John D. Giorgis wrote:
>At 04:47 PM 7/20/01 +1200 K.Feete wrote:
>>Yes. So does psychology, socialogy, and environmental science- the "soft"
>>or "social" sciences. Economics is one of them. They're sciences, but
>>different from "hard" (or "real" if you're an arrogant bastard <grin>)
>>sciences in extremely significant ways, such as the lack of hard, certain
>>facts.
>
>AHEM! It happens to be *my job* to deal with economic facts every single
>day. Basically the government pays me to look at data being collected
>from the field and do a bit of first-order analyzation.
>
>Just because Economics is hard, doesn't mean that it isn't a science.
>Yes, the data is extremely hard to collect - but so is data about the first
>couple seconds of the Big Bang, or about the core of the Earth. Just
>because things are difficult, doesn't mean that the scientific method
>cannot produce various truths.
Er, ok, yes. So it's like psychology, is it?
Frankly I've never really understood the difference between "soft" and
"hard" sciences. I'm not sure how or why I got into this discussion. Must
stop posting late at night.
Kat Feete
Or maybe I was just reflexively arguing with JDG....
-------------------------------
"I know about people who talk about suffering for
the common good. It's never bloody them! When you
hear a man shouting "Forward, brave comrades!"
you'll see he's the one behind the bloody big rock
and the one wearing the only really arrow-proof helmet!"
-Rincewind the Wizzard
Terry Pratchett
