Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2008
In commenting on the controversy surrounding the nomination of Samuel Huntington to the National Academy of Sciences, Diamond (1987) noted the disparate problems faced by scientists as they operationalize the concepts they use in their research. Diamond proposed that the process of operationalization was much more complex in the “soft” social sciences than in the “hard” physical sciences. Based on the level of this complexity, he concluded that the dichotomization of the sciences into hard and soft was incorrect. He suggested that they should be classified as hard and easy, with the social sciences comprising the hard category and the physical sciences the easy category.