News recently broke that Stockholm University's Sven Hovmöller had discovered the atomic structure of complex crystals known as approximants -- a complicated chemistry riddle he spent eight years pondering. But the real story behind the story was that he credited his breakthrough to insights from his then 10-year-old son, Linus, who knew nothing about chemistry or crystals, but a great deal about Sudoku. In short, Linus perceived a pattern where his father did not, demonstrating that sometimes in science knowing too much about a problem can muddle the path to a solution, and a fresh, clear view from the outside makes all the difference.
There is no substitute for the rigorous training credentialed scientists undergo to tackle our most challenging problems, but this heartwarming story, and others like it, gives many observers the impression that anyone can "do" science. Indeed, much attention has been paid lately to the notion of "citizen science" -- members of the general public participating directly in the scientific research process. In fact, some scientists themselves have been championing the idea, seeing it as a way to increase public involvement and support for science.
But we need to think carefully about the appropriate role of citizens in science in order to harness the public's interest and energy while still preserving the integrity of the scientific process. As I see it, there are definitely opportunities for non-scientists to participate, but their roles must be carefully defined. Research in any domain of science today requires specialized training to build up knowledge and clinical competence. To make major breakthroughs, we need people with expertise who are engaged in sustained research over a long period of time -- in a word, scientists.
So, when and how should citizens be involved in science?
First, there will be occasions when citizens can participate in data analysis and provide direct input to professional scientists. There are now successful examples of this in astronomy and chemistry. One of them, Galaxy Zoo, invites the public to assist in classifying the shapes of over sixty million galaxy images. No knowledge of astronomy is required, and it turns out that the human brain is more suited to this activity than any advanced computer. More than 250,000 people have taken part in Galaxy Zoo so far, producing a wealth of valuable data and sending telescopes on Earth and in space chasing after their discoveries.
One such case centers on Hanny van Arkel, a Dutch biology schoolteacher who chanced upon a strange interstellar object that she could not match with any of the known galaxy types listed in the Galaxy Zoo classification tutorial. As it happens, this object, now known as Hanny's Voorwerp, is eminently unique: a light echo from the dying gasp of a black hole that was once active as a quasar. We knew that such objects ought to exist but this was the first one to be discovered. Van Arkel is now listed as a co-author with me on a scientific paper interpreting the discovery.
Another example is the computer game FoldIt, developed by the University of Washington, Seattle. Foldit drafts competitive video gamers and leverages their gaming experience and intuition to flesh out new structures for proteins, and it does so better than computers. At last count there were seven scientific publications that included FoldIt Players as co-authors.
Second, the public can contribute to the actual collection of scientific data -- but only once the scientific community has come to a consensus and defined the parameters of debate. We cannot decide on the efficacy of a medical treatment by counting the number of "Likes" an intervention receives on Facebook; no matter what, professionals will still need to conduct continued clinical trials and evaluate their outcomes carefully. But gathering the full range of side effects a drug may have upon use is a point where public input would be invaluable. Individuals reporting on their own experience with particular therapies would provide first-hand accounts that could be considered in the improvement of drug design.
Recent success stories make it clear that citizens may well play an increasingly important role in aiding science. But if the public gets involved at too early a stage in the scientific process, confusion can ensue. A real-world case is found in the climate crisis. Scientifically, the climate change problem is a complex one that has profound implications for each one of us. A deeper understanding of modeling future uncertainties is actively being developed and debated among scientists, but the terms of the debate have devolved from evidence and data to politics, due to the participation of citizens with specific agendas. As such, before we can even begin to explore a solution, we must convince large swathes of the public that there is a problem to begin with.
While some crowd-sourcing advocates will chafe at a limited role for public involvement in the scientific process, citing the buzz surrounding effective crowd-sourcing in its other applications, we ultimately still need experts. No one wants to walk across a crowd-sourced bridge. Citizen science is new territory for us all -- scientists and citizens -- and the possibilities for success are legion. But we must think very carefully about where the boundaries should be. What is clear is that there must be boundaries, and that is a truth we don't need to crowd-source.
This post appeared in the June 24, 2012 issue of Huffington.
