Craig

Generally if you can get a solid, numerical answer to a question then you are probably looking at a hard science. For example, how long does it take a ray of light to travel though 1m of water? That's physics, that's a "hard" number.

On the other hand you have something like psychology, where you speak more in probabilities as in "what percentage of a group of people that are in situation A will do action ?"

I'm sure someone will bring up QM and probability at this point, but there are some fairly hard and fast rules in that field too.

That's a general description of course, YMMV, but you get the idea.

Peez

Interesting link, thanks. Note that the details of the surveys are not provided, and so one should be cautious with the results. That being said, I found the trends unsurprising except for the markedly higher incidence of creatonism in women. I suppose that this may reflect the relative education/income of women, but one could likely tease apart these effects with appropriate analysis of the data.

Peez

Peez

I do, though I think that there are many answers in physics, astronomy, and geology which are probablistic, and many "solid, numerical answer(s)" in biology, at least.


Peez

nermal

Don't know about biology, I've always considered that hard science. Psychology, however, seems to me something of a chimera when trying to pin it down as a hard science, or even a science, for that matter. I consider it a discipline. Why?

Scientific techniques are certainly used in psychology, to be sure. But there are too many diagnoses in the DSM (what is it now, IV, V?) which are made by committee. That is, psychologists vote on whether or not such and such symptoms mean such and such disorder. Without disparging the field, this strikes me as far too nonscientific to consider such a discipline a hard science.

Ed

RufusAtticus

Wasn't the "hard" vs. "soft" science distinction invented by physicists with chips on their shoulders?

Doubting Didymus

I'd give you good odds.

Damnation. That distinction pisses me off badly enough when it's intended to exclude sociology and psycology, but when the entire feild of biology is placed in the soft side of the imaginary fence, I find myself verging on the use of violent animated smiley graphics. I've restrained myself this time...

Yours seethingly,
D.

Secular Pinoy

Pigliucci discusses religious beliefs of scientists in his essay The Case Against God: Science and the Falsifiability Question in Theology .