This link has been bookmarked by 2 people . It was first bookmarked on 10 Sep 2011, by Todd Suomela.
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08 Feb 12
dan mcquillan@danmcquillan DIY sci interesting, biohackers etc, as well as "citizen sci" capturing hobbyists. Some discussion here: http://t.co/Q7sEvBEB
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10 Sep 11
Todd Suomela"regular event with the Biochemical Society exploring science online. Last week, we had one on science and hobbies, a combination that doesn't need the web to come about, but is arguably facilitated by it. I know the word 'hobby' seemed a bit off-puttingly folksy for some, but I wanted to capture the difference between doing or talking about science for a living, and doing/ talking about science in one's spare time. Fully aware that this divide isn't clear cut, I thought the topic would generate debate. I think it did."
citizen-science hobbies science crowdsourcing morality outsourcing labor work public-understanding engagement public
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What counts as value in citizen science? One of the audience members gave the example of a crowd-sourced citizen research project run by their university, where they realised that it would have been cheaper just to employ a single professional to do the work, largely because it all had to be checked by an expert anyway. One response was that this argument relies largely on the idea that the outcome being funded is purely research. If it is engagement too (and you count citizen involvement as engagement, not just free labour), then maybe it’s a false comparison.
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Do we need to consider the ethics of citizen science? In many ways, this follows on from above. If a citizen research project could have just employed a professional academic, are they robbing someone of a job? One of the reasons science became professionalised was to allow people who were not independently wealthy make a living from it. We have seen similar tensions around journalism and music. We might equally ask whether citizen science projects like those run by the Zooniverse simply exploit their members for free labour
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Does doing science as a hobby encourage or discourage social engagement? Again, this is complex question. While discussing garage-based biohackers, it was argued that this removes science from its broader social context. Not only the large networks of professional science, but what many of them are working for; it’s science for the individual, not a public good. Is hobbiest science anti-social? I thought this point was really interesting, and reminded me of Jack Stilgoe’s thoughtful post on science and the Big Society, where he stressed science as a ‘team sport’. On the other hand, a chance to have some individual relationship with science could be an invite to communities both within and around science. Indeed, the word communities was mentioned a lot. This is partly because it’s buzzword de jour in science communication, but it also reflects the ways in which many hobbies connect people to others with a similar interest
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