Just How Different Are Hard and Soft Sciences
Or more to the point, how different are scientists across fields
By MARTIN REZNY
Spoilers, after thinking about this a lot, I don’t believe there’s that much of a difference at all. But it is a sensible objection to raise, on the surface level. The so called hard sciences like physics are in many ways not the same as the so called soft sciences like psychology. The phenomena that are studied and the methods used are differently objective, and the theories between these two regions of science are not equally well supported, that much is obvious.
The key question regarding my critique is, however, whether this type of difference is relevant when it comes to the worldview, attitude, and behavior of scientists, whether it affects the nature of scientific skepticism in these areas. For starters, the reason why I chose physics and psychology as examples of the two camps is that popular skeptics most often tend to come from these two fields. The reason is, you need both equally in skepticism.
If someone says they saw a UFO, a key type of frequently debunked phenomenon, you need a) a physicist to say that the UFO couldn’t have been there, because if it were, it would have violated known physics, and b) a psychologist to say that everyone can misperceive anything or hallucinate, even a collective of people. Only then you have “debunked” such sighting.
If the psychology part of the skeptical equation is nowhere near as solid, as Ken Brody’s counterargument to my critique supposes (which is objectively correct), the whole thing kinda falls apart. The physicists presumably should be aware that their psychologist counterparts are not in the same science league as them, but as part of Team Skeptic, they ignore that. Skeptics present modern science as a whole as the thing one should trust above all else.
Beyond the team mentality aspect that makes both hard and soft scientists a single, ideologically cohesive group that acts together in face of any challenge, it also means they collaborate in enforcing their wilful ignorance of fringe phenomena. If a physicist accepts a psychologist’s claim that a person who believes they saw something weird must be in error, and then doesn’t investigate the phenomenon, it’s a problem in the hard science of physics.
So yes, in terms of ideology and movements, you can slap a single label on science and skepticism. There is a rivalry between the scientists across differently hard fields, but when facing the external world, they show a unified front. At the spearhead of which is the skeptical movement. The tip of which is the Occam’s razor. One skepticism is common to all of science.
In one of the better ironies of the modern era, the skeptics are for the most part uncritically trusted by all of the scientists who just want to do their scientific work. Which is a problem, because any extent to which the one skepticism is flawed, personally, methodologically, or ideologically, then seeps into all of the fields. Soft sciences may be more easily corruptible, but hard sciences are more likely to buy into the epistemic arrogance.
For example, to be told by multiple ace military pilots that they have almost collided with an impossible flying object, and then immediately reject it out of hand, that takes a lot of arrogance. And yet, it is the default response among physicists and engineers. Even if the core of our contemporary physics is solid, how does science benefit from scientists not investigating anomalies? Having no interest in it? Harassing anyone who even considers it?
That’s the status quo across all fields. All I’m saying is that scientists and skeptics need to gain some self-awareness and start listening to themselves when they argue that dogmas, taboos, witch hunts, public shamings, and other pastimes aimed at stifling thought and research are what (bad) religion is for. Of course, those things are not those things when they do them. It’s true they don’t burn people at stakes, so yay for that. Not literally, anyway.
I’m not just being contrarian or dramatic for the sake of it. Mockery and academic ostracization ruins people’s careers and lives. One of the more extreme examples is that of Michel Gauquelin, a statistician who produced some of the most rigorous and successful tests of astrology, who was harassed by the skeptics so much for so long that it likely lead to him committing suicide, after which he instructed his colleague to destroy all of his data.
Of course, the involved skeptics like Paul Kurtz, the founder of secular humanism and the whole modern skeptical movement, claimed they were cordial to him and assessed his alleged Mars Effect fairly. Suffice it to say, both of these statements are somewhat contested. As well as unsupported by the briefest of examinations of how skeptics talk about “pseudoscientists” and “charlatans”. Or by any close look at the methodology of how they conduct their debunkings, chiefly in the example of their botched Mars Effect study.
If anybody criticizes them, then they call them a pseudoskeptic (it’s even mentioned in the article about skepticism on Wikipedia). Which mostly works, because they’re only criticized by outsiders, researchers who are harassed by them. There is some internal dissent, as principled skeptics who object to tactics like research fudging, cheating, and lying exist, even when it’s done “for science”, but then the troublemakers are censored or expelled.
That’s not hypothetical. Two board members from two large skeptical organizations that “debunked” Mars Effect resigned over how it was done. One wrote a whole book about it. CSICOP, the OG among skeptical organizations, got rid of the original editor of their publication, now called Skeptical Inquirer, because he wanted to represent also the other side of the debate. This is the example they’re setting, and they’re not questioned.
Because the leaders of skepticism mock and harass fringe subjects and researchers, the vast majority of scientists across all fields and most laymen that support science reflexively mock and harass them as well. This is an objectively crappy behavior, even if everything fringe is wrong, a behavior that should disqualify anyone from being considered a moral authority, but it has been normalized. If anything, soft scientists are better trained to see it.
As a political scientist and media and communication expert by university training, my opinion is that the scientific education in most fields, especially in hard sciences, doesn’t teach scientists how to think critically. For example, that you shouldn’t take authorities at their word. That you should resist anyone who’s trying to divide people into groups on ideological grounds. That you should always question how much you really know. That’s skepticism.
Questioning can be done poorly, and science can be done poorly, and both often is done poorly by many fringe researchers. However, being opposed to people who are bad at questioning or science doesn’t automatically make you good at questioning or science. Two groups that are alike can easily end up fighting each other, especially when they share a goal — making as many people as possible believe that they, and only they, are the authority on truth. That’s a religious war, and it should have no place in physics, or psychology.
