Science, Technology, & Human Values

Science, Technology, & Human Values is the official journal of the Society for Social Studies of Science. It publishes work from a variety of disciplines on science and technology in social context. The journal began in 1972 as the “Newsletter of the Program on Public Conceptions of Science” at Harvard University, a program funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and led by Gerald Holton. The first editor, William Blanpied, invited contributions from researchers in various disciplines who were concerned with the problem of public understanding of science. Holton and Blanpied located the newsletter in a contentious field of debate over the value-embeddednessand rationality of science. Early issues provided bibliographies of recent articles and lists of relevant journals, professional groups, and courses.

With Newsletter 9, October 1974, Vivien Shelanski, the new executive director of the Harvard program, joined Blanpied as coeditor. The newsletter began to publish occasional think pieces. Many of the founders of the field of science and technology studies (STS) contributed these early articles, such as Joseph Ben-David's essay “On the Traditional Morality of Science” and Dorothy Nelkin's “Changing Images of Science: New Pressures on Old Stereotypes.”

As the Harvard program evolved into the program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy, the newsletter evolved with it. With Number 17, under editor Shelanski, its name changed to “Newsletter on Science, Technology, & Human Values.” With the fall 1978 issue, the former newsletter became a quarterly review, and Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette joined as coeditor. Shortly afterward, the Massachusetts Institute on Technology (MIT) Program on Science, Technology, and Society became a sponsor. In 1983, the newsletter was acquired by John Wiley Publishers and became the journal Science, Technology, & Human Values (ST&HV). Throughout this period, ST&HV continued its focus on contemporary issues engaging science and its publics, describing and analyzing their political and policy environments. Bibliographies of the field continued to appear, and topics ranged from secrecy and national security to peer review and science advice.

In 1988, the Harvard and MIT sponsors approached the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) about taking over sponsorship of the journal. The society assumed sponsorship with volume 13; moved the journal to SAGE Publications; incorporated its own fledgling journal, Science and Technology Studies, into ST&HV; and appointed Susan Cozzens as editor. Cozzens affirmed the journal's commitment to being internationally and methodologically diverse.

Cozzens continued the ST&HV tradition of articles on public perceptions and controversies, with contributions on ethics, intellectual property, data sharing, priority setting, privacy, risk, technology and the arms race, public participation, and technology assessment. Explicitly feminist perspectives appeared for the first time in the journal, [Page 738]and Cozzens tracked down and reported on several founding mothers of STS. Quantitative, cognitive, and rhetorical studies began to appear, along with more attention to philosophy and history. The commitments of the field were an object of debate in the pages of the journal, with exchanges on such issues as appropriate engagement with activist groups, ethnomethodology as technocratic ideology, and the political relevance of social constructionism.

In 1994, Olga Amsterdamska took over as editor, as 4S began to rotate editors every 5 years and alternate between North American and European editorial offices. Under Amsterdamska, biotechnology and its various ramifications continued to capture a great deal of attention among ST&HV's authors, who approached the topic from a variety of angles. Many articles still focused on current policy issues but more often from the angle of discourse than policy analysis. Feminist perspectives continued to be represented, for example, with the special issue on feminism and constructivism in 1995. Articles ranged across topics from ecology to medicine to urban design to space technology, most often examining the intersection of technical and societal issues. Case studies and qualitative methods predominated. During Amsterdamska's editorship, the so-called science wars broke out over the scholarly contributions of science studies; these were reflected then and later in the journal's pages. Anthropological approaches claimed a spot in the field with special issues in 1997 and 1998. A special issue on persons, animals, and machines in 1998 led readers deep into laboratory life.

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