Intellectuals in many fields have long argued that, as the distance between people increases, the possibility for genuine empathy between them decreases. Eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume said as much in his Treatise on Human Nature (1898) when he argued that "The breaking of a mirror gives us more concern when at home, than the burning of a house, when abroad, and some hundred leagues ...

In this address to the president’s plenary at the 2001 annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the author reflected on then recent international events and their possible implications for the research and teaching agendas of the social studies of science, technology, and medicine. He proposed the political engagement of science, technology, and s...

1 Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America, 2 James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States of America, 3 Department of Biology, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, United States of America, 4 Departm...