CAN SOCIOLOGISTS CONSTRUCT SOCIAL MACHINES? A NEW VIEW OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE NATURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (Czy socjologowie sa w stanie budowac maszyny spoleczne? Rekonceptualizacja róznicy pomiedzy przyrodoznawstwem a naukami spolecznymi

The last three decades have witnessed a dynamic development of science and technology studies, which have shown science in a way completely different from that presented by the traditional philosophy of science and methodology of social sciences. The authors accept that the findings of those studies concerning the mechanisms of functioning of science are correct and attempt to address again the problem of the difference between those disciplines and the social sciences. Their analysis concerns: the role and importance of laboratories in the social sciences; the 'transition' of social phenomena to those laboratories; the possibility of popularization by the social sciences of technological solutions prepared by those laboratories; an incorrect approach to experiment and the acceptance of false ideas of the function of natural sciences by social scientists.