It’s like the joke about the drunk and the street light: you see some drunk guy looking for something under the streetlight and you go over to him and ask, “What’s the matter?” He says, “I lost my key.” You say, “Where did you lose it?” He says, “On the other side of the street.” You say, “So why are you looking Over here?” “Well, this is where the light is.” That’s the way the sciences work: you look where the light is, because that’s all you can do. (Chomsky)

It is much more difficult to lie in the hard sciences, than the social sciences, so science is a good way to get into the study of other things.

On – Off logic

It is interesting that the worker, technician, intellectual thinker in the hard sciences has no problem in dealing with information, data, facts and techniques that rely on precision and order. It is very difficult or near impossible to lie or falsify data in the hard sciences, otherwise your peers would find you out. There is no room for failure to analyze or a lack of precision here. Checking and rechecking is important if results are to be used sensibly.

Interestingly, a lot of these same individuals whose specialties rely on and are grounded on hard facts, can sometimes find it difficult to understand and assess facts when they are related to the social sciences? Applied to the social sciences the facts, by the same mind, can take on the abstract baggage of superstition, human nature, amnesia and many such unmeasurable phenomena.

Scientists can work equally well on developing bombs or developing the science of health care. The fact that it would be better to spend as much time and money on health care than we do on building bombs, is not a scientific decision, it is a moral decision and one it would seem to few scientists think about.