With a growing public awareness that technological advances need to be made subservient to social goals (Murdoch and Connell, 1970), there are increasing expectations of sociologists to become advocates for, and active planners in, framing a new man-environment philosophy. While sociologists have traditionally studied, observed, and commented upon societal change, there is an urgent need for sociologists to actively assist in assessing the social applications of science and re-shaping the organization of the scientific establishment to better study. the changing relationships between scientific needs and social and environmental problems (Dubos, 1970:115-116). As Starr (1969) has suggested, "if we understood quantitatively the causal relationships between specific technological developments and societal values, both positive and negative, we might deliberately guide and regulate technological developments so as to achieve maximum social benefit at minimum social cost." Since new technologies are often instituted before their total social impact can be hilly assessed, and technical sub-systems become enmeshed with the economic, political, and cultural structures of society, social scientists' assessments of societal change have more often been retrospective than prospective. The gravity of our ecological problems, however, requires immediate scientific planning, and society is looking to social scientists to provide these skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]