How were the new forms of humanism a reaction in favor of humane values? What scientific values dealing with individuals did it seek to change?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: Science seemed to replace genies with genes, blurring the boundaries between humans and other animals, or even between humans and machines. It seemed to make freedom impossible and reduce moral choices to evolutionary accidents or genetically determined options. It turned human beings into subjects of experimentation. Ruthless regimes abused biology to justify racism and psychiatry to imprison dissidents. Scientism denied all nonscientific values and became, in its own way, as dogmatic as any religion. The "new humanism" was much more, however, than an antiscientistic reaction. It tended to blame religion—or, at least, religious conflicts—as much as science for the failures of history, and its thinkers and practitioners sought a morality based on universal or potentially universal values. More than either science or religion, the barbarities of the political history of the twentieth century stimulated the new humanism.