Social studies of science and technology: are they part of the social sciences?

Abstract

The relation between STS and the social sciences is far from simple. While including STS in the field of social sciences is an object of dispute for certain researchers, others have tried to involve, seduce, or debate with colleagues in other subfields to establish bridges across these two disciplinary fields. The majority of social sciences researchers however know very little about current developments in STS and some question or even attack it directly. In this article I take up the debate about these relations to ask why sociology has paid scant attention to the contributions of sociology of science. For the conclusion, I advance certain hypotheses to offer clues for the interpretation of these tensions without claiming to explain them in a more definitive manner.