Organizing Reports

You can find previous organizing reports here. Contact mail@sciencefothepeople.org to get involved!

Philosophy of Science Reading Group, or: PoSftP

It all started, for reasons somewhere between cosmic predetermination and pure chance, with an ad hoc get-together over Zoom to learn and chat about Karl Popper, considered one of the greatest philosophers of science and a warrior for Open Society, valiantly defending it against many of its Enemies.

Many critiques surfaced during our group discussion, from the naivete of “falsification” in real-world research practices, to the reductive and ideology-driven attempt to apply it to social sciences, to Popper’s prominent role in propagandizing neoliberalism.

The reading group began meeting every other week on Zoom in spring 2021. The second meet-up was short and sweet, as we revisited Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, laying the theoretical foundation of this reading group and embracing our radical tradition.

Some of us were interested to explore more about alienation, so we discussed a few chapters of Henri Lefebvre’s Critique of Everyday Life.

Some of us were interested in evolutionary biology—and it was a few months after Richard Lewontin’s passing—so we discussed Lewontin and Stephen J. Gould’s classic article, “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme.” We took these perspectives into editing the Lewontin Memorial Collection published in Science for the People.

Some of us were neuroscientists, so we engaged with a few ideas in The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. While the book was not radical by any means, it compelled us to face the philosophical problems of agency and introspection that are far from being overcome in the field of consciousness study.

The four books that we actually read from cover to cover were: Biology Under the Influences by Levins and Lewontin—this collection of essays was an extension to the Dialectical Biologist written by both authors in the intervening years since 1985; Helena Sheehan’s Marxism and the Philosophy of Science; Christopher Caudwell’s The Crisis in Physics; and more recently, Kohei Saito’s Marx in the Anthropocene.

None of the participants had been trained in philosophy. But we enjoyed each other’s amateur company and struggled together to get out of our mostly empiricist comfort zones. If there is one thing we learned, it is that science without philosophy leads to a blind alley, and that scientists without grasping the broader questions of society, humanity, and existence are nowhere close to revealing the truth of nature.

Beginning in Summer 2023, we have been reorganizing ourselves into a formal SftP group, and conforming with leftists’ love of acronyms, we call it PoSftP! We hope to extend our reach to more people who are interested in big philosophical questions, to contribute to the organization as an educational entity, and to reclaim our own development as knowledge workers—not as alienated producers of piecemeal facts, but conscious agents who seek to understand and change the roots of the matter.

If you are new to SftP, or even a long-time reader who has been on the fence about getting involved with us, PoSftP offers a great opportunity to meet new people, to joke, chat, learn, and radicalize together. Keep an eye out for our next announcement on the SftP mailing list!

New Haven Chapter Report

By Emily Sutton

The New Haven chapter emerged in early 2023. Early on, we set a vision for the chapter as a hub to build connections between politically-minded scientists while creating space for education and discussion. In Spring, we tabled on May Day and had our first event, “Disentangling Science and Militarism,” where we read and discussed excerpts from the militarism issue, “Killing in the Name Of.” Summer meetings, facilitated by co-organizers Emily S. and Nick P., brought in new members and served as a forum to continue developing our collective intentions. An enthusiasm emerged for finding ways to share our knowledge and resources to address injustice in our local communities, a theme that we hope to carry with us as we grow as a chapter.

In August, our member Josh R. led us on an SftP-hosted tour of the Marsh Botanical Gardens called “Climate, Invasion & Development: The Politics of Plant Allies and Foes,” where we learned about the ways capitalism affects the relationship between humans and global plant life while getting an up-close view of the plants we were discussing. He showed us the different species of pine trees and taught us about how colonial pine plantations in Africa altered the environment down to the mycorrhizae and soil. While inspecting red teosinte, a close relative of the precursor to domesticated corn, we discussed how corporate agriculture has affected the genetic diversity of corn and harmed the people who cultivate it. After the formal tour and discussion, we had free time to explore the gardens. This was an exciting, hands-on, publicly accessible event that supported both scientific and political education.

In September, we hosted a SftP social in New Haven and attended the “March to End Fossil Fuels” in New York City. A group of us took the train together, meeting up with friends on the train from like-minded groups in Connecticut such as the Ecosocialist Caucus of the CT Democratic Socialists of America and the Stop Cop City CT Solidarity Coalition. Once we arrived, we rallied with our NYC SftP comrades for the march, our first time meeting in person. The day was a wonderful opportunity to connect in action with comrades across the region fighting for a more just future.

