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

[27Thousand]

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

As you all know, from time to time people will say there are the soft and hard sciences. Although it's not always clear where the distinctions are, it's generally believed they are there.

For the poll, please rate these Sciences in order of what you believe to be most hard (accurate and scientific) to most soft. Also, don't rate what you think the media says about them, but rather what you know about the actual field. The sciences are biology, economics, physics, sociology, chemistry, psychology, and medicine.

 

[humanino]

Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Medicine
Economics
Sociology
Psychology
PFology

 

[Cyrus]

Oh, that's what she said x million to this thread.

But on a more serious note, the only thing this list will show is the relative interest someone has in these topics. Difficulty is a relative concept, so the premise of the thread is flawed.

 

[humanino]

Cyrusology is a very hard science. The laws are so rigorous, only Pengwuino could master them, and then he disappeared. Even if you have information about Pengwuino's whereabout, please do not try Cyrusology at home.

 

[Cyrus]

Cyrusology is very hard

That's what she said.

 

[humanino]

Difficulty is a relative concept, so the premise of the thread is flawed.

I think that Mathematics are more "hard" than physics, and also easier. Because they are well-defined, I understand Mathematics truly : I know what they are about. Every single step is under control in Mathematics. Physics often takes some hand-waving, and nobody knows truly what we are talking about in Physics : we have to rely on Mathematics to communicate Physics. Chemistry is much more difficult than Physics, because the laws are so complicated that they can not be derived from first principles until a very high level. Psychology is so difficult, nobody even hopes to derive true first principle that would encompass all possible approaches to Psychology.

 

[Cyrus]

I think that mathematics are more "hard" than physics, and also easier. Because they are well-defined, I understand mathematics truly : I know what they are about. Chemistry is much more difficult than physics, because the laws are so complicated that they can not be derived from first principles until a very high level. Psychology is so hard, nobody even hopes to derive true first principle that would encompass all possible approaches to psychology.

Well that's my point, its all based on opinion. Hard for you is easy for Freud. Hard for Feud is easy for Bernoulli. That doesn't mean one thing is harder than another, just that its harder for a particular person due to their unique abilities.

 

[humanino]

I'll quote

If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.

 

[Cyrus]

that's, what she said

1234

 

[cristo]

But on a more serious note, the only thing this list will show is the relative interest someone has in these topics. Difficulty is a relative concept, so the premise of the thread is flawed.

The term "hard science" doesn't mean the science that is most difficult, it means the science that is most rigorous.

 

[Cyrus]

The term "hard science" doesn't mean the science that is most difficult, it means the science that is most rigorous.

And how do you define rigor?

 

[CRGreathouse]

1. Chemistry
1. Physics
3. Biology
?. Medicine
5. Economics
6. Psychology
7. Sociology

 

[rewebster]

1. Chemistry
1. Physics
3. Biology
?. Medicine
5. Economics
6. Psychology
7. Sociology

just about the way I would put it, except I'll trade the #6 and #7


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

if engineering was an option, I'd put it in the #2 spot, and move everything down one


edit:

1. Math
2. Chemistry
3. Engineering
4. Physics
5. Biology
6. Medicine
7. Economics
8. Sociology
9. Psychology/Psychiatry



I thought the 'field' of Psychology---not for each person

 

[lisab]

Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Medicine
Economics
Sociology
Psychology
PFology

Not bad...I'd put Psychology above Sociology, I think. I might even move medicine down a notch.

And PFology is more sweet than soft.

 

[humanino]

Not bad...I'd put Psychology above Sociology, I think.

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.

 

[Pengwuino]

Pillow working is a pretty soft science

 

[27Thousand]

For some background on why I'm interested, I found many have come up with ideas on what separates hard from soft sciences, but few stand up to the actual empirical data when testing what distinguishes. Then I came across some peer-review studies which tested these ideas. The researchers gave a questionnaire to doctoral candidates from various fields of science asking them to rate these disciplines level of hardness on a scale of 1-10. Then the researchers used random selection to select peer-review journals from the fields and then random selection again to pull articles from them. They tested for correlations between rated hardness and various features that are measurable within the peer-review articles, to test peoples' ideas about what distinguishes the hard sciences from the soft sciences. Most ideas had no correlation at all, while a few had correlation (how much a discipline relies of empirical evidence wasn't a distinguishing feature), and one idea had a 0.97 correlation in distinguishing rated hardness of the Sciences. Others replicated the same type of study but put together their own study, and also found a correlation in the 0.90's (that's a strong correlation!) Although correlation doesn't prove causation, I found this really interesting, and downloaded these peer-review articles to my computer.

