Hard science
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Hard science is a celebratory term which often is used to describe certain fields of the natural sciences, usually physics, chemistry, and many fields of biology. The hard sciences are said to rely on experimental, quantifiable data or the scientific method and focus on accuracy and objectivity. The hard sciences are often contrasted with the derogatory term 'soft sciences', which are by contrast implied to have less rigor.
Studies of Physics, computer science, chemistry, biology and geology are sometimes called "hard sciences."
The 'hard' versus 'soft' distinction is particularly charged, however, in that the dichotomy generally values hard sciences while devaluing soft sciences. Thus the conclusions of hard science are seen to represent objective features of reality determined through concrete experiment (and sometimes thought experiments) by experimentalists with a rigorous training in specialized research methodology as interpreted by theoreticians who use their results.
The 'hard' vs. 'soft' distinction is controversial. Although associated with notions of realism, this distinction is drawn more from commonsense than a deep immersion in the philosophy of science. Much work by modern historians of science, starting with the work done by Thomas Kuhn, has focused on the ways in which the "hard sciences" have functioned in ways which were less "hard" than previously assumed, emphasizing that decisions over the veracity of a given theory owed much more to "subjective" influences than the "hard" label would emphasize (and begin to question whether there are any real distinctions between "hard" and "soft" science). Some, such as those who subscribe to the "strong program" of the sociology of scientific knowledge, would go even further, and remove the barrier between "hard science" and "nonscience" completely. This take on science has, needless to say, not been taken too fondly by scientists themselves.
Despite these objections, the 'hard' vs 'soft' distinction is popular and widely used amongst scientists, technicians, and academics because of the way that it captures a perceived distinction between different forms of "scientific" practice in the modern research universities and laboratories. Indeed, one clear difference supporting the distinction is the degree to which conclusions in different fields are controversial within those fields (e.g., how much of physics is controversial among physicists, versus how much of political science is controversial among political scientists).
