NA; Citizen Science -opinions

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Dave Taylor
"CS"
This is about the public collecting data and applying science to it. In the past, it had to do with wildlife/the outdoors but it is expanding to many other things. It's about to explode.... or is growing exponentially if you haven't heard of it.
What is your opinion? I know we have both some really smart folks here and several researchers who also fall into that category.
Not to be the uppity purist, but I have concerns - mainly about how we use the data and interpretations. I know we've had plenty of lying scientists in the past, but we've been able to sort most of that out I believe. I think we are in for a fall if we too-readily accept the 'factual findings' of many CS activities. Especially if we apply them to truly important things like human health. Just consider how biased most people are these days.....and how convinced they are that the side they have chosen is right (only to be disproven later). Yes it's true that science (esp medical science) has flipflopped on a lot of things lately. But I believe the Scientific Method allows culling of most untruths over time.
 
I don't think the collection method really matters as long as you account for the variables properly. I would think the main difference you have with citizen-collection of data is the calibration of the instruments increasing the deviation and noise in the sample. Just like with the "professional" analysis, all sorts of baseless conclusions will be drawn because they will have difficulty filtering out the bias in their data/methods. Science will eventually tackle the topics that matter and refute any crazy conclusions that affect the larger populace. For example, the anti-vaccine crowd who often draw conclusions that vaccines cause autism and all sorts of other goofy stuff. Scientists and medical professionals analyze the data and have proven that there really is no statistically significant link between the two, and the anti-vaxxers fade back into the shadows for a while.
 
I am a fan of not ignoring data unless and until it can robustly be discounted. Bring on the citizen data. The more data points the better, especially if from outside the beltway.
 
Becky said:
I am a fan of not ignoring data unless and until it can robustly be discounted. Bring on the citizen data. The more data points the better, especially if from outside the beltway.
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Well, not if it's crap data, lol. Just because Joe Blow in Denver says it's 102-degrees outside in December, doesn't exactly make it a great addition to the data pool. :)
 
There is definitely a huge risk with even accurately collecting data, (not to mention introduced bias) where the public is involved, imo. Look at how every plane crash is 'a fireball in the sky' where it is later shown to not burned til on the ground, and numerous other similar examples of poor observation.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
"CS"
This is about the public collecting data and applying science to it. In the past, it had to do with wildlife/the outdoors but it is expanding to many other things. It's about to explode.... or is growing exponentially if you haven't heard of it.
What is your opinion? I know we have both some really smart folks here and several researchers who also fall into that category.
Not to be the uppity purist, but I have concerns - mainly about how we use the data and interpretations. I know we've had plenty of lying scientists in the past, but we've been able to sort most of that out I believe. I think we are in for a fall if we too-readily accept the 'factual findings' of many CS activities. Especially if we apply them to truly important things like human health. Just consider how biased most people are these days.....and how convinced they are that the side they have chosen is right (only to be disproven later). Yes it's true that science (esp medical science) has flipflopped on a lot of things lately. But I believe the Scientific Method allows culling of most untruths over time.
Click to expand...

All Scientific Data, does not have the same "weight". Methods of collection have an impact on the weight of the data. This has to be taken in consideration by the annalist of the data , and conclusions need to be adjusted as to the to the validity of the data , in the final formulation and presentation of the "study" (Final written paper, if you will).

Cheers
 
Everskyward said:
@Let'sgoflying! , can you give an example of a CS project?
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Yeah, I'm kinda thinking this was going to be my answer, too.

NWS has used "citizen science" (if that's what we're calling Joe Normal collecting data these days) for decades for weather forecasting model input before AWOS stations and automated weather stations, as well as mobile data that didn't require dedicated land-line circuits, became so cheap and ubiquitous that they didn't need the "citizen" provided data anymore.

There's still both Joe Blow collection programs for weather data, and Joe Blow collection/spotter programs for severe weather, and within that superset, there's a sub-set of those folks who do it over Amateur Radio... there's still a morning "Weather Net" here on the wide area coverage repeaters and 40 meters every morning, 365, no breaks, that collects all the reports from the certified weather folk (it doesn't take much to be certified, but the basics are covered) and that data definitely still ends up being fed into the forecast models. For severe stuff, Skywarn has been around for "forever".

And there's still lots of those weather reporting locations that don't have an automated station anywhere near them, in rural Colorado. Especially in the mountains and the really unpopulated areas of the plains. The severe spotters (colloquially: "storm chasers") saved a lot of lives in the 70s and 80s, pre-Nexrad being installed nearly everywhere.

