Word: sftp
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Many scientists expressed concern that an unfortunate precedent had been set for local communities to interfere in scientific research they don't understand. But members of SftP were elated over the decision. Jonathan King and others say the council's decision was a milestone in a movement of people to gain more control over their own lives...
...case, King claims the council's action was not a spontaneous event precipitated by the testimony of a few prominent scientists, as he says the media tended to portray it. According to King, it was at least partly the result of long term efforts of various organizations, including SftP, to build a movement forcing science to serve the people rather than what he perceives to be the present dominating interests of a scientific elite--motivated by the prospect of Nobel prizes--and a corporate-governmental complex geared toward profit, imperialism, and maintenance of the status...
King says it is not widely known that the SftP, cooperating with other groups, has agitated for several years for close monitoring of genetic engineering research and its relegation to a lower priority. He cites an SftP pamphlet published years ago that dealt with the hazards of genetic engineering long before the technology to accomplish it existed, and a barrage of letters and critiques sent out to scientific conferences, government agencies, and public interest groups...
Other members of SftP say that in presenting opposing views of controversial scientific research, newspapers and television reporters often rely heavily on information supplied by SftP, while rarely giving the organization credit. And they claim it was largely unrecognized efforts of SftP as an organization that were responsible for ending the controversial screening of male babies for the XYY chromosome pattern at the Boston Lying-in Hospital, which is associated with Harvard. Here too, they say, SftP's efforts may have had an effect far beyond the local level: Beckwith says that a recent survey by the Children's Defense...
...SftP, under its original name as Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action (SESPA), was organized at the height of the anti-war movement in the late '60s. Its founders were disgruntled members of the American Physical Society who left that organization when it refused to take a position against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam...