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> With research it's not the sort of thing you can do on the side after a day spent waiting tables. Depends on your level of engagement. Can you explore your

> With research it's not the sort of thing you can do on the side after a day spent waiting tables. Depends on your level of engagement. Can you explore your own hypotheses and put together your own experiments? Probably not. Can you engage in citizen science projects like BOINC or Zooniverse (essentially performing drudge work that would otherwise be thrown at some hapless research assistant at the bottom of the totem pole)? Of course!

cr0sh 10y ago
> Can you explore your own hypotheses and put together your own experiments? Probably not. Can you expand on this? I don't see why you couldn't, outside of the amount of money that may be needed for certain research.
- neuromantik8086 10y ago
  My argument for why you couldn't is more one of pragmatism than anything else. After 8 hours slogging away in a cubicle, you're unlikely to have the energy to work with the laser-like precision necessary to tackle a scientific problem. Perhaps it is possible in some exceptional cases, but for the vast majority of people I don't see it happening. Plus, science is as much about your interactions with your peers as it is your work. Individuals that aren't highly embedded in a scientific clique are liable to miss important information that would have an impact on your research. You can't develop the same level of social capital as you'd need doing science part-time as a hobby.
neuromantik8086 10y ago
For those who are potentially offended, I wasn't insulting citizen science projects (I, in fact, participate in some of them)- having actually worked as a hapless research assistant at the bottom of the totem pole, I was actually just making the blunt observation that qualitatively a lot of the work one would perform in citizen science project is indistinguishable from necessary, but particularly dull, work that higher level investigators don't feel like doing.

cr0sh 10y ago

> Can you explore your own hypotheses and put together your own experiments? Probably not. Can you expand on this? I don't see why you couldn't, outside of the amount of money that may be needed for certain research.

neuromantik8086 10y ago
My argument for why you couldn't is more one of pragmatism than anything else. After 8 hours slogging away in a cubicle, you're unlikely to have the energy to work with the laser-like precision necessary to tackle a scientific problem. Perhaps it is possible in some exceptional cases, but for the vast majority of people I don't see it happening. Plus, science is as much about your interactions with your peers as it is your work. Individuals that aren't highly embedded in a scientific clique are liable to miss important information that would have an impact on your research. You can't develop the same level of social capital as you'd need doing science part-time as a hobby.

neuromantik8086 10y ago

For those who are potentially offended, I wasn't insulting citizen science projects (I, in fact, participate in some of them)- having actually worked as a hapless research assistant at the bottom of the totem pole, I was actually just making the blunt observation that qualitatively a lot of the work one would perform in citizen science project is indistinguishable from necessary, but particularly dull, work that higher level investigators don't feel like doing.