NA; Citizen Science -opinions

[Cap'n Jack]

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.

And that tends to make my point. I've known principal investigators who didn't do much more than write the grant proposals for the studies, and left the design and execution of the experiments to the postdocs and grad students.

Undergrad students often don't do much more than run the equipment under the instructions of someone higher up. How is that different from "citizen scientists"?

What if I worked outside of chemistry? Suppose I discovered a new species of flower? Would I be doing citizen science?

 

[Everskyward]

And that tends to make my point. I've known principal investigators who didn't do much more than write the grant proposals for the studies, and left the design and execution of the experiments to the postdocs and grad students.

Undergrad students often don't do much more than run the equipment under the instructions of someone higher up. How is that different from "citizen scientists"?

What if I worked outside of chemistry? Suppose I discovered a new species of flower? Would I be doing citizen science?

They were credited as co-authors so I'm not sure why you think I have any different a point than you do.

Who really cares if you were doing "citizen science" or "citizen observation" in your example?

I don't think this is the type of "citizen science" Dave is talking about anyway.

 

[denverpilot]

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/

You can disagree all you like, it's not the definition of science or more accurately the scientific method. It's QA of the already completed science.

Not all of the job description required of a professional scientist is "science". It's just additional things their employer requires. They're important things, but they're not science.

Same thing as not all that a Doctor or Nurse does is "medicine". Writing the patient's status on a chart in a single proprietor's office, for purposes of later filling out insurance paperwork required by the industry, isn't "medicine", but it's a required task to maintain credibility and keep the bills paid and lights on.

When you describe the pecking order where the top dog did the real science, and the underlings go prove it, calling the underlings work "science", is mostly just to keep them interested and motivated.

By the classical definition of "science", once the hypothesis is proven or disproven, the science is over with. A new hypothesis may take its place and be more science, but reproducing the original test is just the QA department. People with enough training to be able to do their own science don't like the idea that they're just doing someone else's QA for them, which is more an institutional/bureaucratic thing than anything, so they get called "scientists" which makes them feel better about it.

Hundreds of thousands of "Computer Scientists" out there in those QA roles, not designing crap... Or applying science daily at all... Just to give probably one of the most egregious examples present in the modern day "science as a job title" world.

Maybe a better job title for the underlings would be "scientific engineer". They're designing and implementing methods toward reproducibility. It's not really "science" by definition. Just the follow on work.

Peer review is just peer review, it's not science. Replication falls into that category. They aren't starting with a new hypothesis, so it isn't science.

 

[bflynn]

@Let'sgoflying! , can you give an example of a CS project?

NetATMO. They are collecting weather data from privately weather stations that they also sell with the intent of "proving" global warming. Unfortunately they also
already have a reputation that their sensors are highly inaccurate. I have one and I'll confirm that they're wrong, but I can't say by how much or why. If there is a fault in science in general, I believe it is an overconfidence in believing that all inputs are understood.

Citizen science is good, it's important. Without it we wouldn't have many of our achievements. But it, like all science, has limits.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

They were credited as co-authors so I'm not sure why you think I have any different a point than you do.

Actually, you supported my point, that non-scientists are capable of producing good science.

Who really cares if you were doing "citizen science" or "citizen observation" in your example?

Back at you with a question...what was the original concern in the thread? Wasn't it whether people outside the sciences could contribute meaningful science, or meaningful data for science? In my example, the scientist was working outside of the field s/he was trained in. Does that now fall under "citizen science"?

I don't think this is the type of "citizen science" Dave is talking about anyway.

Which example do you mean? My point was that citizen science covers a wide range of skills and people. Some "only" play computer games or run a screen saver to contribute computing time. Others are able to formulate hypotheses and do, at least some of, the work as well.

 

[Maxmosbey]

Science and Math, the two absolutes that have let me down enough times over the years that I don't put all my faith in neither of them. Science is what we think we know, because we have observed something happen enough times that we have come to a conclusion that it is predictable. Or I should say, because someone else has come to that conclusion. But then it is never absolute, is it? There are always anomalies, and it seems to me that anomalies are a convenient way to ignore anything that does not conform with what we believe. We just call them anomalies, keep believing in the science, and move on.

