| Sumario: | The article comments on the integration of natural and social sciences in the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme. The theme of this article is that, although there are historical and institutional barriers to interdisciplinary research, the main problems lie at the conceptual level. Social scientists worry about the validity of physical and ecological analogues for social phenomena, more than do most natural scientists. Some of these conceptual issues are introduced briefly here, not with any hope of their resolution, but to emphasize that they are critical to the validity of the MAB approach, and have not yet received sufficient attention within the programme. The MAB programme was conceived within a systems paradigm. The first council charged it with the scientific tasks of examining the structure, functioning and dynamics of ecosystems and of studying the interrelations between ecosystems and socio-econornic processes. One important tradition in all the social sciences has been an ecological approach to the study of human groups and their social processes and institutions.
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