:-)
That I am having a hard time understanding what you are talking about.
On the contrary patients ahve too long been left out of the table and out of the debate. In medicine in particular the "science" that is produced is commercial with the data hidden for "proprietary" reasons when in fact it has been well documented that they are manipulating the research to get the out come they want. Paxil cause people to commit suicide, and the company knew it and hid it. "Osteopenia" isn't a real disease but patients are strong armed to take drugs like fosamax every day because a machine says they need stronger bones when they are experiencing normal aging and the drug causes brittle bone. Patients demanding better and more critical thinking in medicine is only good. See selling sickness or pharmageddon.
How would you "debate" the effects of a new cancer drug as a patient? Would you judge by how desperate you are to take anything that may, or may not, allow you to stay alive for a couple of months longer? Or how sick you feel after each course of chemo? What would be your contribution... other than the medical data point you can become in a trial?
"In medicine in particular the "science" that is produced is commercial with the data hidden for "proprietary" reasons when in fact it has been well documented that they are manipulating the research to get the out come they want. "
I know people who do this kind of research. They are not manipulating the data they get. That's why most new drug trials FAIL. If the kind of manipulation you say would be going on, none of these trials would ever fail. You don't spend hundreds of millions of dollars on drug trials and then let it fail if you have the option to cheat. But that option does not exist and most people in the business, especially on the science side, are highly ethical. I can tell you, however, that sometimes they are not quite as experienced as they should be... and there are examples where OK drugs failed trials because the people conducting the trial messed up key considerations.
The way it is done is the trial is set up from the outset to find what it wants to find. Think MS is a autoimmune disease? every single trial starts from that premise. yet there is excellent research suggesting it is not or that the "autoimmunity" is a response to a different insult to the brain and the immune system reaction is nothing more than reasonable efforts to repair. Nonetheless all MS drugs start from a dogmatic premise and goes from there as if the other data doesn't exist.
In the case of Paxil, the researchers actually jiggered the cohorts so the suicide didn't reach significance. There are numerous examples of cheating like that detailed in those books.
Patients are treated like they are not allowed to ahve an opinion. Statin drugs alter risk of heart attack from 3% to 2%. They save one heart attack in 3 years in 100 people. Patients would realize that this is NOT worth it if they were told this straight up.
In other words, the belief (that's all it is) one can, not know... science, that somehow science and the concomitant understanding that derives from the method of same, is something that can be left to others; is patently false. An anachronism. A left over from earlier, more primitive times.
This week has had a political party come out against critical thought, yes? Is crowd sourcing its equal in terms of a viable response, to such a mindset? I don't think so.
Not that it lacks merit in its own right, but there is a flaw. The same flaw that OWS had and unfortunately still has; the rightful (I used righteous for in my first post for OWS) energy and curiosity of those individuals can be used and channeled into ends not their own, or, in their best interests. I would hate to be right twice.
To “open source” science AND engineering, for that matter (what would that look like one wonders...) would be better, me thinks.
The actual idea behind the PhD, which is scientific apprenticeship, has been around since antiquity. If you wanted to learn philosophy, arts, medicine, etc., you did so by approaching one of the schools that were around, listening to and practicing with masters.
They are still attempting to communicate, but with slow progress.
Plenty of people are waiting for a cure for plenty of diseases. That does not mean we can jeopardize patients in the search for quick fixes... most of which will turn out to be false promises.
One example of very constructive outside thinking was the Bletchley Park codebreakers in WW2. That program gathered hundreds of narrowly- or ill- educated machine builders from around the UK. Usually from modest backgrounds, they were unrecognized telephone technicians and artisans. They were pitched together with some of the brightest mathematicians of their generation, and developed some of the most beautiful and effective examples of analog electronics, and one of the first examples of digital electronics.
Together they saved the lives of tens of thousands of sailors in the north atlantic, likely including several members of my family, traced some key developments in nightfighter technology, reducing casualties in RAF bomber command, which is timely this week, and likely saved Berlin from a nuclear attack, by shortening the war so Hitler died by his own hand rather than under Paul Tibbets's aircraft.
Chose your crowd carefully and good things can happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_associated_with_Bletchley_Park