Hard and Soft Sciences

3. What aspects of the dispute between Lang and Huntington are "political?" How does the author feel about Academic Freedom?

One aspect comes from the fact that Huntington seems way more accredited and worthy of a position in the NAS than Lang, however, “Lang had previously assumed for himself ‘the role of a sheriff of scholarship, leading a posse of academics on a hunt for error,’ especially in the political and social sciences.” This seems much more political than scientific. Also, “Huntington had done several things that are now anathema in U.S. academia: he received CIA support for some research; he did a study for the State Department in 1967 on political stability in South Vietnam; and he's said to have been an early supporter of the Vietnam war.” Huntington’s “role in Vietnam” was frequently discussed I the NAS debates. The author is worried that, “Academic freedom means that outsiders can't raise the issue of a scholar's politics but other scholars can.”

5. Why does Diamond find fault in the traditional perceptions of the hard sciences?

He believes that science is not just, “defined by decimal places and controlled experiments,” but is also, “ the enterprise of explaining and predicting -- gaining knowledge of -- natural phenomena, by continually testing one's theories against empirical evidence.” He also says, “The world is full of phenomena that are intellectually challenging and important to understand, but that can't be measured to several decimal places in labs. They constitute much of ecology, evolution, and animal behavior; much of psychology and human behavior; and all the phenomena of human societies, including cultural anthropology, economics, history, and government.”

6. Why are soft sciences difficult to study?

They are more difficult because the things studied are a lot less controllable. “You can't start it and stop it whenever you choose. You can't control all the variables; perhaps you can't control any variable. You may even find it hard to decide what a variable is. You can still use empirical tests to gain knowledge, but the types of tests used in the hard sciences must be modified. ”

9. Briefly describe how Diamond illustrates operationalization in:

Math – Comparing amounts of things, like bananas

Chem – To measure the amount of an ingredient or the degree of something in relation to ingredients

Ecology – To measure habitat complexity

Psych – To decide why some doctors act the way they do

12. Why does Diamond believe that Lang might be ignorant of the measurements taken by social scientists like Huntington? 

Because he asks the question, ''How does Huntington measure things like social frustration? Does he have a social-frustration meter?''

14. Does Diamond believe the soft sciences to be more valuable than hard sciences? Do you agree? Explain.

He says, “As to the relative importance of soft and hard science for humanity's future, there can be no comparison. It matters little whether we progress with understanding the diophantine approximation. Our survival depends on whether we progress with understanding how people behave, why some societies become frustrated, whether their governments tend to become unstable, and how political leaders make decisions like whether to press a red button.” If he believes that our survival depends on the soft sciences, he obviously thinks that they’re important.