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.
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Famous quotes containing the words hard, soft and/or science:
“The Mind in Infancy is, methinks, like the Body in Embrio, and receives Impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to be removed by Reason, as any Mark with which a Child is born is to be taken away by any future Application.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“Plead, Sleep, my cause, and make her soft like thee,
That she in peace may wake and pity me.”
—Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
“In the new science of the twenty-first century, not physical force but spiritual force will lead the way. Mental and spiritual gifts will be more in demand than gifts of a physical nature. Extrasensory perception will take precedence over sensory perception. And in this sphere woman will again predominate.”
—Elizabeth Gould Davis (b. 1910)