. Through the education system, they impose assent to useful but fallible and limited theoretical abstractions as if they were obligatory dogmas.
Were he alive today, what would the author of “How to Defend Society Against Science” think of recent events? Would he have joined in the shrill denunciation of all skepticism about a lockdown that entailed destroying the jobs and life savings of millions of ordinary working people? Would he have been impressed by the “objectivity” of expert advice that was stridently insisted upon one minute, then suddenly abandoned when doing so became politically expedient? To ask these questions is to answer them.

The main sources for Feyerabend’s views on the proper role of science in a pluralistic democracy are his book Science in a Free Society (1978) and several essays in the third volume of his collected Philosophical Papers. There are three main components to his argument.

First: science as an institution, and liberalism as its house philosophy, have taken over the role that the Church and its theology played in medieval society.

Second: the case for this takeover rests on the purported superiority of the methods and results of science, but crumbles on close inspection.

Third: when consistently applied, the most powerful expression of the liberal idea—John Stuart Mill’s defense of free speech in On Liberty—tells against rather than in favor of the hegemony of scientism. Let’s consider these themes in turn.

The Church of Science...........To Read More....