/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4225957]

I keep seeing "hard science" and "soft science" posted in threads. I always thought I understood the distinction - could you clarify? Is there one? Does it matter?

Why would one hold a field like psychology to the same standard of "proof" as, say, mathematics?

Tl;dr hard sciences and soft sciences? Name them, and why does it matter?

[Anonymous No.4225969]

>>4225957

Biology is a hard science, whoever says otherwise is a fuckwit.

[Anonymous No.4225984]

Blacks are typically involved in soft sciences. Whites less so. Jews the least so.

[Anonymous No.4225992]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphism_thesis
hard sciences use a shit load of graphs.

[Anonymous No.4226003]

The study of blacks is a soft science.

[Anonymous No.4226009]

Hard sciences rely primarily on quantifying things. Soft sciences are more about classification and hypotheses which can't be rigorously checked.

Let's look at biological classification, just to bring out the trolls. Assigning organisms to family trees based on physical characteristics--does it have three toes or four? Does it have spots on its coat?--is soft science. There's nothing really to measure (though you might use some supplemental geology). But doing DNA analysis and computing best fits for common ancestors is hard science. Your work is primarily mathematical and is based on testable quantification.

[Anonymous No.4226017]

I'll show you the difference between a hard penis and a soft penis. Will that help?

[Anonymous No.4226040]

The study of Jews is a hard science.

[SAGEGOESINALLFIELDS No.4226046]

>>4226040
We shouldn't stick our noses where they don't belong.

[Anonymous No.4226049]

The study of whites is often considered a hard science.

[Anonymous No.4226052]

>>4226046

LOL

10/10

[Anonymous No.4226053]

>>4226040

[Anonymous No.4226055]

Psychology is often viewed as a soft science, and a good part of it is soft. However parts of psychology, such as neuropsychology and psychopharmacology would be considered at the very least, a harder soft science.

[Anonymous No.4226074]

The major distinction is natural science vs social science; 'hard vs. soft' science is not typically actually seen in any philosophy of science works.

Most of the reason it's not a useful term is because the way people use defeats its own purpose. Few biologists would argue that physics is not a 'harder' science than biology, but the arbitrary distinction that physics is 'the' hard science and and biology begins all 'the' soft sciences defeats the entire purpose of such a scale. It's also stupid because biology is a massive area of study, and there are several areas that are memorizing the anatomy of a fucking cat and there are heavily computational areas. Most of the rage against biology is just rage about stupid undergraduates who get B.A.'s in biology and then fail to get into a med school, but make life for everyone else taking these courses a living hell. These assholes rarely muck up other fields.

A more useful breakdown would be to look at how statistics are applied to a given sub-field. Physicists are lucky - they can usually use very strong forms of hypothesis testing to prove their case and it adds a lot of rigor to the work, this begins to fall apart as you 'move down' and by the time you reach psychology you're largely starting to depend on nil-hypothesis testing, which even at its best is going to be weak.

Also, fuck Bruno Latour.

[Anonymous No.4226079]

>>4225984
>implying psychology and sociology weren't started by Jews (Freud and Durkheim)

>implying most psychologists aren't Jews

>implying Jews have had any presence in hard science with the exception of a few physicists hyped up by the Jewish media

0/10

[Anonymous No.4226092]

>>4226079

>implying Freud had anything to do with the formation of psychology.

[Richard Feynmann !Hwop/gspA. No.4226097]

the physical sciences are associatd with a high rate of erectile dysfunction

mathematicians, physicists, &c refer to themselfs as "the hard sciences" to comepensate for and conceal the flaccidity of their members

[Anonymous No.4226116]

Collegefag here, and I've been exposed to a LOT of different teachers, even within the course of two years (the registrar here sucks, meaning I have to run around getting over-tallies for almost every class.)

The harder the science, the more foreveralone the people who learn it are. My Chemistry professor was like 65 and foreveralone; never married, and beta as ALL FUCK. He would always pander to the pretty girls in our lecture hall, and act like a dick to all the boys. Hence, people who learn "hard sciences" berate and harass people who learn EVERYTHING ELSE to fell better about themselves. It's funny, actually, I'll greentext this part:
>meet everyone in the Chemistry department
>gigantic assholes; foreveralone, sure is /r9k/ in here
>humanities classes as required
>philosophy professor is SO FUCKING COOL
>English teacher is a little air-headed, but really chill
>lived a lot of places, read a lot of books, met a lot of people, getting married
>sweet as apple pie
>history professor really cool (I feel a little bad cause I never paid attention; I was always talking to this girl next to me)
>short story class, professor was so fucking brilliant it's ridiculous
>art teacher
>still an adjunct, but really cool
>political science
>kind of rode us, also an adjunct, but I swear to Christ she could have been in Mensa, blew my mind on the regular; thought of things in ways I could never have
>calculus
>two old women, lazy
>help rarely if ever, and always do so with a fucking attitude
>mfw

[Anonymous No.4226126]

Implying psychology is a science ...
Trial & error is not science

[Anonymous No.4226143]

>>4226126

[Anonymous No.4226169]

>>4226079

Trolled.

10/10.