Talk:Hard science

No Distinction between Hard and Soft Sciences

I hypothesize there is no distinction between the hard and soft sciences. The example given in the article was about a physicist who determines velocity of a falling object and that this is fact. However, a sociologist may come up with many different hypotheses about causes of poverty.

Couldn't the sociologist set up an experiment involving humans engaged in productive labor and from these experiments get conclusions similar to the way physicists get conclusions from their experiments? The methodology is the same and the only difference is the object studied. Sociologists study people and physicists study energy, time, etc.

Some believe that it is impossible to perform sociological experiments. But it is not. It may be more difficult, but it is possible. It may be hard to control for all factors because you may not account for all factors, but the same problem exists in physics. To establish causation you need to have a control where only one variable, the variable of interest, is changed, and all other variables held constant. How do you control for all other variables when there could potentially be infinite?

Knowledge-is-power 13:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Take a science like economics. Some people claim economics is a soft science compared to physics, which is described as a hard science. However, the process of economic study mimics that of the process of physics in that hypotheses are formed, models formulated, and empirical data is compared to models. In a physics department you may have classes on theoretical physics, experimental physics, statistical physics, etc, and similarly in economics you can study theoretical economics, experimental economics (aka behavioral economics) and even statistical economics (aka econometrics).

Knowledge-is-power 08:34, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Of coarse economic study mimics the process of the physical science. There are a lot of good ideas in the physical sciences that other disciplines can use or cannibalize. You have confused two things having similarities, with two things being the same. I am not my sister, despite our similarities. Yes, sociologists use experimentation, all the soft sciences do. But experimentation is not the sole criteria for something to be science; is not even a * requirement * for something to be science. Take astronomy, all there data is based on observation not experimentation. The hard sciences use the scientific method, one and all, because for them it works. The soft sciences use other methods, some of which are modifications of the scientific method, because in those disciplines, the scientific method doses not work. If it did, if human behavior and society could be explained using only the scientific method, economics, psychology, anthropology, and archeology would all be replaced by the study of psychohistory. But humanity just doesn’t work that way. So psychohistory is left to the science fiction writers. 206.195.19.43 (talk) 09:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

-"However, in most physical sciences there has been extensive debate about issues like whether atoms exist and whether randomness is inherent in subatomic particles. Russ Roberts from George Mason University claims that although many people romanticize about the objectivity of the so-called hard scientists, many physical scientists constantly engage in controversies and arguments[1]." This claim must be totally removed. The extensive debates in the physical sciences are to a great extent almost always settled! Is there any serious physicist who objects to the atomic theory of matter today? No! As for the randomness in the subatomic particles discussion, again this is a misleading argument because physicist don't disagree about the power and "correctness" of the theory, they argue whether it is "complete" or not. Whereas in the political science, you have many "theories" such as "offensive realism" or "defensive realism". Will there ever be an overwhelming agreement on any one of these theories? No! Each is as good as the other ones. In physics, if there are more than one theory as candidates to explain a phenomenon, they are almost always reduced to one single theory. I am not saying this do belittle political science, my point is that there is a huge difference between hard and soft sciences. Hard sciences utilize the verifiability and falsifiability to the hilt, while the soft scineces do not exactly have that luxury. 71.103.7.42 (talk) 09:45, 14 February 2009 (UTC)Ur

Sexist language and grammar cleanup

I've excised all the uses of "he." As anyone who's taken a college English class knows, virtually every English PhD shuns the use of "he." I agree with them. We don't live in the 1950s anymore. Bulldog123 03:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Moreover, I've fixed some bad uses of grammar and syntax. I'll fix the rest when I have time. Bulldog123 03:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Clarifying things is fine, but let's not be ridiculous. "He" can be either masculine or gender-indeterminate, depending on usage. It's counter-productive to create a political issue out of nothing. Wonderstruck 15:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Postmodern rubbish - POV

I added the POV label because the current version has far too much postmodern propaganda. In hard sciences, it is not a matter of philosophical, religious and political insults whether something is correct - which is what the anonymous contributor clearly thinks. --Lumidek 18:47, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've rewritten this article and removed the POV label from it. If anyone considers the article to still be POV then by all means replace the POV label. IMHO Both the anonymous author and Lumidek have valuable point to make about this entry, and if the discussion became more collegial and empathetic then we could generate more light than heat on this topic. Cheers all, Rex 22:24, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wow. Despite the fact I am much more sympathetic to the anonymous poster than Lumidek, the most recent edit is remarkalbly POV by anyone's standards. Lumidek if you want to take this to arbitration I'd be happy to support you. Rex 03:30, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Someone obviously was beaten by their Chemistry teacher as a kid, or otherwise had a traumatic experience with lab class. This is beyond POV into the realm of classic liberal arts raving about a subject which the author clearly has no understanding of (uh oh, sentence ended in a preposition!). On the other hand, maybe the author has a point. Perhaps "hard scientists" should wear black berets and consult their inner child. I think that would make science much better. - Anon.

