4 ms·

There are many people who decide not to go into research but enter industry instead. Some of them don't have the intellectual chops, but others are turned off

There are many people who decide not to go into research but enter industry instead. Some of them don't have the intellectual chops, but others are turned off by the politics, long hours that professors work, spending more time writing grant proposals and managing students than doing research, etc. Some of them have spare time, or maybe will have spare time after their kids are grown, or will be able to retire early. Then they could become citizen scientists [1], independent scientists [2], etc. I wonder how to organize and encourage them? How to redirect or weed out the cranks, and encourage those who are motivated and can look at things from a new perspective? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_scientist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_scientist

j2kun 10y ago
I like this idea, but how much time would be spent re-teaching the citizen scientists the prerequisites needed to do research? Since most of the knowledge at the forefront of research is in papers and not books, that seems like the biggest hurdle.
- cbHXBY1D 10y ago
  It would be up to the citizen scientist to keep up with newly published papers. I think it would be interesting to create an environment that encourages the hobby scientist to follow the forefront of research. Maybe something like the Recurse Center but for maths and physics. I'm not sure where the funding would come from since the Recurse Center seems to make money from corporate recruiting. Maybe universities?
  - maverick_iceman 10y ago
    Nothing's stopping them even now (at least in most theoretical sciences). Almost all books and papers are freely if not always legally available in the internet. If they discover something they can write up a paper and submit it to an appropriate journal.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  Well, we could just clean up academia.
  - maverick_iceman 10y ago
    'Clean up academia' sounds vaguely Stalinist to me.
arandr0 10y ago
I think there is a very large difference (in ability to contribute to science and barrier to entry) between roughly three groups of people who once had academic background. The first are industry R&D staff (like me) -- usually we _do_ keep at the forefront of research but aren't allowed to give much time to anything that isn't going to sell in three years and have limited avenues to publish (usually patents, but patents cost money and unlike scientists we have zero incentive to make them readable). Those people technically do contribute to science but their contributions have very reduced public impact compared to what academia gets, and that's a shame. The second are people in support roles in either industry or academia that still work directly with science and scientists -- lab technicians, patent examiners and patent attorneys, staff writers at journals, grant writers/reviewers and program managers, most admin staff at science organizations, etc. Those people have easy avenues to learn about science and usually are very knowledgeable in at least one subfield, but they are not given any time or platform to contribute their own thoughts and sometimes their background is insufficiently technical for original contributions. There is also something to gain from them in citizen science initiatives though, they know what the problems are and what is being done to address them. Then you have the people profiled in the article -- non-scientists of varied backgrounds that have worked in 100% non science occupation (or raised children) since grad school (IF they went to grad school). Those people may or may not have the background but they almost invariably have no good access to papers, no knowledge of modern working methods and quality standards and (most important) no community of like minded scientists to exchange ideas with and accept feedback from. And if they stay isolated, they are not going to be useful and would mostly benefit from an internship or something to learn what the field is actually about.

j2kun 10y ago

I like this idea, but how much time would be spent re-teaching the citizen scientists the prerequisites needed to do research? Since most of the knowledge at the forefront of research is in papers and not books, that seems like the biggest hurdle.

cbHXBY1D 10y ago
It would be up to the citizen scientist to keep up with newly published papers. I think it would be interesting to create an environment that encourages the hobby scientist to follow the forefront of research. Maybe something like the Recurse Center but for maths and physics. I'm not sure where the funding would come from since the Recurse Center seems to make money from corporate recruiting. Maybe universities?
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  Nothing's stopping them even now (at least in most theoretical sciences). Almost all books and papers are freely if not always legally available in the internet. If they discover something they can write up a paper and submit it to an appropriate journal.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
Well, we could just clean up academia.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  'Clean up academia' sounds vaguely Stalinist to me.

arandr0 10y ago

I think there is a very large difference (in ability to contribute to science and barrier to entry) between roughly three groups of people who once had academic background. The first are industry R&D staff (like me) -- usually we _do_ keep at the forefront of research but aren't allowed to give much time to anything that isn't going to sell in three years and have limited avenues to publish (usually patents, but patents cost money and unlike scientists we have zero incentive to make them readable). Those people technically do contribute to science but their contributions have very reduced public impact compared to what academia gets, and that's a shame. The second are people in support roles in either industry or academia that still work directly with science and scientists -- lab technicians, patent examiners and patent attorneys, staff writers at journals, grant writers/reviewers and program managers, most admin staff at science organizations, etc. Those people have easy avenues to learn about science and usually are very knowledgeable in at least one subfield, but they are not given any time or platform to contribute their own thoughts and sometimes their background is insufficiently technical for original contributions. There is also something to gain from them in citizen science initiatives though, they know what the problems are and what is being done to address them. Then you have the people profiled in the article -- non-scientists of varied backgrounds that have worked in 100% non science occupation (or raised children) since grad school (IF they went to grad school). Those people may or may not have the background but they almost invariably have no good access to papers, no knowledge of modern working methods and quality standards and (most important) no community of like minded scientists to exchange ideas with and accept feedback from. And if they stay isolated, they are not going to be useful and would mostly benefit from an internship or something to learn what the field is actually about.