Science is a social phenomenon. Or, let me put it even more clearly from my
discipline point of view, it is a political phenomenon functioning within a
framework of economic limitations. Conducting research is not a free endeavor of
brilliant passionate scientists working in their labs as in ivory towers, but a
fight for control over knowledge -- what systems of meanings, notions and
information shall be held true. 
On the other side, if science is a socio-political phenomenon, then scientific
politics is an arena where interests and needs clash.