Hard and Soft Sciences
So this March 3rd I was reading an excellent blog post about the hard and soft sciences (linked) and, well...it made me think, which is always good. In particular it made me think about what hard and soft science mean to me. I think I wrote a little before on the sciences and humanities and on linking things , so I'm not particularly averse to the soft sciences. I don't think they're evil, and I think they're important. (I do confess to preferring hard sciences, though, because they deal with data that is more easily quantified.) Actually, I'm pretty sure anyone who participates in the endless "my chosen discipline is better than yours" debate is wrong. Yes, even if they're a physicist. That blog definitely gave me pause for thought: I think often a lot of us in the hard sciences think our disciplines are better because we can use more quantifiable data (before anyone starts crying about the tyranny of numbers here, the problem with quantif...