Glasgow Humanists Meetup

Title: Knowledge machine or cloak of (in)visibility? Addressing the -ism in the room
Speaker: Magriet Cruywagen, Lead for Research-Practice Collaboration for the Health Determinants Research Collaboration Glasgow.
📍 Location: Garnethill Multicultural Centre, 21 Rose St, Glasgow G3 6RE
🕒 Doors open: 14.00 Meeting time:** 14.30– 16.00
☕ Refreshments: Complimentary tea and coffee will be available, with an optional donation.
🎟️ Cost: Free

Join us for our next Glasgow Branch meeting, open to all HSS members, supporters and anyone who shares humanist values! This month's meeting will feature a speaker as well as updates on the society’s recent activities.

Event Description:
Just follow the science (it’s not rocket science!) because by now we have it down to a science and that’s scientific because we got it from the scientists who are - after all - the experts we should be deferring to when it comes to the science. What does this barrage of honorifics have to do with science? Beyond playing dress up and using almost every variation of the s-word to heap generic, epistemic praise - precious little. Drawing on the speaker’s experience of navigating the necessary limitations of the social sciences, this talk explores a few of the pitfalls (and attractions) of scientism - an inappropriately deferential attitude to scientific inquiry and findings that employs the prestige of science for disguise and/or protection. Acknowledging the unfortunate misuse of this -ism in blanket attacks on the scientific process, the talk also makes a case for championing the systematic pursuit of knowledge of the natural and social world based on evidence - a tradition which has had significant and wide-reaching positive impacts on life as we know it.

About the Speaker:
Dr. Magriet Cruywagen is a social researcher and systemic coach based in Glasgow. She works at the intersection of education, health and social policy and practice, with a central interest in the design and implementation of research and capacity-building approaches that foster enabling spaces for collaborative knowledge discovery and stewardship. She is the Lead for Research-Practice Collaboration on the Health Determinants Research Collaboration Glasgow, a five-year NIHR-funded research project, and works with Dundee City Council on the ongoing embedding of the city-wide Every Dundee Learner Matters education strategy. Her doctoral research at the University of Glasgow explored the potential of research-practice collaborations in education and social research in the South African context. In parallel she designed and facilitated an embedded research-practice collaboration as part of the Glasgow Child Poverty Pathfinder, an initiative of the Glasgow City Council and Scottish Government. She has also collaborated with Glasgow City Council’s Financial Inclusion and Transformation Team on evaluations and independent reviews of holistic, person-centred, and place-based services including Glasgow Helps, Financial Inclusion Support Officers in Schools, Welcome Places and the Glasgow Poverty Leadership Panel with thematic emphases including the interplay between poverty and various other dimensions of education, health and social policy.

Image credit: Digital illustration created using AI tools by OpenAI, 2026. For illustrative purposes only.