Not sure what your concern is about using Joe Blow's data at all... we've been doing it as a society for a very long time. If you're concerned about someone skewing it, just apply Statistics 101 and 102 techniques to dump the outliers. It's highly unlikely you'll be finding a majority of citizen data collectors who have time or energy to be "screwing" your pet study with bad data... people barely have time to do their normal stuff... if they volunteer to gather data, it's just a hobby for most.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
"CS"
This is about the public collecting data and applying science to it. In the past, it had to do with wildlife/the outdoors but it is expanding to many other things. It's about to explode.... or is growing exponentially if you haven't heard of it.
What is your opinion? I know we have both some really smart folks here and several researchers who also fall into that category.
Not to be the uppity purist, but I have concerns - mainly about how we use the data and interpretations. I know we've had plenty of lying scientists in the past, but we've been able to sort most of that out I believe. I think we are in for a fall if we too-readily accept the 'factual findings' of many CS activities. Especially if we apply them to truly important things like human health. Just consider how biased most people are these days.....and how convinced they are that the side they have chosen is right (only to be disproven later). Yes it's true that science (esp medical science) has flipflopped on a lot of things lately. But I believe the Scientific Method allows culling of most untruths over time.
Click to expand...

Whether the data is gathered by amateurs, professionals, or even alleged "liars," the key issue is whether the results can be replicated by others. That means, among other things, that the methodology used must be documented sufficiently to make it possible for others to attempt replication.
 
All brought to you from the people who make PIREPS. ;)
IMHO:
I"m a professional "science guy". Physics and computer science. My main concern is accuracy of data. Untrained people, uncalibrated instruments, and opinion instead of fact.
Too much of all of that out there, pretending to be "science".
 
GlennAB1 said:
Do you think humans are to blame for global warming?
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There used to be a bunch of threads on that, but they probably got erased when The Spin Zone got nuked.
 
Palmpilot said:
There used to be a bunch of threads on that, but they probably got erased when The Spin Zone got nuked.
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At least one wasn't. It was likely in Hangar Talk, because I rarely visited the SZ and I was one of the main instigators of that one. It was around December of 2014.

And yes, the topic has been discussed to death. Lots of opinions both ways, some better founded on evidence than others.
 
azure said:
At least one wasn't. It was likely in Hangar Talk, because I rarely visited the SZ and I was one of the main instigators of that one. It was around December of 2014.

And yes, the topic has been discussed to death. Lots of opinions both ways, some better founded on evidence than others.
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Found it:

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/2014-hottest-year-on-record.77289/

I'll say one thing about Xenforo: It appears to have a better search feature than the old forum did. :)
 
Let me work on finding some @Everskyward , (I am part of a nature group and have been asked to promote it, but have put it on the sidelines while I investigate.)
 
If by "collecting data and applying science to it" you mean statistical analysis, I see no problem with it.
Professional statisticians, journalists, politicians and others have been making up conclusions that suit them for decades.
If we allow the general populace to do the same, is there any danger in it?? Lies will be lies, no matter who supplies them.

If you want correct data analysis, you have to control it or perform it yourself.
Performing statistical analyses is not hard or needing educated people anymore, I am sure there is an app for that. :)
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Let me work on finding some @Everskyward , (I am part of a nature group and have been asked to promote it, but have put it on the sidelines while I investigate.)
Click to expand...
Promote what? Global warming? I've heard the alarms sounded for the polar ice caps/glaciers melting at an increased rate. Wouldnt that be expected naturally due to ongoing decreasing mass? A simple home experiment will show that a smaller ice mass melts at a faster rate than a larger ice mass.
 
BigBadLou said:
If by "collecting data and applying science to it" you mean statistical analysis, I see no problem with it.
Professional statisticians, journalists, politicians and others have been making up conclusions that suit them for decades.
If we allow the general populace to do the same, is there any danger in it?? Lies will be lies, no matter who supplies them.

If you want correct data analysis, you have to control it or perform it yourself.
Performing statistical analyses is not hard or needing educated people anymore, I am sure there is an app for that. :)
Click to expand...

I'm not even sure why this somewhat fake distinction of "general populace" vs [insert job title here]. I've seen plenty of projects where the talent level is varied between utter dolt to triple-Doctorate genius-brainiac involved in "public" projects, and/or, "volunteer" projects. I've also seen both utter dolts and genius-brainiacs with job titles that they either did or didn't deserve. :)

As far as "correct" data analysis goes, you can control it and/or perform it yourself all day long, and always find someone on the planet who'll still claim you did it wrong. Haha. I mean, there are standards, and then there are standards, and then there are standards... sure you can't change the Statistics mathematics, but you still have to write an OPINION of what the results of that math MEAN at the end, and people jack with those opinion statements all... the... time...
 