I don't disregard science, but I am skeptical of it at times. But mostly so with medicine. As I get older, I have more and more going on that the doctor has to treat. So lately it has been my experience that medicine is pretty hit and miss. My doctor prescribes a medicine or treatment, I take it, and then after a period of time he asks me how it is working. So all of a sudden, we have that data point that is based on the observances of an untrained party, me. Do I feel better? Well, sometimes I think that I do. Is that rash going away? Well, it started to, but then it came back. Then the doctor prescribes something else. I even brought this up to my doctor, who assured me that trial and error was part of the process. It is a rash, if medicine is a science, how hard can it be?

But back to science, there has been science for as long as there have been scientists, and the science that we believe in today, often times is not the same science that was recognized in the past. So science can be wrong. Science has been wrong many times in the past. What scientists told us was absolute, we find out was absolutely wrong. What makes one think that the science today is any different? As our knowledge and our technology grows, not only do we learn new science, we learn new things about the old science. Sometimes we learn that what we thought was true, isn't anymore. But we have to have something. So we have faith. It is like religion in a way. We have faith in science, because if we don't we can't explain how and why things happen. Humans seem to think that they have to have all the answers. Regardless of whether we are believers in science, believers in God, or believers in both, we can make up answers for everything that happens on earth and in the universe, and that makes us satisfied, even if they might be wrong answers.

Don't get me started on Math.

 

[Everskyward]

Back at you with a question...what was the original concern in the thread? Wasn't it whether people outside the sciences could contribute meaningful science, or meaningful data for science? In my example, the scientist was working outside of the field s/he was trained in. Does that now fall under "citizen science"?

The thread started out with that question, but now has moved on to a definition of "science" which seems to have more status than "observation" or "participation". Maybe it's because I'm only a citizen, not a scientist, but I don't care what it's called.

 

[Palmpilot]

Science and Math, the two absolutes that have let me down enough times over the years that I don't put all my faith in neither of them. Science is what we think we know, because we have observed something happen enough times that we have come to a conclusion that it is predictable. Or I should say, because someone else has come to that conclusion. But then it is never absolute, is it? There are always anomalies, and it seems to me that anomalies are a convenient way to ignore anything that does not conform with what we believe. We just call them anomalies, keep believing in the science, and move on.

I don't disregard science, but I am skeptical of it at times. But mostly so with medicine. As I get older, I have more and more going on that the doctor has to treat. So lately it has been my experience that medicine is pretty hit and miss. My doctor prescribes a medicine or treatment, I take it, and then after a period of time he asks me how it is working. So all of a sudden, we have that data point that is based on the observances of an untrained party, me. Do I feel better? Well, sometimes I think that I do. Is that rash going away? Well, it started to, but then it came back. Then the doctor prescribes something else. I even brought this up to my doctor, who assured me that trial and error was part of the process. It is a rash, if medicine is a science, how hard can it be?

But back to science, there has been science for as long as there have been scientists, and the science that we believe in today, often times is not the same science that was recognized in the past. So science can be wrong. Science has been wrong many times in the past. What scientists told us was absolute, we find out was absolutely wrong. What makes one think that the science today is any different? As our knowledge and our technology grows, not only do we learn new science, we learn new things about the old science. Sometimes we learn that what we thought was true, isn't anymore. But we have to have something. So we have faith. It is like religion in a way. We have faith in science, because if we don't we can't explain how and why things happen. Humans seem to think that they have to have all the answers. Regardless of whether we are believers in science, believers in God, or believers in both, we can make up answers for everything that happens on earth and in the universe, and that makes us satisfied, even if they might be wrong answers.

Don't get me started on Math.

What to be believe and what not to believe about science is a real problem for many people. I think part of the problem is the way it's taught in our schools. Students are taught about what science has discovered, and while that may include how the discoveries were made, I think that the fundamentals of the scientific method, i.e., the scientific process for finding out what's true and what isn't, needs to be an explicit part of the curriculum.

 

[Palmpilot]

Actually, you supported my point, that non-scientists are capable of producing good science.

In further support of that point, as Carl Sagan pointed out in his Baloney Detection Kit, "Arguments from authority carry little weight -- 'authorities' have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts."

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/

The usefulness of scientific work depends less on who is doing it, and more on the quality the work, specifically, the extent to which the scientific process is followed.

 

[Clark1961]

Don't get me started on Math.

Please, get started on math.

 

[ralarcon]

"Science[nb 1] is a systematic enterprise that creates, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.[nb 2][2]:58
Contemporary science is typically subdivided into the natural sciences which study the material world, the social sciences which study people and societies, and the formal sciences like mathematics. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations.[3] Disciplines which use science like engineering and medicine may also be considered to be applied sciences.[4]"

Cheers