"Where the partisan tunnel-visioned users of scientific work product slide into scientism is in illicitly bootlegging the scientific enterprise's contributions into arguments about meta-physical issues, where it has no special authority. "
I hope you have better luck with that argument than I've had. The only response I got to it was to be labeled a creationist.
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See the following for some good ways of approaching this point with those who are blind to their own meta-physical presuppositions, and who confuse their axioms with theorems:
http://ethics.sandiego.edu/video/Kenan/Smith/
Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief (Paperback)
by Huston Smith
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060671025/104-0673331-3807923?v=glance&n=283155
Amazon.com
Why Religion Matters is a passionate, accessible, ambitious manifesto written by one of the very few people qualified to address its titular topic. Huston Smith is the grand old man of religious scholarship. Raised by missionary parents in China, Smith went on to teach at M.I.T. and U.C. Berkeley, among others, and his World's Religions has long been the standard introductory textbook for college religion courses. The subject of Why Religion Matters, Smith writes, "is the importance of the religious dimension of human life--in individuals, in societies, and in civilizations." Smith believes that the religious dimension of human life has been devalued by the rise of modern science: we have now reached a point at which "modern Westerners . . . forsaking clear thinking, have allowed ourselves to become so obsessed with life's material underpinnings that we have written science a blank check ... concerning what constitutes knowledge and justified belief."
In candid, direct style, Smith describes the evolution of intellectual history from pre-modern to postmodern times, and the spiritual sensibilities that have been shunted "by our misreading of modern science." In the book's final sections, Smith avoids the folly of predicting the future, instead focusing on "features of the religious landscape that are invariant" and therefore may serve as "a map that can orient us, wherever the future may bring." This book is fresh, insightful, and important. It may prove to be as influential in shifting readers' terms of religious understanding as any of Smith's previous writings. --Paul Power--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
In this challenging but accessible book, Smith ardently declaims religion's relevance, taking on luminaries, such as Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould, who hold that "only matter exists" and suggest that religion relates only to "subjective experiences." Smith defines such thinking as scientism, an unfortunate worldview distinct from science, which, in and of itself, he celebrates.
But scientism, Smith says, contributes to "modernity's tunnel," a metaphorical structure that hides the metaphysical from view. He argues that "scientists who are convinced materialists deny the existence of things other than those they can train their instruments on," but in reality have "discovered nothing in the way of objective facts that counts against traditional metaphysics."
Smith's arguments are reminiscent of Philip Johnson's Darwin on Trial; in fact, he nods appreciatively to Johnson's work. However, Smith's stature as a scholar probably affords him more credibility among scientists than evangelicals such as Johnson enjoy. Moreover, Smith's disarming tone, replete with perfectly placed anecdotes and quips, tempers the audacity of his theses and the difficulty of his subject matter. While he may be vulnerable to critiques that inevitably arise when non-scientists engage and challenge scientific claims [more accurately, claims made in the name of science! - BRMG], Smith demonstrates an impressive grasp of physics and biology, and defers to scientists who share his concerns.
Most gratifyingly, after spending the book's first half implicating science, philosophy and the media in the marginalization of religion, Smith spends the second half elucidating and affirming metaphysical worldviews and imagining ways for science and religion to partner more equitably in the future.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.--
"See the following for some good ways of approaching this point with those who are blind to their own meta-physical presuppositions, and who confuse their axioms with theorems: "
I'll put that on my list, up near the top.