soft sciences vs. hard sciences

Blog Assignment of the week: Are the soft sciences harder than the hard sciences? For this blog, read the article by Jared Diamond on pages 283-285. Do you think he has a case? Can you explain why we often think that the hard sciences, such as physics, are better at truth seeking?


I agree with Jared Diamond. People often think hard sciences are better at truth seeking because they are more controlled. They fit into tests, their variables can be controlled. But what is truth anyway? is it just numbers and decimal places? or is it everything that surrounds us? ANd not only the empirical perception, but also memories of the past... These are things that hard science are unlikely to explain.
Jared diamond argues that soft science are often harder than hard science because you have to deal with human mind. The study of human sciences often requires a deep understanding of human nature, pulses and desires.
For example, history looks for causes and consequences and tries to give an interpretation of a truth that is really hard to fully understand, because we can never be sure 100% -it's a science, after all!-. But it is so important to know the little that we know because it helps being better human beings and it helps explain human nature..
In soft science, You can do predictions, but they are hard to confirm of disprove. Does this mean that soft sciences are less certain than hard sciences? yes. Does this involve that hard sciences are better at truth seeking? not exactly. They are better at looking at a part of the truth,the truth that can be controlled in variables and expressed in numbers, measured and operationalized.. But that is not all there is. Soft sciences should be respected just as hard sciences are.

The jelly Belly experiment

How scientific was the Jelly Belly experiment? In your blog you should introduce the Jelly Belly experiment and its hypothesis: Does prior knowledge of flavors influence taste? Go through the inductivism and the characteristics of good experiments: controlability, measureability, repeatability.

The Jelly Belly experiment was actually kind of fun.

There was a design in the experiment: there were 4 groups, in 2 of them the "taster" was blinded and in the other 2 he-she was allowed to see what she was eating. The Jelly Beans were given in a order unknown to the taster, who however was allowed to be read the names of the tastes he had to recognise. The final comparison between the results of the groups whose taster was blinded and the ones whose taster was allowed to see gave the clear verdict that prior knowledge influence taste.

However. i'm not sure whether it can be considered a scientific experiment. The experiment was not completely controlled, because same variables should have been taken into consideration and instead they were just random, such as the characteristic of the taster (smoker-non smoker, ecc); for what concern the measurability, somevariables were measurables, such as the number of jelly beans and their type, but others such as drinking water after eaten the jelly bean was not constant, just random. The experiment could be repeated by other people, but as the taster is a person, the results may not be the same. I think that when you have to deal with experiments on animals, the Harvard law of animal behavoiur always apply: "in carefully controlled laboratory conditions animals do what they damned well please". And animals are humans, after all.