Scientific development in the Black Steel world is complicated by the interactions of the natural and magical worlds. Since direct observation of the magical world is not possible for most people, discovering the nature of physical law can be exceedingly difficult for humans. It is fortunate for would-be scientists that magical effects rarely have a direct impact on most humans' lives, as this admits of the possibility of discovering "normal" laws with the understanding that sorcerous power can create exceptions, but long-term scientific development nonetheless suffers, as exceptions that should be recognized as proofs of an imperfect theory may be written off as magical interference -- or a theory that is perfectly accurate in the natural world might be discarded or re-fashioned in response to actual but unrecognized sorcerous effects. Eventually, with sufficient observation, effort, and care, it should be possible to accurately describe the laws of the natural world, including those that in fact result from interaction with the magical world ... but unless and until better tools are designed for the purpose, the process is likely to be a slow one. It may be that some inhuman creatures have an advantage in this respect, as it has been said that elves and dragons, for instance, may be natively capable of directly observing the sorcerous world. If they have progressed beyond human scientific and technological discoveries however, it is likely to be in ways that human beings would not anticipate, as -- being more closely connected with the sorcerous world in the first place -- it is unlikely that they would confine themselves to studies of events in the natural world only, using their knowledge of the magical world only to ensure that their experiments function within a truly closed system; on the contrary, such discoveries as they make are likely to involve the laws of both worlds and the interaction between them more than anything else.
In spite of these obstacles, discoveries have progressed, however slowly and in whatever strange directions. For most purposes, the nations with which Black Steel is familiar are operating at technological levels reminiscent of a late middle ages or early renaissance society -- within the natural world, at least. The rarity of human wizards is such that these societies' "magical technology" is highly variable, difficult to define, and at all events too limited in scale or power to meaningfully replace or very significantly supplement natural technologies.
It is important to note that, to the extent they are not themselves driven by physical science and technology, the social sciences and sociological development of human nations in the Black Steel world suffer fewer limitations than their natural analogs; on the contrary, though the rarity and presence of sorcerors does exert a certain amount of pressure toward certain highly primitive social structures for magic-dependent or magic-awed societies, the fact that the capacity for sorcerous power among human beings does not appear to be hereditary, together with the structures of learning necessary for sorcerous knowledge to survive through the centuries, have probably aided the progress of the world's larger nations and societies. To take a single important example, the fact that women are as likely as men to have sorcerous potential has helped to break down barriers to female rule or importance in many cultures. Historically, there have been cultural groups that oppressed women to the extent possible, and cut off women's access to sources of magical knowledge at every turn, but such societies inevitably collapsed, sometimes at the hands of women within them who despite the best efforts of the ruling citizens managed to develop their sorcerous gifts, but more often at the hands of rival cultures that accepted and celebrated sorceresses and so could raise twice as many wizards per capita as those who kept would-be sorceresses away from the tools of learning.