We are grateful to our members for their presence and contributions, to the Black and Brown Power Center for letting us use their space for summer meetings, and to Harmony Solomon Cruz-Bustamante for facilitating our use of the center. As we build the chapter, we strive to continue generating connections with community members, activists, and like-minded academics to leverage our skills, resources, and knowledge in support of the political struggle against capitalism in our community. We are enthusiastically moving forward to build a movement of science for the people in New Haven, in Connecticut, and beyond. To join us, send an email to nhv@scienceforthepeople.org or fill out the onboarding form on the SftP website!

Science Teaching Group

It is a distant memory, but science teachers were a quintessential part of the first iteration of SftP. There were a number of local science teacher groups in Boston, New York, and New Haven during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.¹ Many of them were also part of “left caucuses” within their local teacher unions which grounded SftP activities within progressive parts of the educational labor movement. This enabled the production of specific curricula and materials with teachers that could work effectively in the classroom.² As a result, these engaged science teachers stressed a unification of goals radically rethinking science amongst different areas of science education and science inside and outside the classroom. We take into consideration the work of our predecessors which continues to serve as a motivator and a reminder that the political awareness which informs our current goals are historically grounded.

Ever since the revitalization of SftP—the organization since 2014 and the magazine since 2019—there has been renewed engagement within the organization about the political and organizational stakes for scientists and STEM workers in educational contexts at many levels, including university campuses, scientific conferences, professional organizations, and labor unions. Recently, the renewed Anti-militarism Working Group was the first to pose the question of transforming science education away from perpetuating oppressive pedagogical norms inside the classroom. This has taken the form of problematizing and rethinking the ways in which uses of science and technology are appraised in the classroom. The dominant approach has followed a pro-capitalist lens of professional ethics, rather than a critique of the political and economic exploitative contexts of the scientific enterprise.

The Science Teaching Working Group (STG) has been revitalized since the spring of 2023 by a number of scientists, science educators, and K-12 classroom science teachers, all called “science workers” below. The group virtually meets in biweekly intervals rotating facilitation and note-taking roles each week. As the working group is new and still growing, we have had many discussions about the nature of our work, recruitment, critical pedagogy, and advocacy for science workers striving for labor rights and adequate working conditions. Each of these missions has precedent in the historical work of the STG: public outreach and disruption in professional teacher organizations such as the National Science Teaching Association in 1971, developing and disseminating alternative curricula against capitalist and eugenic ideologies, and workplace organizing through rank-and-file caucuses within teacher unions as well as education on occupational health and safety.³

Members of the STG have taken up several projects, including but not limited to the following: (1) Proposals to educational publications and media outlets about the political nature of scientific knowledge and teaching. (2) Creating draft syllabi and curricular frameworks for science educators interested in socio-scientific issues. For instance, they address the role of colonialism and white supremacy in the historical development of modern science. (3) Seeking collaborations with anti-imperialist organizing and rank-and-file educator groups within teacher unions. (4) Developing a safe space for science workers to meet and share ideas about radical science teaching.

If you would like to get involved, please contact us through our sign-up form at bit.ly/SftP_STG.

Notes

Science Teaching Group, “Science Teaching: A Critique,” Science for the People, July 1971, https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/archives/science-teaching-a-critique/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=science-teaching-a-critique; Dan Berman, “COSH Around the Country: Organizing for Job Safety,” Science for the People 12, July-August 1980, 11-15, https://archive.scienceforthepeople.org/vol-12/v12n4/cosh-organizing-job-safety/; Boston SESPA Teaching Group, “Science Teaching: Towards an Alternative,” Science for the People 5, no. 5, September 1972, 6-10, https://archive.scienceforthepeople.org/vol-4/v4n5/science-teaching-towards-an-alternative/.
Dan Atkins, Jack Dougherty, Walda Katz Fishman, and Frank Rosenthall, “Towards a Renewed and Expanded SFTP Role Among Science Teachers,” Science for the People 10, no. 4, July-August 1978, 34-35, https://archive.scienceforthepeople.org/vol-10/v10n4/towards-a-renewed-and-expanded-sftp-role-among-science-teachers/.
Science Teaching Group, “Science Teaching: A Critique.”; Dan Atkins, Jack Dougherty, Walda Katz Fishman, and Frank Rosenthall, “Towards a Renewed and Expanded SFTP Role Among Science Teachers.”; I.N. Spector, “OSHA Inspectors,” Science for the People 7, no. 5, September 1975, 17-18, https://archive.scienceforthepeople.org/vol-7/v7n5/osha-inspectors/.