ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to frame a perspective to stimulate new information and new alternatives for public policy. The empirical and normative considerations important in understanding the reciprocal impact of science-technology and governmental affairs are the writer's principal concerns. The major underlying assumption is that the enterprises of science and their associated technologies, as they act through economic and governmental institutions, are primary determinants of change in their culture and certainly in contemporary politics. The processes of science and technology and the governmental processes are often viewed as separate enterprises, each having a distinct set of institutions and values, and each carried forward by identifiably different groups of people. Whether decide to promote social change vigorously or simply rise to meet its consequences, mechanisms to anticipate the directions and impact of their scientific activities seem to be quite in order.
