Science, Technology, and Medicine

How have people sought to know, manipulate, and flourish in the natural world? What kinds of ideas, instruments, and social relationships have they developed in the process? How have these differed across time and place? How does innovation occur? How is it rewarded or regulated? Who gets to count as a reliable source of knowledge? Who is excluded from the benefits of that knowledge? What is an experiment? And are there ones that shouldn’t be performed? These questions are central to the historical study of science, technology, and medicine. Ethics, privacy, media, access to healthcare, human difference, environmental catastrophe, emerging and enduring infectious diseases, markets, mining, design, war, security, gender and reproductive politics, aging, and consciousness are among the many topics that Yale historians study and teach. This pathway provides a powerful framework for navigating and perhaps even remaking a world that has been transformed by the pursuit of knowledge, innovation, and well-being.    
 
Differences with HSHM Major: The Science, Technology, and Medicine Pathway within the History major includes many of the same course offerings as the full History of Science/History of Medicine major. The requirements of the two majors differ substantially, however. HSHM majors concentrate almost exclusively within the history of science and medicine. History majors on Specialist Track take five courses in these areas but also take several courses in other areas of historical study.