I don&#x27;t like the use of soft&#x2F;fuzzy for certain fields, but I do know what it means in this context: it&#x27;s shorthand for &quot;fields so complicated that we aren&#x27;t even sure if the questions we&#x27;re asking mean anything.&quot; 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&#x27;re pretty clear what those are.<p>In psychology on the other hand (a field I have a huge amount of respect for, incidentally), we&#x27;re trying to ask questions about human behavior; everything we ask about is taken within a cultural context, predicated on assumed levels of &quot;normal&quot; behavior, and even assumes that humans &#x2F;are&#x2F; repeatable in some sense (and a lot of psychology studies may not be repeatable at all...)<p>That repeatability question is a big one, I think: we&#x27;re a lot more sure about our ability to prepare equivalent circumstances with silicon-28 atoms for an experiment than with people.