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Please see the discussion on the talk page. | Hard science is a term used to describe certain fields of the natural sciences, usually physics, chemistry, and many fields of biology. The hard sciences rely on experimental, quantifiable data or the scientific method and focus on accuracy and objectivity. The hard sciences are often contrasted with 'soft sciences', which by contrast have less rigor. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
Pure science, also called basic science, is the exact science of the development of scientific theories, without consideration of their application. ...
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
Exact science refers to systematized knowledge. ...
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
In science, fundamental science is the part of science that describes the most basic objects, forces, relations between them and laws governing them, such that all other phenomena may be in principle derived from them, following the logic of scientific reductionism. ...
Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ...
The term natural science as the way in which different fields of study are defined is determined as much by historical convention as by the present day meaning of the words. ...
Physics (from the Greek, (phúsis), nature and (phusiké), knowledge of nature) is the science concerned with the discovery and understanding of the fundamental laws which govern matter, energy, space, and time. ...
Chemistry (from Greek χημεία khemeia[1] meaning alchemy) is the science of matter at the atomic to molecular scale, dealing primarily with collections of atoms, such as gases, molecules, crystals, and metals. ...
Biology studies the variety of life (clockwise from top-left) E. coli, tree fern, gazelle, Goliath beetle Biology (from Greek Βìο meaning life and Λoγος meaning the study of) is the study of life. ...
In language and logic, quantification is a construct that specifies the extent of validity of a predicate, that is the extent to which a predicate holds over a range of things. ...
Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. ...
In science, the ideal of objectivity is an essential aspect of the scientific method, and is generally considered by the scientific community to come about as a result of strict observance of the scientific method, including the scientists willingness to submit their methods and results to an open debate by...
Soft science is a colloquial term, often used pejoratively, for academic research or scholarship which is purportedly not based on reproducible experimental data and a mathematical explanation of that data. ...
Studies of Physics, computer science, chemistry, biology and geology are sometimes called "hard sciences." Physics (from the Greek, (phúsis), nature and (phusiké), knowledge of nature) is the science concerned with the discovery and understanding of the fundamental laws which govern matter, energy, space, and time. ...
Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ...
Chemistry (from Greek χημεία khemeia[1] meaning alchemy) is the science of matter at the atomic to molecular scale, dealing primarily with collections of atoms, such as gases, molecules, crystals, and metals. ...
Biology studies the variety of life (clockwise from top-left) E. coli, tree fern, gazelle, Goliath beetle Biology (from Greek Βìο meaning life and Λoγος meaning the study of) is the study of life. ...
World geologic provinces Oceanic crust 0-20 Ma 20-65 Ma >65 Ma Geologic provinces Shield Platform Orogen Basin Large igneous province Extended crust Geology (from Greek γη- (ge-, the earth) and λογος (logos, word, reason))[1] is the science and study of the solid matter of the earth, its composition, structure...
The 'hard' versus 'soft' distinction is not used to indicate that 'soft' sciences are not valid fields of study, but that they do not produce (and usually do not seek to produce) results that are objectively calculable. That is, while 'hard' sciences focus on producing results that can be rigorously proven, the 'soft' sciences ultimately rely (to some degree) on a subjective viewpoint. Thus the conclusions of hard science represent objective features of reality determined through concrete experiment (and sometimes thought experiments) by experimentalists with a rigorous training in specialized research methods. In philosophy, physics, and other fields, a thought experiment (from the German Gedankenexperiment) is an attempt to solve a problem using the power of human imagination. ...
A blanket term for all sorts of scientists engaged more in experimental activity than on the theoretical side of the various sciences. ...
One distinction is drawn also between Western Science and Native Science. Which shows how a worldview determines which kind of science is practiced by the people within this framework. Native Science is scientific approach based on native worldview. ...
As an example of a distinction, a physicist may determine that the velocity of an object falling towards the earth due to gravity is equal to g*t, where t is time of falling and g is a gravitational constant. He reports this not as an opinion or viewpoint, but as a fact about the nature of the universe. Other scientists may examine the claim. The claim will stand unless and until objectively disproven by another person as being totally incorrect or incomplete in some way. But if the claim is correct, anyone who tries the experiment will get the same answer. By contrast, a sociologist may make a claim about the causes of poverty, for example. He may conclude that the cause is mainly a lack of labor laws. Another sociologist may have a different point of view and publish a paper that concludes the reason is mainly a lack of education. A third sociologist may claim the reason is just a difference in personal industriousness. Any of these points of view may be reasonable, and of course some may seem more reasonable than others to various readers, but in most cases no one will be able to make the claim that one of the points of view is objectively correct and provable in the way that a theory of gravity is. The conclusions ultimately rely on personal opinions in a way that the conclusions of hard sciences do not.
The 'hard' vs. 'soft' distinction is controversial in some circles, but not among most scientists. Although associated with notions of realism, this distinction is drawn more from commonsense than a deep immersion in the philosophy of science. Much work by modern historians of science, starting with the work done by Thomas Kuhn, has focused on the ways in which the "hard sciences" have functioned in ways which were less "hard" than previously assumed, emphasizing that decisions over the veracity of a given theory owed much more to "subjective" influences than the "hard" label would emphasize (and begin to question whether there are any real distinctions between "hard" and "soft" science). Some, such as those who subscribe to the "strong program" of the sociology of scientific knowledge, would go even further, and remove the barrier between "hard science" and "nonscience" completely. This view of science has not been taken too fondly by scientists themselves. Look up realism, realist, realistic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Philosophy of science studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, including the formal sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences. ...
Science is a body of empirical and theoretical knowledge, produced by a global community of researchers, making use of specific techniques for the observation and explanation of real phenomena, this techne summed up under the banner of scientific method. ...
Thomas Samuel Kuhn (July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American intellectual who wrote extensively on the history of science and developed several important notions in the philosophy of science. ...
The Strong Program/Programme is a variety of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) particularly associated with David Bloor, Barry Barnes, and Bruno Latour. ...
The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), closely related to the sociology of science, considers social influences on science. ...
Despite these objections, the 'hard' vs 'soft' distinction is popular and widely used amongst scientists, technicians, and academics because of the way that it captures a distinction between different forms of investigation in the modern research universities and laboratories. Indeed, one clear difference supporting the distinction is the degree to which conclusions in different fields are controversial within those fields (e.g., how much of physics is controversial among physicists, versus how much of political science is controversial among political scientists).
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