‘Hard’ and ‘soft’ thinking are terms often associated with creativity and they reflect the neurological processes associated with different hemispheres of the brain. Research suggests that the right side of the brain is visual and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details (soft thinking). The other hemisphere – the left brain – is verbal and processes information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole (hard thinking) …The distinction between hard and soft thinking can be illustrated in the following way. 

Roger Von Oech (1990) believes that creative thinking must be recognised as a process that involves both hard and soft thinking and that it is important to know when each is appropriate. He argues that every person has a ‘judge’ and an ‘artist’ within, and both are required in order to be creative. Even those who are very inventive, and thrive on spontaneity and uncertainty, also need to seek order and be analytical if they are to be successful.  It is now believed that the most powerful creative thinking occurs when the left and right hemispheres of the brain combine to apply both generative and evaluative processes.  Read more: http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/resourcesandcpd/research/summaries/rsfosteringcreativity.asp

Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS. CHAPTER V: The Author permitted to see the Grand Academy of Lagado.
By Jonathan Swift, 1726.

Step 1: Decide on ideological argument and proposed policy remedies;
Step 2: Manipulate data as needed to justify;
Step 3: Publish book…
Step 4: Ideological allies receive book rapturously, say it cannot be challenged due to quantitative rigor of underlying data analysis…
Step 5: Data analysis carved up by outside analysts;
Step 6: Response from allies = “Data & analysis don’t matter — we KNOW the truth.”

– The overwhelming initial reception of the book was, “See? Rigorous proof of what we have always believed and said!”
By Marc Andreessen, 2014.

The first professor … said perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving speculative knowledge by practical and mechanical operations. But the world would soon be sensible of its usefulness, and he flattered himself that a more noble exalted thought never sprang in any other man’s head. JONATHAN SWIFT, 1726

After all, the “logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge” ~Stendhal