This recent post by Kristi inspired me to discuss a topic that was on my list. In some sense, it is an expansion of my last post.
Web 2.0 has really emphasized the democratization of knowledge. This has been done by technology alone (for example, look at what happened to the record recoding industry after the advent of home-recording software), but Web 2.0 + technological innovation has added information to capability.
In science, the open source movement has democratized the access of any user to scientific knowledge, although the goal was to give more scientists that access. As I usually do on my blog, I show that a thing that starts with good intentions on the web often results in unintended negative consequences.
Often this is because the speed at which technology and data is thrown at the end-user (society in general in this case) out-paces that user’s ability to critically think about cost-benefit, or do any other critical analysis.
I will posit that in our generation, we will see the dismantling of “traditional” science and the undermining of science education and the validity of the research degree, such as the Ph.D. In fact,this process has already begun. I have discussed this in other blog posts, and articles like this underscore the point.
As I thought further, I thought about how most of you might respond to thus-and that is something along the lines of:
“How can you argue against the amateur scientist, doing work at home, look at people like Einstein, the patent clerk, or Tesla, or Volta, or Galileo…these were outside the “establishment”. Maybe we need people outside the “establishment” to shake up the system and provide progress…”
Yes, my friends, my heart lies there too, because I have been immersed in the Hollywood messages of the “outsider” shaking up the system. My own life has been an example of that-I never meant to be a scientist…
However, this is mostly hogwash, constructed to give us that “rooting for the underdog” psychology. And there are fundamental differences between a Tesla or Volta experimenting at home-with electricity that could only harm them-and someone armed with a home-lab full of viruses.
The advent of the citizen scientist so far has been limited to counting things, or categorizing things, which, I guess is somewhat palatable. But even this is difficult to comprehend. For instance, take this article: Citizen scientists watch for signs of climate change.
Here we have an article that shows how results can be biased by citizens who have a priori conclusions about the physical world and who are trying to fit the data to those predisposed conclusions (see previous post).
Without proper training in the scientific method and critical thinking, we think we are exposing future scientist to potential work, but is it possible we are reinforcing ideas about fitting data and reaching conclusions before the experiment is done?
This, you may argue, is no big deal. Maybe you are right and I am overreacting. OK, but articles like this: The geneticist in the garage should make your ears perk up. Hacking a computer and freezing it is annoying, but rarely deadly. Biohacking an organism and releasing that into the environment should make you shudder all the way home to your family.
As more and more information and technology flows freely via Web 2.0, I argue we will see a linear increase in the advent of these sorts of “home laboratories” and with them will come the democratization of science education and knowledge such that the years of training and apprenticeship that shapes a scientific mind will be rendered meaningless.
If I can get the information about how to grow yeast and insert a plasmid online, and I have access to the reagents, why would I want to waste my time and money on an establishment “book education”? And how great a resource if I am tired of terrorizing people by mailing anthrax. I will just grow up some avian flu in my bedroom and release it…you get the idea
In the end, I think this will all come down to what Thomas Jefferson wrote,
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
Mob rule is brewing in the way we treat AIG executive pay, and it is coming to a lab near you. These things are not as disconnected as they might seem on the surface.
And yes “my heart lies” is written that way on purpose ;)
Very true. We get so much information thrown at us nowadays, we don’t get time to think about it, instead just agreeing or dismissing instantaneously. Certainly seems to be the case with the whole is climate change man made debate.
Date: Thursday, 16 April 2009 – 17:23 UTC Forrest Mims said:
Michael,
You wrote “The advent of the citizen scientist so far has been limited to counting things, or categorizing things, which, I guess is somewhat palatable.”
Because you have the academic credentials that I totally lack, it will be instructive if we compare publication records. Mine are listed at www.forrestmims.org—and include several Scientific Correspondences in NATURE . Please provide yours so that we can determine if a citizen scientist can indeed do science.
You wrote, “Here we have an article that shows how results can be biased by citizens who have a priori conclusions about the physical world and who are trying to fit the data to those predisposed conclusions (see previous post).”
Here we agree—but you failed to cite the various exposes of professional scientists who have done precisely the same thing and, in some cases, even committed fraud and plagiarism. I have interviewed three scientists who specifically told me it is permissible for them to exaggerate their findings about the environmental consequences of their findings “for the greater good.”
You also wrote, “Without proper training in the scientific method and critical thinking, we think we are exposing future scientist to potential work, but is it possible we are reinforcing ideas about fitting data and reaching conclusions before the experiment is done?”
Again, the literature reveals that some professionally trained scientists have done what you suggest we amateurs might do. I have never been trained in the “scientific method” (although I teach its variations to university students), but my research findings have passed peer review on many occasions, and, in turn, I have reviewed many books and scientific papers by my professional colleagues.
I hope you will learn more about the serious research and observations of amateur scientists and that you will give us as much benefit of the doubt as you give our professional colleagues. Please feel free to contact me directly at editor[at]sas[dot]org.
Forrest M. Mims III
Editor, THE CITIZEN SCIENTIST
www.sas.org/tcs
Follow my science at Twitter.com
Mr. Mims:
First, I will not engage in a scientific “who has more publications” contest with you for three reasons:
1) I am principally against that sort of argumentation, and it is not relevant to the point of this post, and it is not at all as you say “instructive” about anything.
2) Number of publications and quality of publications are two completely different things, and for disparate scientific fields, some can publish many papers, where some (say in the biological sciences) publish fewer papers in the same given time-frame. That would be comparing apples to oranges. A simple application of the principle of experimental controls would show that these are two completely independent variables considering our fields are very different.