GlennAB1 said:
Promote what? Global warming? I've heard the alarms sounded for the polar ice caps/glaciers melting at an increased rate. Wouldnt that be expected naturally due to ongoing decreasing mass? A simple home experiment will show that a smaller ice mass melts at a faster rate than a larger ice mass.
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I think he meant that he was asked to promote the group that he mentioned.
 
I was asked to promote Citizen Science, as a part of the group's activities.
 
I looked at this site about CS and opened the links to three of the studies having to do with dogs. In all three studies they ask you to evaluate the behavior of your own pet. While the results might turn out to be interesting, I'm not sure they could be called "science".
 
Everskyward said:
I looked at this site about CS and opened the links to three of the studies having to do with dogs. In all three studies they ask you to evaluate the behavior of your own pet. While the results might turn out to be interesting, I'm not sure they could be called "science".
Click to expand...

That's just, like, you're opinion, man.
 
Everskyward said:
I looked at this site about CS and opened the links to three of the studies having to do with dogs. In all three studies they ask you to evaluate the behavior of your own pet. While the results might turn out to be interesting, I'm not sure they could be called "science".
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You may be right. Science requires that there be some way for others to use the same procedures to see if they can replicate the results. I doubt that many pet owners are going to allow others to borrow their pets for that purpose.
 
Everskyward said:
@Let'sgoflying! , can you give an example of a CS project?
Click to expand...
There's all different types of "Citizen Science" and some of it is quite good. One is Seti@ home (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ), one of the more famous distributed computing projects.

Here's a list of other distributed computing projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects

Astronomy has long been in the domain of "citizen science" where good work has been done, some comets are discovered by amateurs. Animal counts (notably birds) in an area are also common. One way around the data collection issue mentioned above is to supply the volunteers with equipment that performs the measurement and the volunteer merely has to move it form place to place.

There are even games one can play to model protein folding and other difficult scienticif problems- here is one example: https://fold.it/portal/
 
Thanks for all the input. I have done further reading and along with your comments have decided that at this time, most of what is going on does not seem that harmful to me. In fact, I am not seeing much real science. It is more Citizen Observation or Citizen Contribution (of computer resources or 'human computation'), and not imo, "Citizen Science".
If all that is happening is early detection of a phenomenon, which is later evaluated by scientists with more precise techniques, I do not see the harm.
"Hey, maybe look at this" by citizens, which results in a more detailed exam by those with the skills and equipment to actually apply science is ok by me.
So if they want to use the name Science to gain more followers (when it truly is not what I think of as science) fine.
 
The biggest difference is it's not government funded, so tax dollars aren't being wasted on researching stupid **** we have no control over.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Thanks for all the input. I have done further reading and along with your comments have decided that at this time, most of what is going on does not seem that harmful to me. In fact, I am not seeing much real science. It is more Citizen Observation or Citizen Contribution (of computer resources or 'human computation'), and not imo, "Citizen Science".
If all that is happening is early detection of a phenomenon, which is later evaluated by scientists with more precise techniques, I do not see the harm.
"Hey, maybe look at this" by citizens, which results in a more detailed exam by those with the skills and equipment to actually apply science is ok by me.
So if they want to use the name Science to gain more followers (when it truly is not what I think of as science) fine.
Click to expand...
Well, how do you define science? I spend more time running experiments and and documenting the results than I do formulating hypotheses, designing experiments and evaluating the results. Most of citizen science is simply using the time and resources of interested parties to perform the experiments and at least some of the documentation. Just because they don't have the education of the principal investigator doesn't make the contributions worthless.

As for "Hey, maybe look at this"...Nate cited an example in the post above mine. Remember that nearly anything a scientist presents has to go through a peer review process (which isn't perfect) to inspect the hypothesis, data, conclusions before publishing the work. Yes, there are some people who would clog up the works; one used to be a frequent poster in this board. But in general, they don't have the interest to be part of the team and their "contributions" can be screened out fairly easily.
 
Yep, Jack I agree with the implication of your first comment (question) above. Any disagreement over this can be boiled down to a 'word meaning' thing.

I don't think what the Hempels did is science (nor do I dismiss the usefulness of what they did).

They made what I call Citizen Observations (reading about cyclodextrin) then encouraged those who were capable and equipped to perform (what I call) the "science" (the Latz study).
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I don't think what the Hempels did is science (nor do I dismiss the usefulness of what they did).

