OPINION

The World of Science: Hard and Soft

[Editor's Note: the following essay by Forum Vice-Chair Stanley Goldberg is intended as the first of a series of short opinions by this author for publication in the Newsletter. Comments -- as well as candidate "opinions" for publication in this section are welcomed.]

• A feature of the common parlance of most scientists is the separation of the sciences into two major categories: "hard" and "soft." There is such universal acceptance of these two categories that no one ever seems to see the need to further characterize or define the distinguishing features of each. Disciplines such as physics, chemistry, geology and their subcategories--e.g. astrophysics, psychophysics, biophysics, biochemistry, geophysics, physical anthropology --are almost universally accepted as being very hard. Most social science disciplines which fall within the broad domains of sociology and psychology are" soft." If there is any uncertainty within such a classification scheme, it is about how to categorize such specialties as cosmology, paleoastronomy, or paleogeophysics.

  The dictionary does not quite capture what is meant by "hard" and "soft" in this context. Of the twenty-three definitions of "hard" in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the one that comes closest is number four: "rigorous, stringent and demanding." For soft, using the same dictionary, we have to settle for number six (of twelve): "not sharply drawn or delineated."

  A better sense of how "hard" and "soft" are used by scientists can be gleaned from the behavior of social scientists who describe their own work as being "hard." Generally, what characterizes and separates their work from the work of their soft colleagues is their use of abstract mathematics of one kind or another in their analyses. (Such practitioners often explicitly acknowledge that they model their work on the physical sciences.) The implication is clear. At one level "hard" means being able to employ a rigorous mathematical argument to interpret the data being gathered. At a more fundamental level, "hard" and "soft" are used to symbolize what are believed to be differing epistemological and ontonlogical characteristics of various disciplines. "Hard," is meant to communicate the belief that results are certain, rock-solid and immutable -- that the theory (i.e. explanation) and evidence (i.e. measurements) are tied together in ways that provide both understanding and predictability, in short, that results so obtained are "scientific." Contrarily, "soft" is a euphemism, not just for vague and uncertain. It also implies lack of reproducibility of results -- results which can only be arrived at by making a number of untestable assumptions. All of this makes soft studies "unscientific."

  Most scientists would shy away from claiming that hard studies result in learning the truth about the basic laws governing the way the natural world works. Many have and do claim, however, that the history of science shows that as one theory replaces another with better predictions covering a wider range of phenomena, we get closer and closer to knowing what those laws are.

  How do they know that? If we can't know anything about the physical world directly, without the mediation of our senses, how is it possible to know that we are getting closer to knowledge of how the universe really works? There is only one answer to that question: we can't. This doesn't mean that a person should not believe that we are closing in on the true laws of nature. But such people should also recognize that such a belief is as untestable an assumption as one can make. It is very, very soft, which long-ago suggested to me that the hard/soft categorization of various disciplines is neither meaningful or useful in understanding how the various sciences relate to each other or to the social sciences and the humanities.

Wielding History Like a Hammer

In an editorial entitled "Wielding History Like a Hammer" in the March 1995 edition of Science Communication, Marcel C. LaFollette of the Center for International Science & Technology Policy at the George Washington University, reflected on the special and often conflicting responsibilities that historians of science assume when they address a mass audience. She took as her point of departure the controversies that have centered on two exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution: "The Last Act," which was to have focused on the atomic bombings of Japan, and the less well publicized "Science in American Life" exhibition which opened in April 1994 and for which the American Chemical Society (ACS) raised $5.3 million. The following excerpt, in which LaFollette's refers to her own observations as a member of the external advisory committee for this exhibition, is particularly provocative:

• . . the ACS gift was targeted for an exhibit that would use history and computer interactives (or similar "hands-on" activities) to tell about 20th-century U.S. science; the ACS also wanted the exhibit to encourage young people, especially girls and children from ethnic and racial minority groups, to become interested in science. Given the background to this donation, it is even more remarkable then that the ACS itself became the target of so much internal hostility from museum staff. Several historians assigned to the curatorial team made no secret of their disdain for "Big Science" and of everything they believed it represented. Their political ideology opposed industry, and dismissed chemical manufacturers as "polluters." Eventually, the lead curators seemed so fearful of building a "pro-science" exhibit (which would have antagonized some of their colleagues) that they wound up creating a largely negative one. As a member of the project's external advisory committee, I watched ACS scientists attend the early advisory meetings full of optimism and respect for the Smithsonian; after several years of contentious debate, the overwhelming majority of the advisors grew disillusioned with both process and outcome. During one meeting's lunch break, there was a blatant example of the deterioration of civility, and of the "power, politics, and ideology" problem: an ACS advisor struggled to maintain his composure while a Smithsonian historian harangued him about the horrors of agricultural chemicals. The curator, determined to press a political argument, seemed smugly unconcerned about the effects of his rudeness. He know that, ultimately, he would write the labels, he would shape the choice of artifact and image - and, thus, audience reaction.

The Danger of Voodoo Science

The Smithsonian's "Science in American Life" exhibition was also the subject of a review essay in the December 1994 edition of Science Communication by Robert L. Park, Director of Public Information of the American Physical Society and Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. The essence of Park's review is best summarized by his conclusion that: "The message, delivered over and over, is that Western civilization is heavily burdened with guilt, and science, as a servant of the power structure, must bear a large share of that guilt."

Park explored other variants of this message in a July 9, 1995, New York Times editorial entitled, "The Danger of Voodoo Science," noting that the current ". . romantic [anti-science] rebellion [is] led not by the religious fundamentalists who are the traditional floes of science, but by serious academics and writers who regard themselves as intellectuals."

• They range from the environmental extremist Jeremy Rifkin, who sees disaster in every new technology, to a University of Delaware philosophy professor, Sandra Harding, who argues that the laws of physics were constructed to maintain white male dominance. An Afrocentric writer, Hunter Adams, contends that the African people were "the well spring of creativity and knowledge on which the foundations of all science, technology and engineering rest." Researchers in the Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health espouse psychic healing and homeopathic medicine.

"Why," Park asked, "have the scientists themselves, who are forever bemoaning the general scientific illiteracy, been so timid about publicly condemning this nincompoopery? Perhaps they fear being cast as intolerant, even of foolishness."

• Progress is never smooth. Each new application begets new problems. But it is science that uncovers the problems and it is to science that we turn to solve them. This is not because scientists have any claim to greater intellect or virtue, but because science is the only means we have to sort out the truth from ideology or fraud or mere foolishness.

---