Which disciplines would you call Hard Sciences vs. Soft Sciences ?

[DrClapeyron]

Geology has to be one of the hardest sciences along with chemistry. I don't see too many scientist other than geologist hiking up and down mountains at 6,000 ft elevation, diving into the water to swim near coral reefs or spending their summers in deserts. And chemistry has to be hard because chemists are always blowing themselves up.

 

[OmCheeto]

I agree that economics is a valid field of study, but it's not a science in that it does a poor job predicting the future. It's pretty good at describing the past, though.

I think I saw this here somewhere on PF...Feynman on the social sciences (not sure if he's referring to economics specifically):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EZcpTTjjXY

O.M.G. I think I may have subconsciously plagiarized professor Feynman on my website...

I decided to bring my ideas home, as the science forums I usually post at tend to dilute any hard science with opinions, disinformation, and general hysteria. I'm sure you've heard people saying they wouldn't drive one of those "death traps", or it's "bad economics" to be energy efficient.
Hard science, being of course, a generous dose of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. I am not interested in social sciences, such as economics, and politics, et al. None of those sciences, to my knowledge, ever created anything useful.

The things I write when sober...

 

[Zubin]

I agree that economics is a valid field of study, but it's not a science in that it does a poor job predicting the future. It's pretty good at describing the past, though.

I think I saw this here somewhere on PF...Feynman on the social sciences (not sure if he's referring to economics specifically):

You're invoking fallacious logic(ad verecundiam) if you're trying to suggest that the video you posted contains useful information. Feynman, much like many other famous physicists, was not an expert in the field(s) he was referring to in that particular video.

 

[Lazy]

In order from hardest to softest.

1.) Physics
2.) Chemistry
3.) Biology
4.) Medicine
5.) Economics
6.) Sociology
7.) Psychology

 

[qspeechc]

Crap, I just wrote a long response on why economics is not a science, and then my browser froze and I lost the reply I was going to post. I don't feel like typing it out again.
Anyway, just do a google search for "economics is not a science" and read away. I found http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/10/23/971012.htm" , which gives some of the arguments I was going to give.

Some other random articles:
http://asociologist.wordpress.com/2...-science-from-nobel-prizes-to-public-opinion/
http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/?p=6556
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB123456978348686215.html

Etc., we all know how to use google.

 

[27Thousand]

Crap, I just wrote a long response on why economics is not a science, and then my browser froze and I lost the reply I was going to post. I don't feel like typing it out again.
Anyway, just do a google search for "economics is not a science" and read away. I found http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/10/23/971012.htm" , which gives some of the arguments I was going to give.

Some other random articles:
http://asociologist.wordpress.com/2...-science-from-nobel-prizes-to-public-opinion/
http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/?p=6556
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB123456978348686215.html

Etc., we all know how to use google.

Not that there aren't any valid points from those websites, but I wonder how reliable .com websites are? Something to consider as food for thought, when someone says something is wrong in part of the medical field or any other areas we typically want scholarly peer-review sources for backup rather than .com sites.

 

[27Thousand]

I hesitated for that one. I thought psychology is influenced by the sociological context, whereas the psychology of a single individual (generally) has little impact on sociology.

Psychology often is influenced more by biology, depending on the area. There's a saying in psychology that everything psychological is also biological. There are quite a few cognitive neuroscience studies. Only some of psychology deals with social aspects, while the rest mostly deals with cognition or neuropsychology or behavior.

Psychology also emphasizes experimental-control studies, while economics and sociology don't place as much emphasis in that area.

 

[vici10]

Economics in present form (neoclassical) is not a science it is a religion. Its basic assumptions are flawed. For books about it see a book of Greek economist "Foundations of economics: a beginner's companion" By Yanis Varoufakis

http://books.google.ca/books?id=EcL...resnum=2&ved=0CBEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false

And another by Australian economist "Debunking economics: the naked emperor of the social sciences" By Steve Keen

http://books.google.ca/books?id=KdI...resnum=4&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

[rewebster]

I've understood that the meaning of "Hard Sciences" and "Soft Sciences" is similar to 'hard facts' and 'soft facts'. In other words, if a science is a 'hard science', its fairly immutable-- 4 + 3 = 7 is a 'hard fact'; adding so much of this to that will cause this thing to happen.

Whereas a 'soft science' is one where there are more differences of opinions on the options or reasons that or why something happens.

 

[rewebster]

You are welcome to make a contribution yourself if you claim to be able to do better. It so happens that the standard model of particle physics reproduces experimental observations to a fantastic accuracy. As of today, we do not have anything much convincing beyond the standard model. String theory is not the only theory beyond the standard model, but it is certainly a major contribution.
This is an instance of misconception that you are displaying here. String theory is not making hypothesis on top of other hypothesis. It is removing an hypothesis. I have to simplify of course, but roughly speaking it goes like this.

