"What to expect from a world social forum on Science and Democracy ? In our developed capitalist societies, science and techniques have become central to capitalistic accumulation. To maintain high profit rates, financial capital calls for innovations as the main driving force of its development and the conquest of new markets, at the same time reducing as much as possible human capital and labor. The quest for new knowledge, which requires steeply increasing investments, is expected in return to provide high short term capital yield..."