Yes, they're not "citizen scientists", they're just scientists. How many people's job title is "scientist"? Debt from a PhD doesn't mean your science is neces

Yes, they're not "citizen scientists", they're just scientists. How many people's job title is "scientist"? Debt from a PhD doesn't mean your science is necessarily more rigorous or valid; it may imply you have a higher budget, or it may not. I bought a copy of "astrophysical techniques" by C.R. Kitchin the other day; that's probably the same book the "real scientists" have -- if I set up a detector network and write the software to manage it and write a paper about it, all built on funds from my automation company, am I less of a scientist simply because I dropped out in the first semester of my freshman year of high school? I don't know, the data and test rigor are the same either way.