Slate - From 1969 through 1989, the group Science for the People tried to do just that. Its members took “science has a politics” as a philosophical starting point and then used that understanding to push for radical change. Early on, the group protested weapons labs. Members worked with the Black Panther Party, helping with their free health clinics, and with the Young Lords Organization, assisting them in offering free lead-poisoning testing services. They sent equipment to Vietnamese scientists and helped Midwestern farmworkers identify signs of pesticide poisoning. They publicly combatted advocates of socio-biology. The group also ran a Science for the People magazine during this time, and its back issues are a treasure trove of conversation between left-wing scientists about the relationship of their work to capitalism, racism, sexism, and imperialism. There’s the sad reality that the very basic 20th-century concept that science is helpful in public life because it helps us make evidence-based decisions is increasingly threatened under Trump.
And now, at this desperate time, Science for the People is back, as an activist organization and a magazine—this time, published online, with a possible print revival in its future.
SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE
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