This document discusses the history and role of critical social science. It makes several key points: 1. Early social science in the 18th/19th centuries mixed description/explanation with normative evaluation. Over the last 200 years there has been a long decline of critical social science and the expulsion of critique, evaluation and values from science. 2. Critical social science grew in the 1970s but has since become more timid. Critique has retreated into academia without threatening existing power structures. 3. Positivists argue social science should exclude values to be objective, while radicals say it is unavoidably value-laden. Both confuse different meanings of objectivity. Values can be open to challenge