The classical view has a lot more to do with questions about the nature of life.

The traditional view sees procreation, not pleasure, as the primary purpose of sex.

So, anything that deals with sex is related to one's respect for life. With this view, one sees masturbation as disrespect for life.

It is not an "anti-scientific" view point. It was common for scientists to hold the same view a century ago.

What happened in modern culture is that a group of twentieth century socialist culture warriors realized that they could engineer conflict by promoting masturbation and promiscuity and a large number of people were seduced into promoting a new world view.

The idea that masturbation is scientific while chastity is religious is absurd as there have been religions that promoted promiscuity and scientists who promoted chastity in the past.