Many of us scrutinise science and technology much less than we do the law. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) directly interrogates this incongruence. An interdisciplinary field, STS sees science and technology not as existing in a vacuum, but as producing types of authorities that can be studied just as much as law. Although science and technology are often treated as higher authorities that the law must follow as it inevitably lags behind, Professor Sheila Jasanoff (founder and director of the Harvard STS Program) rejects this characterisation.

In November 2025, Professor Jasanoff delivered the Oxford Clarendon Law Lecture Series this year, together entitled ‘Science, Technology and the Constitution of Modernity’. The conversation in this episode is separate but complementary to these lectures. The first portion o ...