What are the "costs" of science besides its expected benefits? Specifically, how "tense" does the relation between science and society become in the light of the ever-increasing pressure of the latter on the former? In this paper I am going to discus the increasing global inequality deriving from phenomena such as the "brain drain" and from the problems relative to the relationship between ethics and science. I will conclude by considering the tension that arises out of the disciplinary structure of science and the non-disciplinary structure of the most pressing problems that society is faced with and has to react to.