AOK#3 Human Sciences - Ming Fung

Science means : "In its broadest sense, science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research." - from wikipedia. Where science can then be broken down into Natural Science and Social Sciences, which studies the natural phenomena and human behavior respectively.

Hard science are sciences that we are well proven, in which are "facts" we all recognise, such as 1 + 1 = 2. Perhaps one would say Mathematics may well be the hardest science that exists. As anything in maths may well be inevitable after a proof comes and explains why this is happening. HARD science also means that the outcome would also happen under certain conditions.

Natural sciences are very hard and factual, however not as much as mathematics. Many of science proofs come from mathematic proofs, how they are linked is maybe sometime very abstract. It is up to the scientists to make sense what is happening, although we know for a fact that this would happen under these conditions. For example, we know that atoms are made of protons, electrons and neutrons. An experiment found that when alpha particles were fired into gold peices, most of the particles would go straight through, leaving the conclusion that particles are mostly space, and the neucleus is very small. But this is only an assumption by the scientists. I think natural sciences, we know what would happen, but the theory behind it is mostly by the scientist imagination, it may not well be correct other than the fact that it seems like it makes sense.

Soft Science on the other hand, are humanity studies, like geography, psycology, etc... They usually come up with theories according to patterns that are collected from humans. But humans are very hard to study, especially how we think as we are all different in thinking beacuse we have all had different experiences. Therefore, social scientists come up with theories to explain the GENERAL trend of our actions. For example, in geography we set models cities, how they should look like. However the reality is that it differs from the model because of many different reasons that create uncertainties. I think this kind of science becomes quite unrealible in getting exactly what humans do, but we do get a general idea, and we do study about why they are not following to the theories.

In conclusion, both sciences are quite similar, because in the end it is up to the scientist him/herself to understand and make sense to what is happening. Just that one has less uncertainties and could be put into numbers, and the other having so many unknown and uncertan factors.