ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how science is influenced by culture, religion, society, politics and economics, but to each of these there is a history. It is an evolving ecosystem of thoughts, actors and agendas interacting with each other and the world. The interaction between all the actors in science – public, government, pressure groups and scientists – changes in time. New science or innovation comes with winners and losers, conflicts of interest abound. When theories fail, or more accurately when theories are discarded, they are consigned to the dustbin of science history. In 1917, when Einstein introduced his General Theory of Relativity, he added an extra term in his theory, which was arbitrary, but permitted in the mathematics of his equations. Einstein's motive was to achieve a static model for the Universe, which he thought was stationary. The social, economic and political effects of the web are not clear but speculation and planning are of paramount importance.
