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Thesis

Nature Physics 5, 450 (1 July 2009) | doi:10.1038/nphys1319

Final answer?

Mark Buchanan

An economist at a recent interdisciplinary meeting suggested that physics is more precise than social science mostly because it's easier to do experiments. In social science, the variability of people, among other factors, makes it almost impossible to do truly replicable experiments, whereas in physics and chemistry we can settle basic theoretical differences with experimental tests — think Eddington's famous expedition of 1919, which confirmed the predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity.