Hard Versus Soft Science
The ease of quantification is one of the features used to distinguish hard and soft sciences from each other. Hard sciences are often considered to be more scientific, rigorous, or accurate. In some social sciences such as sociology, specific accurate data are difficult to obtain, either because laboratory conditions are not present or because the issues involved are conceptual but not directly quantifiable.
Read more about this topic: Quantification
Famous quotes containing the words hard, soft and/or science:
“For rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope;
And when he happen’d to break off
I’ th’ middle of his speech, or cough,
H’ had hard words ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by;”
—Samuel Butler (1612–1680)
“Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands,
Which hold my life in their dead-doing might,
Shall handle you, and hold in love’s soft bands,”
—Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)
“Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.”
—Paul Valéry (1871–1945)