Introduction: Science, Technology, & Human Values at Fifty

Abstract

Alfred North Whitehead got this one wrong: a field that forgets its founders risks becoming misguided and lost. By remembering its founders, a field may use them to take bearings, measure progress, and chart the course ahead. The history of science and technology has taught us that founding (and inventing or discovering) is not the act of a solitary founder at a single place and moment but instead is the ongoing communal accomplishment of successive generations of founders, guided by an evolving sense of purpose. A journal is, inter alia, catalyst and convener for a field of scholarship, hosting a decades-long conversation among a community of authors, readers, and reviewers. As part of the vibrant infrastructure that supports scholarship in the STS community, Science, Technology, & Human Values (ST&HV) has hosted such conversations for decades. At the fiftieth anniversary of the journal’s founding, ST&HV, remembers its generations of founders by inviting past editors to reflect on their editorship, its times, and their lives. By remembering our course, our challenges, and our companions along the way, we hope to help those who follow us to navigate the possibilities and perils to come.