[2] Steven Shapin (born 1943 in New York) was educated at Central High School (Philadelphia) and at Reed College (Portland, Oregon), where he studied biology.

[2] Shapin's early research dealt with institutional aspects of science in Scotland and England during the period of the Industrial Revolution and with the career of phrenology in connection with the social and political cleavages of early nineteenth-century Britain.

[2] Shapin has written over 50 extended essays for the London Review of Books—on science, medicine, technology, philosophy, biography, food, and taste—and he is a Contributing Editor of that paper.

His compact book on The Scientific Revolution, intended for a general readership, has been translated into 18 languages.

He has given the Distinguished Lectureship of the History of Science Society, was awarded that Society's Sarton Medal (in recognition of “lifetime scholarly achievement”),[8] and, with Simon Schaffer, won the Erasmus Prize of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation (The Netherlands) for 2005, for “exceptionally important contributions to European culture, society or social science.”[9][10] He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.