I don't like the use of soft/fuzzy for certain fields, but I do know what it means in this context: it's shorthand for "fields so complicated that we aren't eve

I don't like the use of soft/fuzzy for certain fields, but I do know what it means in this context: it's shorthand for "fields so complicated that we aren't even sure if the questions we're asking mean anything." Take physics vs. psychology as an example. The top story on HN right now is about standardizing the kilogram by answering two questions: how many silicon-28 atoms do you need to equal the mass of the current reference kilogram, and at what pount a watt balance can support the 1 kg weight. This depends on a bunch of terminology and assumptions, but we're pretty clear what those are. In psychology on the other hand (a field I have a huge amount of respect for, incidentally), we're trying to ask questions about human behavior; everything we ask about is taken within a cultural context, predicated on assumed levels of "normal" behavior, and even assumes that humans /are/ repeatable in some sense (and a lot of psychology studies may not be repeatable at all...) That repeatability question is a big one, I think: we're a lot more sure about our ability to prepare equivalent circumstances with silicon-28 atoms for an experiment than with people.