Say you have the standard model of particle physics, based on quantum gauge field theories. Say you believe this scheme, as successful as it is, fails to include gravity at a fundamental level. So there must be something wrong with one of the hypothesis in the building of the standard model. You can make a list of the hypothesis necessary for the building of those quantum field theories. You will end up with something like

causality
continuity
locality
unitarity
point particles

So the correct scientific behavior at this point is to look for a possible removal of hypothesis in this list. Some tried to remove locality. Some tried to remove continuity. It so happens that string theory removed the hypothesis of point particles. They obtained fantastic predictions about Nature, such as additional bosonic dimensions (10+1 total compared to our known 4), and such as fermionic dimensions (supersymmetry as represented geometrically in superspace). Eventually, they come close to realize Einstein's dream of realizing all interactions from a single gravitational interaction on an elaborate geometry.

You will note for instance that Connes' noncommutative geometry realizes the very same thing, although with quite a different approach. Most intriguingly, non-commutative geometry also predicts 6 additional inner K-dimensions (not simply topological dimensions as in string theory) + 1 for the Higgs mechanism.

So again, you obtain all that not by adding more hypothesis, but by removing hypothesis. Supersymmetry is the only to extend Poincare symmetry as far as published in the literature. Again, if you will come up with something better, please do so, we will be very happy. If you do not come up with anything else but unfounded wrong comments, you will understand that you do not have much credibility. String theoreticians are much better aware than you of the shortcomings of their accomplishments, in particular the lack of decisive experimental test. It does not mean there is no effort to find one, it does not even mean there no experimental prediction.

Instead of complaining that we do not yet have a unified theory, you should be excited to live in the period where we are so close to find it.

I keep hearing that---'we are close', 'in the next ten to twenty years'---and wonder where that thinking come from?

is it because of the LHC? the interplay and/or exchange of info because of the internet? Where does the idea that we're going to get 'the answer' in the next few years come from?

 

[humanino]

Where does the idea that we're going to get 'the answer' in the next few years come from?

I did not say we are close in time. We have achieved during the previous century a convincing unification of 3 out of 4 fundamental interactions. We are close logically to complete this process. It appears the last step is more difficult.

 

[rewebster]

I did not say we are close in time. We have achieved during the previous century a convincing unification of 3 out of 4 fundamental interactions. We are close logically to complete this process. It appears the last step is more difficult.

century? I guess 'close' has a different time span for 'logically close' to me.

I think it was Hawking who said something about 20 years, but I can't remember what year he said it.

 

[cronxeh]

I did not say we are close in time. We have achieved during the previous century a convincing unification of 3 out of 4 fundamental interactions. We are close logically to complete this process. It appears the last step is more difficult.

You've got to admit that the unification attempts are more of philosophy than science. In any event, who came up with the idea that there is a need for a unifying theory? Was there some pattern to suggest that perhaps that which applies to magnets will apply to the nucleus and to the planetary motion?

 

[Klockan3]

century? I guess 'close' has a different time span for 'logically close' to me.

I think it was Hawking who said something about 20 years, but I can't remember what year he said it.

That got to have been an estimate assuming that the standard model where correct. However as it is now I bet that the standard model is wrong, that would be the most interesting thing that could happen in my opinion.

 

[humanino]

You've got to admit that the unification attempts are more of philosophy than science.

No I do not have to admit that. Theoretician groups do they best to come up with tests and experimentalists do they their best to find deviations from the standard model. I know literally dozens of highly dedicated individuals who work on unification and I think deserve the title of scientist.

In any event, who came up with the idea that there is a need for a unifying theory? Was there some pattern to suggest that perhaps that which applies to magnets will apply to the nucleus and to the planetary motion?

Yes, there is an obvious pattern. Unification has definitely been the most successful path in physics.

Maybe you need to remember that it was not obvious at all planets and stars would obey the same dynamical laws as rocks and apples. That was the first major unification : universal gravitation.

Then electricity and magnetism. Why would a magnet be anyhow related to Sun light ?

Then electromagnetism and weak interactions are actually two inseparable faces of the same electroweak coin. Radioactivity and magnets stem from the same electroweak interaction, we already know that. Besides, strong interactions are also unified in the same gauge scheme, and you cannot renormalize the standard model of particle physics (given its flavor and charge structure) without SU(3) of strong interactions (cancellation of anomalies).

We do have reasons to believe it does not stop here, and includes gravitation as well. For instance, weak interactions know of spacetime symmetries, they are chiral : they like left-handed particle and right-handed antiparticles. Another reasons is simply that gravitation knows of everything : there is no regime where gravitation "decouples" from the the standard model interactions. Yet another reason comes from supersymmetry : the almost perfect match in the running of the couplings becomes perfect with supersymmetry, and this includes gravitation.

So there are very general, historical reasons to believe in unification, and there are very specific, technical needs for it.

 

[humanino]

century? I guess 'close' has a different time span for 'logically close' to me.

Again : it is not close in time. It could be thousand of years from now, it could be a billion years, it is irrelevant : we logically close because we completed 3 steps out of 4.