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:
“It is hard living down the tempers we are born with. We
all begin well, for in our youth there is nothing we
are more intolerant of than our own sins writ large in
others and we fight them fiercely in ourselves; but we
grow old and we see that these our sins are of all sins
the really harmless ones to own, nay that they give a
charm to any character, and so our struggle with them
dies away.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“He laid his two sides down on the floor,
one part soft as a woman,
one part a barbed hook,
one part papa,
one part Doppelgänger.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)