SESPA attended its first meeting of the American Chemical Society this year. The immediate reaction of the lower echelon officials was of hostility. Denied the right even to put up a literature table, some of us circulated among the arriving chemists armed with leaflets and other "subversive" goodies, while others...
Tag - volume 4
From an historical point of view, the capitalist mode of production and distribution has led to the emergence of two characteristic types of political system: the liberal democracy exemplified by England and the United States of America on the one hand, and the repressive police state exemplified by Nazi Germany on...
In a country where over one half of the population are women, why are only 9% of chemists women? Why do women constitute only 4.2% of all physicists and 0.8% of all engineers? Are we dealing here with those mythical natural interests and capabilities of women? Is the reason irrational discrimination, or is it perhaps...
Though the phrasing varies, these simple principles are constantly referred to by the Vietnamese and Chinese — not just in explaining to the foreigner but also in conducting their own affairs. Notice there are no slogans "Protect academic freedom" or "let students make the decisions which affect their own lives": the...
Each year, sandwiched between Christmas and New Year's days, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) holds its annual meeting in a major American city, with its headquarters in a towering hotel of a major American hotel chain. Invariably, not very far away is a major American ghetto, and of...
Psychology professor Richard Herrnstein of Harvard University published an article titled "I.Q." in the September issue of the Atlantic. In it he says, " ... data on I.Q. and social-class differences show that we have been living with an inherited stratification of our society for some time." In what he calls our...
AAAS attendees bought many copies of a little salmon colored pamphlet entitled CENSORED. The pamphlet describes the censoring of an article with the title, Science for the People, that four members of SESPA from N.Y. and Chicago had submitted for publication. The article is a modified and extended development of the...
At the American Economics Association (AEA) Convention in New Orleans the Union for Radical Political Economy (URPE) found many economists receptive to progressive ideas. On Monday we put out a leaflet challenging Paul Samuelson's economics [see insert] and distributed it at a luncheon which was honoring him for...
One of the films that Steve gave me was called "Pregnancy testing in the 70's". It was a panel discussion between six members of the medical profession. The trend of the discussion was how important routine early pregnancy tests are, since women could go into X-ray therapy, for instance, unaware of their pregnancy...
In a recent issue of Science for the People, the Science Teaching Group offered a critique of science courses in the schools1 The critique emphasized the role of traditional science education in maintaining the economic and social status quo. This is accomplished by fostering the myth of an apolitical, benevolent...