How did Alfred North Whitehead criticize scientific materialism in Science and the Modern World?

In his influential work Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead criticized scientific materialism—the view that nature consists solely of matter in motion or a flux of physical energy—for mistaking an abstract system of mathematical physics for the concrete reality of nature.1

Whitehead argued that while these mathematical abstractions are genuine discoveries, they are incomplete. He contended that scientific materialism fails to account for the full richness of existence by excluding values from nature. To address these omissions, he urged philosophy to revert to the variety of concrete experience and develop broader, more inclusive ideas. Notably, he appealed to the works of poets such as William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley to highlight the importance of elements like beauty and feeling, which he believed were neglected by a purely materialistic scientific worldview.1