Wednesday, March 16, 2016

C S Lewis on Scientism

Here. 

1 comment:

Edgestow said...

Great article! As you might imagine from the name I choose to post under, I am a huge fan of That Hideous Strength, which I consider to be Lewis's finest work.

Loved the line (near the beginning), "If scientific knowledge were to be applied by the power of government without the restraints of traditional values ... to Lewis the possibility was great that men would not survive as men." For confirmation of that fear, one need look no further than the current transhumanist movement. The nightmare is all too real!

Schaefer convincingly demonstrates with quotation and analysis that Lewis was the furthest thing from being "anti-science" as some people have accused him of. Lewis actually loved the sciences (as demonstrated in his Space Trilogy by his keen grasp of contemporary ideas about what the conditions on other planets might be like). What he (quite properly) hated was the misuse of science by certain parties for ultimately selfish ends. As Lord Feverstone says in That Hideous Strength, "If Science is really given a free hand it can now take over the human race and re-condition it: make man a really efficient animal . . . . . Man has got to take charge of Man. That means, remember, that some men have got to take charge of the rest." (my emphasis)