Some called it a soft science, but those making such a distinction grew fewer by the year.
I would also like to add a comment about the hard and soft sciences.
Criticisms of psychological research often come from perceptions that it is a "soft" science.
The soft sciences - isn't that a delightful name?
Psychology and sociology were once considered soft science but are now called hard sciences.
Both of these incidents prompted complaints about the distinction between hard and soft sciences.
But the social or soft sciences can almost by definition never end.
These tools turn game design into a sort of soft science of player manipulation.
A little reading in the soft science of history might not be harmful for our hard-science engineers.
At least that's the opinion of many scientists, especially in the soft sciences like sociology and psychology.