Students and scholars in the field of Science, Technology and Society (STS) want to know how scientific knowledge is produced. We believe that the idealized accounts of knowledge production entrenched in our scientific belief system are inadequate, given the complexity of the process they claim to describe.

STS scholars seek to understand how science operates by analyzing historical case studies, observing contemporary scientists at work, examining representations of scientific ideas in textbooks or journals and studying the infrastructure of scientific institutions.