This chapter discusses several important issues regarding scientists' role in
society, including social responsibility, advocacy, expert testimony and ex-
pert opinion, public oversight of research, censorship of science, the clash
between science and religion, and the public funding of research and de-
velopment. The chapter also discusses the relationship between science
and human values and provides a historical overview of the development
of science and its impact on society.

Most people find it difficult to comprehend that science was not always the
complex, technical, intimidating, and powerful social institution that it now is.
The term “science” was not even coined until the 1800s. Before this time,
what we now call “science” was regarded as a type of natural philosophy. The
full English title of one of the most important books in the history of science,
Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) Principia, was “The Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy” (1687). Galileo Galilei's (1564–1642) two great books,
Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632) and Dialogues Concern-
ing the Two New Sciences (1638 [1991]), were extended debates about natural
philosophy written in the style of a Socratic dialogue. Some of the greatest sci-
entists throughout history, such as Aristotle, Robert Boyle, Francis Bacon,
René Descartes, Galileo, Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein, also
wrote on humanistic subjects, such as philosophy, theology, history, psychol-
ogy, and politics.

In the modern world, a chasm has emerged between the “hard” sciences,
such as chemistry, physics, and biology, and the “soft” sciences and humanistic
disciplines, such as economics, sociology, psychology, history, philosophy, the-
ology, literature, and law. C. P. Snow described this rift in an influential mono-
graph, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1964). According to Snow,
the hard sciences deal with “objective” facts and use experimental methods,
whereas the soft sciences and humanistic disciplines address “subjective” val-
ues and employ literary and philosophical methods. The two cultures have
trouble communicating with each other, and there is a division of epistemo-
logical labor: scientists conduct research; humanists (and other members of
society) address the value questions that arise in research. As a result of this
split, many scientists have thought that they do not need to address the value
implications of their work, and many humanists have felt that they do not
need to understand the factual basis of public policy issues.

During this century, philosophers have written many books and articles
about questions concerning the relations between “facts” and “values.” Some

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