Examines contrasting accounts of how science works as a system of knowledge production, as a social system, and as a basis for manipulating the world through technology. Is science insulated from social and technological processes or integrated with them? Approaches include: Mertonian normative sociology; sociology of scientific knowledge; Latourian actor-network theory; symbolic interactionism and pragmatist sociology of science. Provides understanding of: the objectivity of scientific knowledge; the relationship between science and technology; the role of science in handling environmental problems; the communication of scientific knowledge to wider business, governmental and community constituencies and their understanding of it.