ABSTRACT
In the literature which considers the place of science within the sociology of knowledge, two contrasting perspectives are to be found. Perspective one is the dominant perspective which treats science as a special sociological case. Within this perspective it appears that social influences can intrude into the actual intellectual content of science only when science has been distorted by non-scientific pressures. There is an alternative perspective which argues that the procedures and conclusions of science are, like all other cultural products, the contingent outcome of interpretative social acts. The central contention of this perspective is that although the physical world exerts constraint on the conclusions of science, it never uniquely determines those conclusions. The very terminology which sociologists, and others, have used to describe the relationship between science and technology clearly expresses scientific knowledge assumptions. The successful use of scientific theories establishes neither their validity nor their privileged epistemological status. This conclusion strengthens the second sociological perspective on science.
