There's an absolutely unambiguous distinction between the "hard" and "soft" sciences
Social scientists hold themselves to fundamentally different standards on things like repeatability and predictive power and methodolgy than other fields. And whenever that difference can be quantified (e.g. statistical results), "different" means "lower". It's just a fact, and it's one most sociologists will freely admit, for example. You simply can't get the same sorts of results on humans that you can get on e.g. chemical reactions.
Unfortunately, soft/hard comes along with a value judgement that's not necessarily appropriate. But pretending like there isn't a clear difference between what are now referred to as the soft and hard sciences is disinegenious.
Generally agree with the sentiment, but I think the line is fuzzy along the periphery.
For instance, economics has, I would claim, far weaker levels of model validation than engineering fields, but often is presented as a hard or 'close-to-hard' science.
There's an absolutely unambiguous distinction between the "hard" and "soft" sciences
Social scientists hold themselves to fundamentally different standards on things like repeatability and predictive power and methodolgy than other fields. And whenever that difference can be quantified (e.g. statistical results), "different" means "lower". It's just a fact, and it's one most sociologists will freely admit, for example. You simply can't get the same sorts of results on humans that you can get on e.g. chemical reactions.
Unfortunately, soft/hard comes along with a value judgement that's not necessarily appropriate. But pretending like there isn't a clear difference between what are now referred to as the soft and hard sciences is disinegenious.