Yixia Gu: AoK 3- Human Sciences

The natural sciences enable us to understand the world around us. As the name suggests, the hard sciences are based on ‘concrete’ quantitative empirical evidence, which is evident in Maths and Physics. Theses studies are based on strictly logical and rationalizable facts. Everyone knows that 1+1=2 and that Newton’s law of gravity explains why we float off into outer space. To establish the evidence, much research and experimental would have been carried out, provided that all the extraneous variables and controlled so they don’t produce biased results.

Because the soft sciences are based on qualitative data, they are relatively flexible. Many of them especially relate to the study of humans as individuals, such as anthropology, thus much of the information cannot be generalised. And for some subjects such as History, there may not be one definite answer to certain historical events, or not one that every historian agrees on, as even certain statistics can be open to interpretations.

Both categories of sciences often overlap each other in concepts and theories such as that of evolution and anthropology. In addition, as ‘hard’ as the ‘hard’ sciences may be, it doesn’t mean that certain theories aren’t irrefutable, and similarly with the ‘soft’ sciences, different perspectives have different interpretations of the results they have. For example, the social problem of aggression may be explained by biological, societal, psychological and a multitude of other factors. I believe it is important to always look at the scientific data or evidence with a critical eye and come to an integrative approach, bearing in mind that there are still many mysteries in the universe that neither sciences can explain fully.