They made what I call Citizen Observations (reading about cyclodextrin) then encouraged those who were capable and equipped to perform (what I call) the "science" (the Latz study).
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At the very least, what they did is a portion of the scientific process, and an important one. They studied published scientific work, and came up with a testable hypothesis.
 
Palmpilot said:
At the very least, what they did is a portion of the scientific process, and an important one. They studied published scientific work, and came up with a testable hypothesis.
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As I said; they made what I call, Citizen Observations, and did not perform any science - which is to mean that is how I interpret what happened; is how I define the word 'science'. So it is my opinion, and others may have their opinion.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
As I said; they made what I call, Citizen Observations, and did not perform any science - which is to mean that is how I interpret what happened; is how I define the word 'science'. So it is my opinion, and others may have their opinion.
Click to expand...
What is your definition of science?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Yep, Jack I agree with the implication of your first comment (question) above. Any disagreement over this can be boiled down to a 'word meaning' thing.

I don't think what the Hempels did is science (nor do I dismiss the usefulness of what they did).

They made what I call Citizen Observations (reading about cyclodextrin) then encouraged those who were capable and equipped to perform (what I call) the "science" (the Latz study).
Click to expand...

They studied data, had a hypothesis, and fought the government to be allowed to test their hypothesis via the approved channels. Seems like it hits the definition of science perfectly.

Note: Repeatability has been mentioned numerous times as being part of "science" in the thread, and by the dictionary definition, it's not. It's what should happen to confirm findings, but it's just "QA". It's not "science". It gets lumped in because it's part of the required economics of professional scientists.

Anyone can apply the scientific method to anything. That's science. The big business we've created around science being called science is a bit misleading. It gives the impression only certain people can do it. Paid people. Which is of course, patently incorrect.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Astronomy has long been in the domain of "citizen science" where good work has been done, some comets are discovered by amateurs. Animal counts (notably birds) in an area are also common. One way around the data collection issue mentioned above is to supply the volunteers with equipment that performs the measurement and the volunteer merely has to move it form place to place.
Click to expand...
I just got into amateur astronomy this winter, and that is what all of the amateur astronomy sites and books say. That it is the one area of science where amateurs have made significant discoveries. I don't plan on making significant discoveries, but it is fun and interesting. I'm learning a lot of useless information that I can share with my wife and friends.
 
denverpilot said:
Note: Repeatability has been mentioned numerous times as being part of "science" in the thread, and by the dictionary definition, it's not. It's what should happen to confirm findings, but it's just "QA". It's not "science". It gets lumped in because it's part of the required economics of professional scientists.
Click to expand...
I have to disagree with you there. Replication of results is central to the scientific method. That's why there must be a way for others to repeat the measurements or observations, for the purpose of determining whether it's possible to obtain the same or substantially similar results, in order for them to be considered valid by the scientific community.

That's why The Journal of Irreproducible Results is a humor magazine.

http://www.jir.com/
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Yep, Jack I agree with the implication of your first comment (question) above. Any disagreement over this can be boiled down to a 'word meaning' thing.

I don't think what the Hempels did is science (nor do I dismiss the usefulness of what they did).

They made what I call Citizen Observations (reading about cyclodextrin) then encouraged those who were capable and equipped to perform (what I call) the "science" (the Latz study).
Click to expand...
Would it be science if a pH D looked at the same information as the Hempels did, and put it together so that the trial could be run?
The Hempels did more than simply read about cyclodextrin, but also had to make a case from the available peer-reviewed material that it could make the desired inclusion complex, that the complex could be cleared from the body, etc.
 
Anything that gets people thinking about how stuff around them works and observing/experimenting with it is a good thing if only to improve the general scientific knowledge of the average person.

However, given our current knowledge of the world around us(collectively), how likely is it that an untrained person without benefit of a multi-million dollar research lab and staff will make any big discoveries?
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Would it be science if a pH D looked at the same information as the Hempels did, and put it together so that the trial could be run?
The Hempels did more than simply read about cyclodextrin, but also had to make a case from the available peer-reviewed material that it could make the desired inclusion complex, that the complex could be cleared from the body, etc.
Click to expand...
According to the article, the Hempels were credited as co-authors of the study. It seems from the article that they studied prior research which inspired them to try intravenous cyclodextrin on their daughters. After it seemed to work, they contacted researchers from the University of Bonn who conducted further study on mice which showed that the drug might be a promising treatment for atherosclerosis. The Hempels didn't do or design any experimentation themselves unless you count the fight to give their daughters the drugs.
 
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