Academia tends to promote a polite belief that all science and areas of study contribute equally to society, but one cannot help to notice that degrees in the social sciences tend to be frowned upon. The phrase “soft sciences” has become an implicit term for less legitimate science and has affected their contributions by creating an unwarranted imbalance in funding, public perception, and recognition. If you attended a higher learning institution, chances are you have heard the “hard” and “soft” science colloquial terms used to compare the scientific fields on the merit of their methodological rigor and operationalization. Hard sciences tend to be more exact with the results they produce compared to the social sciences. Hard science would include fields of study in the natural sciences which include physics, chemistry, and biology, etc., while soft sciences include fields in the social sciences like sociology, economics, and psychology, etc. The terminology implies several things such as hard meaning “hard truth” or “highly valued”, and soft meaning “less knowable” or “less valued” or even “easier” (Van Landingham, 2014). These terms subtlety imply the lack of importance of social sciences within academia, but not due to their lack of academic methodological rigor since quantitative analysis methods in psychology and economics do reflect something closer to a hard science (although unable to produce exact results to difficulties controlling variables). The stigmatization perhaps comes from a position of self-reinforcement within society or ignorance; one example of this bias in academia was mathematician Serge Lang successfully blocking political scientist Samuel P. Huntington's admission into the National Academy of Sciences, initially citing Huntington’s methodology as erroneous calling it “pseudo-science”, but throughout the meeting mostly targeting his political views and character, rather than his merit (Diamond, 1987). Universities and governments tend to subtly imply this too. Most state governments and political parties in the United States are likely to promote college education, particularly referring to fields like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as these areas of study as seen as job friendly and important to the economy. Throughout the 2010s, multiple attempts to defund non-STEM programs disproportionately compared to mathematics and natural science. The National Science Foundation proposed multiple times to cease funding disciplines such as political science altogether. Most arguments presented for these proposals usually include their lack of economic utility or the inability of solving issues due to complicated analysis required, or this Washington Post journalist puts it, “the 'larger' the social or political issue, the more difficult it is to illuminate definitively through the methods of 'hard science'.”(Lane, 2012). If anything this should be a reason to fund the social sciences since further methodological improvements are needed comparing to the natural sciences. Diamond, J., (1987). "Soft sciences are often harder than hard sciences". Discover. Archived from the original on 13 December 2012. Lane, C., (2012). "Congress should cut funding for political science research". The Washington Post. Van Landingham, M., (2014). "On the Hard and Soft Sciences in Public Health". Public Health Reports. 129 (2): 124–126. A different agenda. Nature 487, 271 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/487271a

**TL;DR - Artefacts of stigmatization and "hard science" favouritism can be observed in how the social sciences are conducted and/or presented.** This claim already assumes ""Hard science" favouritism" exists, and from there it is not too difficult to show that this mentality is detrimental to how academia views the social sciences; any favouritism is naturally at the expense of the other. Since user Brandoflores already presents a comprehensive run-down of the academic landscape, however, I decided to jump in with an interesting artefact. Biologist Joel E. Cohen coined the term "physics envy" to describe attempts by the "softer sciences" and humanities to incorporate mathematical rigour and formal logic. - In the 19th Century, the marginalist school of economics directly co-opted contemporary physics equations - [even likening 'pleasure' to 'energy'](https://aeon.co/ideas/few-things-are-as-dangerous-as-economists-with-physics-envy). - Physics envy is also claimed to be observed in historian [Alfred Chandler Jr.'s business model of strategy structure](https://archive.org/details/handbookqualitat00neer) Why do the social sciences, and other less mathematically grounded disciplines, observe a need to emulate the physical sciences? Where does the inferiority complex arise from, surrounding qualitative and less numerical descriptions of theories and phenomena? _It arises from the stigmatization of non-mathematical approaches to describing the world_, characteristic of the social sciences. Academia places both stark and subliminal emphases on quantification. Disciplines whose works have not yet achieved the design of the hard sciences are perceived to be in a disciplinary chrysalis; they _must_ be headed for mathematical rigour. A high-school psychology teacher of mine once remarked that, in 100 years, psychology would no longer exist; by then, it would have attained sufficient precision to be absorbed as a science. However, _"The emphasis on quantification and mathematical theorizing that has been so successful in physics may not be so appropriate in sciences dealing with other kinds of subject matter."_ [Source](https://issues.org/physics-envy-get-over-it/). By placing greater importance on a singular approach to representing our world, we devalue alternatives that are, arguably, better suited to their particular spheres.