3) Since you are roughly twice my age, you have had many more years to accumulate publications-so there is no scientific control for age.
You are wrong also that I give my colleagues “the benefit of the doubt” have you read the entirety of my blog…probably not.
Finally, please present me with a cogent argument for why you would feel better, and it would be more scientifically sound if your neighbor was able to play around with say, H1N1 virus in his or her basement versus a trained biologist.
If we have no standard for scientific training then you must agree that science should be in the hands of anyone with an interest, and we should allow the tools of science to extend into the home.
Michael,
Since you believe that those of us who practice science as citizens are limited to counting and categorizing, I challenged you to compare publications. You declined, so I looked and could find only one first-author paper by you and no books. You suggested that there is no scientific control for our respective ages, so send me your age if you want to compare publications under that criterium.
Meanwhile, my point stands that academic training is not a prerequisite for doing science worthy of the peer-reviewed literature and serving as a reviewer for various journals and book publishers.
We both agree that “results can be biased by citizens who have a priori conclusions about the physical world and who are trying to fit the data to those predisposed conclusions….” But you failed to reply to my point about the numerous exposes–many in NATURE—of professional scientists who have discredited science by doing precisely the same thing and, in some cases, even committed fraud and plagiarism. If you have addressed this sad topic elsewhere on your blog, perhaps you could list a few posts.
You then presented a logical fallacy known as a straw man to suggest that I “…would feel better, and it would be more scientifically sound if your neighbor was able to play around with say, H1N1 virus in his or her basement versus a trained biologist.” Of course my post makes no such assertion. Instead, I simply expressed the hope that you will learn more about the serious research and observations of amateur scientists and that you will give us as much benefit of the doubt as you give our professional colleagues. That you have failed to do, and I invite you to reconsider.
I also invite you to take time from chastising citizen scientists to join those of us who devote our energies to doing and publishing productive science. Doing science is the only way you will expand your publications list.
Forrest M. Mims III
Editor, THE CITIZEN SCIENTIST (www.sas.org/tcs)
www.forrestmims.org
www.sunandsky.org
Follow my science at Twitter.com/fmims
Ok sir, you have more publications than me, you win…I don’t really do science to expand my “publications list” so you can have the publications list argument. I am more interested in science for discovery-and most of the time that means that experiments that do not get published-I don’t frame my “publications list” over my bed. Again, I am a kid compared to you, so have at it.
In fact, if you read my blog, you will discover that the race to build one’s publications list in order to get jobs etc is a problem I see for science. It leads to exactly the misconduct that you keep repeating scientists engage in.
The fact that you endorse the “publications list” mentality tells me a little about your zealotry for this way of thinking and makes me question why you do science…discovery or self-promotion? All the listing of websites in your signature suggest the latter.
In some sense you are selling citizen science, and your publication there, as I see you have some advertisements, so your “publication list” becomes a great marketing tool. Your personal website has links to where you can buy books and on and on. That’s cool with me, I have no problem with that, but lets be crystal clear about the differences here.
Oh, yes, trained scientists are unethical and do bad things. They probably do those bad things at the same relative percentage as the non-science population. Ok, point ceded.
“Straw man”…you keep repeating this point, “academic training is not a prerequisite for doing science worthy of the peer-reviewed literature and serving as a reviewer for various journals and book publishers.”
A careful reading of my post shows that I really am not making an argument for or against that…my argument is summed up in this sentence, “Hacking a computer and freezing it is annoying, but rarely deadly. Biohacking an organism and releasing that into the environment should make you shudder all the way home to your family.” Nowhere in my original post does it say that non-PhD’s should not be editors and should never publish papers.
So let me ask again, please make an argument for why it would be more scientifically sound if a citizen scientist, who by definition has no training in the sciences, was able to experiment H1N1 virus in his or her home laboratory.
This question is not a “straw man”-I am not refuting a misrepresentation of your position. This is the crux of my post…again to quote from my own post, I write, “And there are fundamental differences between a Tesla or Volta experimenting at home-with electricity that could only harm them-and someone armed with a home-lab full of viruses.”
I think a careful reading would reveal that I have a problem with citizen scientists doing work in home laboratories with viruses or bacteria or genetics, as in the article I cite about biohacking.
I know you want to paint me as this condescending, think I know better than the uneducated-smart ass-PhD, but this is not the case sir. I honestly don’t think you read my post carefully and you had a visceral reaction because you saw a few words about not trusting citizen science with biology, which is something you are selling/promoting and you asked me to consider it as a valid way of doing science. I did consider it, and I think my position stands.
I see you have done a lot of work in electronics and some basic biology and I respect those many contributions, but I personally would like to see you trained before you work on HIV or gene therapy. This is my personal position and I am sorry that it offends you.
Michael,
Let’s wrap this up with two final points.
1. Discoveries? Amateur scientists have made many. Send your age along with any discoveries you have made, and I’ll respond with some discoveries made by amateur scientists of your age or younger.
2. Where have I advocated that amateur scientists should be involved in experimenting with H1N1 or “Biohacking an organism and releasing that into the environment….”? This is the realm of professional scientists, not amateur scientists. Consider, for example, the inadvertent spread, through the dispersal of their pollen, of bioengineered crop plants such as corn.
Forrest M. Mims III
Editor, THE CITIZEN SCIENTIST (www.sas.org/tcs)
www.forrestmims.org
www.sunandsky.org
Follow my science at Twitter.com/fmims