Neel: The myth of hard vs. soft science

Neel: The myth of hard vs. soft science

In almost every intro class, someone is bound to say that psychology isn’t a “real science.” Physics is treated as rigorous, sociology as fluffy. These labels “hard” and “soft” science get tossed around casually, but they are more than harmless shorthand. They create hierarchies that dismiss entire fields of knowledge, and they reveal more about cultural bias than about the sciences themselves.  The distinction is often framed around methods; th…