86 SOCIAL SCIENTIST veloping science and technology in their struggle against nature and other men in a framework of changing social institutions. Consequently, the growth and development of science is made to appear as a series of successes (or failures) of individuals. History of science is the history of man's struggles against adverse forces of nature conducted under specific socio-economic formations both affecting and being affected by each other. A critical understanding of the process of interaction in its specificity between the whole gamut of social institutions and the development and growth of scientific activity, is what constitutes the historical perspective with the help of which the present processes can be understood better and planned. There is a general misconception among science historians and science planners that historiography of science does not require a philosophy of science. This generally leads them to uncritical acceptance of a philosophy according to which scientific theories emerge from 'facts'—facts of individual discovery in isolation. Sacrificing scholarship, they take to a descriptive approach without any critical appreciation of what historically constitutes a 'fact.' The 'fact' of the absence of experimentation is therefore in this study, identified as the chief reason for the failure of Indian science. Very few seem to realize that experimentation as a conscious and purposeful link between thinking and the surrounding world, as an instrument of scientific cognition, develops only when the development of man's practical-critical activity has reached a certain level. Thus the book treats data and information as 'facts' which are then portrayed as an index of the growth and development of science, representing the viewpoint that radical changes in the socio-economic structure are not necessary for the continuation of the growth of science and technology. This book provides the data and details on the development of various components of scientific and technological infrastructure without showing any concern about how, and for whose benefit, such a process of development has been initiated. Does the Indian economy provide employment opportunities for the increasing number of science and engineering graduates? Does the increasing financial outlay on R and D from the public exchequer help the Indian masses acquire their necessities of life ? Have the obstacles in the growth of Indian science and technology anything to do with radical socio-economic change? All such questions are implicitly treated as irrelevant. A purely verbal adherence, which we find in this book, to the view that science is a social activity is no substitute for a methodological approach which can comprehend a world where science-based technology has come to pervade and shape all dimensions of human life. RAJENDRA PRASAD