Prescriptive grammar is so 1700s! [1] - FrancisTyers 00:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Redacted to make the page more accurate. -- antimarkovnikov

This article is very POV. I'll fix it if I ever get unlazy. Bulldog123 03:56, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Edits

I rewrote a lot of it, I think it is more NPOV at the moment, and more useful as an entry. I think it's a good policy to just revert the POV edits by our friend 128.175.241.xxx who seems unable to write a balanced entry. --Fastfission 03:03, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I like it

I for one am very impressed by the article as it stands today (March 3, 2005). I'm removing the stub thingy.

One of many?

Cut from article:

The hard vs. soft distinction is one of many possible distinctions between sciences that have developed in the last 200 years. In some ways the term 'hard' science corresponds to the nomothetic science described by Wilhelm Windelband and the Naturwissenschaften (natural sciences) described by Wilhelm Dilthey.

The reference to "one of many possible distinctions" is ill-advised for a topic sentence, as the paragraph never explains any of the other distinctions. It doesn't even name them.

So it sounds like an indirect way of saying that it's a false distinction, one which some people just "made up". It is thus a POV and should be identified as such before being put back into the article. Uncle Ed 17:41, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Uhh, how does saying there are other possible ways to distinguish sciences in any way imply that hard science vs. soft science is a false distinction?--71.35.109.198 00:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

npov and citations

i added the npov tag because this article presents an anglo-american viewpoint of science, which is not how science is understood in all of the world. i also removed uncited assertions. the use of the word empiricism is also problematic, given what they mean in philosophy of science. in general, the article needs cleaned up and made to map more generally onto scientific understandings in the world, where literature is frequently seen as a science along with history, and they are distinguished from the arts by other demarkations. --Buridan 12:29, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

• If you are requesting citations then use a {{fact}} tag, don't just delete things. The bits about psychoanalysis are common criticisms and it is well known that behaviorism was consciously attempting to make psychology more "hard" of a science (Watson's own works are explicit on this desire). If you want to add other points of view please feel free but don't consider yourself any more immune to the need to cite contentious claims than anyone else. --Fastfission 14:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

if it is contentious, it probably isn't encyclopedia and prolly fails npov. the bit i deleted had nothing verifiable that i knew of, it seemed like the opinion of a small minority at best, if i'm wrong and it is general knowledge and not the opinion of a small minority, please educate me. i added content and made contributions that clarified this issue. reverting it because you disagree is not an ideal strategy, the ideal strategy is to find the cites for the contentious material, or barring that find citable material. the other criticisms that i put up as npov are just as true with the content as without. --Buridan 19:35, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Needs Rewrite

The only part of this article which i believe is relevant at the moment is the final paragraph:

Despite these objections, the 'hard' vs 'soft' distinction is popular and widely used amongst scientists, technicians, and academics because of the way that it captures a perceived distinction between different forms of "scientific" practice in the modern research universities and laboratories. Indeed, one clear difference supporting the distinction is the degree to which conclusions in different fields are controversial within those fields (e.g., how much of physics is controversial among physicists, versus how much of political science is controversial among political scientists).

Although the term may have originated in the celebratory sense, today its main use is to describe the difference between these groups of sciences (along with soft science). Also, i would note that much of biology could be regarded as a soft science.

..

The first sentence of this article has surely inadvertently got the meaning accidentally reversed. “Hard science is a term used to describe certain fields contrasting with (or even opposite to) the social sciences and humanities, usually sociology, literary criticism, and many fields of ethnic studies.

There may well be a scientific explanation, hard or otherwise, as to how someone could do that inadvertently, three times, but it's beyond me. Hopefully they'll provide an explanation here, but in the meantime the original text is restored. CiaranG 23:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

• Comment - before a discuussion of possible merges it would be nice to see more references, only then can we decide if te subject merits it's own article or not. sbandrews (t) 15:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• I oppose the merger of these terms. They are related but they have subtle and important differences and should not be merged. I would not find it useful to be redirected to only one. M stone 23:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment This is rather old, anybody object if the suggestion was killed and the tags removed? Alternator 19:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Categorisation

See my comment at Talk:Soft_science#Categorisation, NerdyNSK 15:24, 16 September 2007 (UTC)