Yes, natural-science support can be helpful, but the design fields – like medicine, architecture, and law – have been able to do their work successfully even when no natural-science support was available.  And when the natural-science support has become available, it can be too late.  Thomas Kuhn, who is best known for his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, tells us some interesting stories: When the natural scientist Kepler proceeded to figure out the dimensions of wine casks that would hold the most amount of wine for the least amount of wood, Kepler discovered that wine casks were already being built to the optimum design!  And when the natural scientist Sardi Carnot proceeded to build a theory to explain the steam engine, Carnot discovered that his natural-science recommendations for how to improve the steam engine had already been incorporated into steam engine design even before he started his research!   Sure, the design sciences can make good use of the natural sciences, but the design sciences do a lot more than apply the natural sciences.  Historically, the design sciences have innovated solutions to real-world problems, even when the natural-sciences weren’t ready to help.

In the North American IS field, almost all research has taken a natural-science approach.  It has almost all been positivist, involving the formulation of propositions with independent and dependent variables and involving hypothesis testing and experimental design.  The primary concern has been, “what is true,” not “what is effective.”  And the same situation pertains to the newly emerging qualitative, interpretive, and case research.  This suggests that there is a serious need for design science to make a contribution to the IS field.