The distinguishing feature showed that the natural science peer-review journals had a lot more of this than both the formal sciences (mathematics and statistics) and social sciences. Although formal sciences are very rigorous/hard, this distinguishing feature separated the natural sciences from them. Then within both the natural and social sciences it separated the individual disciplines on level of hardness. Although what the survey on how so many doctoral candidates rated them could be subjective in hardness level, it was interesting looking at the correlations.

 

[russ_watters]

And how do you define rigor?

Strict adherence to the rules. In this case, to the scientific method. Social sciences are considered "soft" because they (by necessity) must rely on relaxed rules for experimentation and data analysis.

 

[27Thousand]

Strict adherence to the rules. In this case, to the scientific method. Social sciences are considered "soft" because they (by necessity) must rely on relaxed rules for experimentation and data analysis.

You would think! But then when one looks at the actual empirical evidence that can be put on a graph and replicated.

 

[russ_watters]

That's not a complete sentence...

 

[mynameinc]

As you all know, from time to time people will say there are the soft and hard sciences. Although it's not always clear where the distinctions are, it's generally believed they are there.

For the poll, please rate these Sciences in order of what you believe to be most hard (accurate and scientific) to most soft. Also, don't rate what you think the media says about them, but rather what you know about the actual field. The sciences are biology, economics, physics, sociology, chemistry, psychology, and medicine.

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

 

[ideasrule]

Physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, sociology, economics, psychology

 

[jobyts]

Where is Criminology and Evolution biology?

 

[Galteeth]

An example of "soft": In a college psychology class, there was a textbook that kept referring to "well-adjusted individuals" as a contrast to the pathological. When I pressed my professor on what these individuals were well adjusted to, he said "society." Which brings up the question, which society? If pathological individuals banded together and formed a society, would the formerly well-adjusted individuals be considered pathological? This seemed to imply that using these definitions, "pathology" was entirely subjective. Contrast this with physics. While phenomenon can be described in terms of contextual background, it would make no sense to use such vague subjective notions to describe motion. Physical laws are universal (in the broad sense.)

 

[humanino]

This seemed to imply that using these definitions, "pathology" was entirely subjective.

I believe this is the case indeed. Some behaviors we consider normal practice today will be considered pathological in the future, and vice-versa. It works as well with examples from past. Think about it.

Think about Bonobos normal social behavior. Would you want to be a Bonobo ?

 

[27Thousand]

An example of "soft": In a college psychology class, there was a textbook that kept referring to "well-adjusted individuals" as a contrast to the pathological. When I pressed my professor on what these individuals were well adjusted to, he said "society." Which brings up the question, which society? If pathological individuals banded together and formed a society, would the formerly well-adjusted individuals be considered pathological? This seemed to imply that using these definitions, "pathology" was entirely subjective. Contrast this with physics. While phenomenon can be described in terms of contextual background, it would make no sense to use such vague subjective notions to describe motion. Physical laws are universal (in the broad sense.)

Interesting point. I'm not all that interested in abnormal psychology, although I'm interested in a lot of other areas in the social sciences.

Something you may want to consider, if someone is diagnosed as having "OCD", each day takes two hour showers, spends one hour checking the same lock, can't use the restroom normally, and hates every second of all it and has extreme anxiety, it's extremely arbitrary to say that's a disorder. However, if you can set out general definitions for "disorder" and specific ones like OCD, then they can use the scientific method to study patterns relating to specific ones and experimental-control cause-effect treatments (including psychiatry and behavioral therapy methods, etc). Each and every single one of us has issues, however in abnormal psychology they set the definition for disorder as requiring: 1. Abnormal, 2. Impairs the individual or others around them at a level considered "Clinical", and 3. Chronic. Contrary to people who use "I'm OCD" as a figure of speech, having obsession/compulsions doesn't mean you have OCD, but rather it has a requirement of interfering regularly with more than an hour of your time each day, and you're required to dislike the obsessions-compulsions but do them anyway because of anxiety (if the individual actually likes being obsessive-compulsive and it drives everyone else crazy then it's not OCD).

