In the late 1960s, a group of radical scientists and engineers began to turn a critical eye on the role of their fields in the larger political culture. Calling themselves Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action (SESPA), announcing that "if you are tired of science for the pentagon or science for business, try science for the people." Their slogan "Science for the People" (SftP), became the name of their organization.

With a collective membership, decentralized, and little hierarchy, SftP was truly a grassroots organization, spawning chapters nationwide, usually based in research universities, though not limited to them. As Herb Fox, one of the group's founders noted, there was a vigorous debate in the early years of the organization over precisely what SftP should be: whether they should see themselves as engaged primarily in class struggle (in a Marxist sense) emphasizing the issues of science, as an organization devoted to using science in the interest of the people, or more generally as a group that would take a critical approach to examining the social and political impact of science and the misuse of science.

From these sometimes contentious beginnings, SftP emerged into a powerful voice for radical science, communicating its ideas through the bi-monthly magazine it published from 1970 to 1989 and a string of pamphlets and books on the major scientific issues of the day. In the 1970s and 1980s, members of the organization were influential in building opposition to military and corporate control of research and to scientific rationalization of racism, sexism, and other forms of inequality. SftP were indispensable participants in high-profile debates over recombinant DNA technologies; sociobiology, IQ, and biological determinism; women's health care; nuclear power; and the rise of biotechnology. Many of its members were engaged in supporting anti-imperialist resistance in Central America and Asia during the 1980s.

Although the organization gradually waned in the 1980s, publishing the last issue of its magazine in 1989, the issues it confronted have not. After a conference on the history of the organization was held at UMass Amherst in 2014, Science for the People has reorganized, with chapters reappearing at universities around the country including University of Michigan, MIT, and UMass Amherst.