There is a growing disillusion with social science evaluation and the role it has played in the conduct of massive social programs. In retrospect, it appears that the social science evaluations of the past decade were undertaken with impossibly high ambitions and relied upon restrictive assumptions concerning the functions that evaluation serves in governmental processes. The dominant model has taken evaluation to be an activity which functions to alter and enlighten the pursuit of programmatic goals. Such a view is too narrow and may actually be misleading. Other functions of evaluation can be identified, including conflict resolution and complacency reduction. Recognition of these functions leads to a desire for differently structured evaluations; but such evaluations can not be conducted without changes in the pattern of evaluation funding and in the composition of the evaluation community. This recognition also suggests that the evaluator may have more options than he or she realized. (Author/RC)