Something to consider, in Physics they make operational definitions for measuring things like time in seconds and distance with meters. How do you prove one second is one second and one meter one meter? One second being one second is an arbitrary definition agreed on by others that you can't make falsifiable. Science obviously allows operational definitions because you need them to use the scientific method to test for patterns, for example the relationship between exponential decay you need to set out how time is to be measured. You can't do this unless scientists come to a consensus for definitions of measurement, even if arbitrarily set and someone else thinks one second should be set as two seconds. Although this analogy of physics doesn't exactly carry over, the big picture is it's arbitrary to say that person who checks the same lock for an hour straight each day with two hour showers and extreme anxiety has a so called "disorder", however once there's the label for a diagnosis of OCD one can use the scientific method to test for specific patterns and experimental-control treatments to put in peer-review journals. I'm not very into abnormal psychology, but it has uses.

 

[cronxeh]

I don't understand how you people can claim Physics to be "rigorous". It is one of the most delusional, careless and clueless of all sciences. Physics is responsible for giving us string theory, superstring theory, 26 dimensions? 10 dimensions? 11 dimensions? 3 or 5 dimensional branes? M-theory, multiverses, tachyons, gravitons, and a universal constant of gravity to 4 digits. All without any proof! No rigor, no shame, and they keep taking in the grant money. This is just to start off the list.

Physics, in my humble opinion, is a joke. Its like a hobby for all mathematics literate academia dwellers who had too much time on their hands.

 

[Sorry!]

I don't understand how you people can claim Physics to be "rigorous". It is one of the most delusional, careless and clueless of all sciences. Physics is responsible for giving us string theory, superstring theory, 26 dimensions? 10 dimensions? 11 dimensions? 3 or 5 dimensional branes? M-theory, multiverses, tachyons, gravitons, and a universal constant of gravity to 4 digits. All without any proof! No rigor, no shame, and they keep taking in the grant money. This is just to start off the list.

Physics, in my humble opinion, is a joke. Its like a hobby for all mathematics literate academia dwellers who had too much time on their hands.

It has made for some interesting films/stories though...

I don't really have enough knowledge in chemistry or economics so I'm not even going to bother listing out how I view 'hard' vs 'soft' sciences.

 

[27Thousand]

That's not a complete sentence...

I think there's a misunderstanding. I wasn't saying that physics is the same accurateness as the social sciences, and not saying there isn't a difference in adherence to the scientific method, but that it's not the distinguishing line.

For example, in Science they have a principle of experimental-control where if you have two groups the same and the researcher manipulates one variable, then there's a cause-effect relationship. Just like they use this in the medical field, many fields of psychology are quite big in extensive experimental-control studies, while some areas of astronomy/geology rely mostly on observational studies. However, that doesn't mean those areas of astronomy/geology are soft. As far as relying on direct observation rather than indirect, in biology they can actually see cells and mitochondrial, while in physics no one has ever seen an electron under an electron microscope nor even gravitation itself (only the effects of gravitation and many say Einstein's General Relativity replaced Newton's theory of gravitation being a force and many say it could be Quantum Gravitation instead). However, everyone knows physics is more hard than biology. Although the equations in physics are much much more accurate/universal then the ones in economics, economics has more equations mentioned in their peer-review journal articles. For economics using more equations than physics in their peer-review journals --> Arsenault, D.J.; Smith, L.D.; Beauchamp, E.A. (2006). Visual Inscriptions in the Scientific Hierarchy-Mapping the Treasures of Science. Science Communication, Vol. 27(3), p.376-428.

Obviously physics is a much harder science than economics and is able to make much more precise predictions.

 

[Zubin]

I believe the OP is trying to make the distinction between natural science, formal science, social science, and applied science.
Here's a link that describes how different fields of science are grouped:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_of_science