Anthropologists for Social Responsibility Message Board Science and Activism When scientists became concerned about the Nuclear bomb, Einstein, and other natural scientists, created an organization of scientists, created an organization of scientists that invented the Union of Concerned Scientists, which set up the doomsday clock to try to educate the public on the dangers of the use of a technology they, the scientists, had created. They were not all experts in this area, but they had access to special knowledge about the technology and they felt it was, therefore, their special responsibility to act as human beings in relation to their professional knowledge. Anthropologists and other academics in the United States do not agree that it is their right and duty to be activists: indeed, many think it is their professional responsibility to have no public opions except on their own academic specialities. We have not always been like this: our founders in this country, Boas, Mead, Benedict and others were very public spokespersons against racism and humanism in various ways. They acted as human beings, as public intellectuals, as professionals with special knowledge and therefore with special responsibilities. This session, as founded by Dr. Mario Zamora, and his publications in Third World Societies, helped to turn around that situation. Today, I propose that in Dr. Zamora's honor we found ANTHROPOLOGISTS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, following a pattern set by Physicians for Social Responsibility, the American branch of an international organization which won the Nobel Peace Prize several years ago. We will make a Homepage for this organization available as a clearing house for anthropologists who are aware of human rights problems and would like to have some support from other anthropologists in acting on their knowledge. Dorothy Billings at The 14th Annual International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences Contact Information for ASR: Dr. Dorothy Billings Department of Anthropology Wichita State University Wichita KS 67260-0052, USA E-mail Answering Machine EVENTS The 14th Annual International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences XIV International Congress of the International Association for Cross-cultural Psychology Launch date and place: April 5th 1998 Central States Meeting of the American Anthropology Association Kansas City, Missouri. Generated March 30th 1998 by Mashitah Yusoff