Relationships Between the Social and the Natural Sciences

Abstract

An integrated science and technology policy is both complex and urgent. We have gradually come to understand that the relationship between science and technology is not neat and linear: it is not the case of first some basic sciences; thereafter some design and development; and finally the products, profits and the end to unemployment! A comprehensive science and technology policy is not a matter which is internal to science and technology, it also lies within the domain of several of the social sciences. This article reflects, in some generality, upon the relationship between the social and natural sciences, and examines some of the differences and similarities in methods and models as used by the social and the natural sciences.