Social status of contemporary science

The article analyzes peculiar characteristics of functioning of science which is not only an element of spiritual production in the modern society, but also a phenomenon of human culture. The author shows that the most important tendency in the development of modern science is its humanization. The article considers specific character of modern science methodology: anthropic character, orientation to the instrumental knowledge and to the synthesis of diverse forms of produced in the research process of cognition: empirical data, means and methods of its collecting, theoretical schemes, models, deductive structures, etc.