In several past columns here, I have featured or interviewed those involved with ocean-related citizen science organizations, such as Reef.org and Reef Check California, as part of an on-going conversation about citizen science as it relates to the oceans.
On Facebook, the Citizen Scientists League is the sister group to the group I founded called Citizen Scientists of the Ocean, so I thought an interview with its founder might be of interest.
Sheldon Greaves is co-founder of the Citizen Scientists League, which promotes responsible scientific observation, experimentation, discovery, and invention. It encourages active participation, networking and publishing by science enthusiasts at all levels of education and experience. He is responsible for all aspects of the organization, including program development, internet presence, strategic planning, and content provider recruitment.
Sheldon has a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley and has created this organization to promote science literacy and to get ordinary people involved in doing their own science.
He has also developed a web site, the Citizen Scientist League at: http://citizenscientistsleague.com/ to promote and encourage participation in citizen science.
I caught up with him recently to ask him some questions I had been wondering about concerning citizen science.
Q: Rick Bonney is credited by some with having coined the term 'citizen science' as the 20th century version of what in earlier times might have been called 'gentlemen science' and of course, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is generally considered to be the modern forerunner of the citizen science model as we find it today.
Rather than asking for a simple definition of citizen science, perhaps it might be more relevant to ask: in your view, what changes have you noticed in the paradigm over the past 20 years?
A: I'm glad you asked about changes in the paradigm, because that's a very significant thing. It's easy to overlook that, since the more visible changes are connected with more sophisticated technology that science hobbyists have available. Twenty years ago people were talking about "amateur" science; usually lone tinkerers, inventors, or experimenters in their garages and basements playing with science and technology. If you want to see what that was like, go find some old back issues of Scientific American up to about 1999 and check out "The Amateur Scientist" column. People were building lasers, atom smashers, and doing a lot of remarkably advanced science.
"Citizen science" was an attractive name change because it got rid of the moniker "amateur" which many people took as a sign of ineptitude, when it really just refers to someone doing something for the love of it. At first, it was mostly a re-branding. But then we started to see group projects using lots of volunteers to collect and sometimes process data, more than a few professionals could manage. The paradigm shifted from individuals doing science on their own to lots of people doing a watered-down form of science in a top-down format under the direction of professional scientists, much like in a university setting. That's not surprising since most of these programs are run by universities or university-trained professionals.
Q: One concern about citizen science is that volunteers might introduce bias into the data, as mentioned in a recent report by Brett Amy Thelen and Rachel K. Thiet of the National Park Service. How do you address that?
A: There are statistical methods that can spot and compensate for bias. They are, or should be, part of any experiment even when you're working with professional scientists only. But it also exposes the very real need for training of citizen scientists in how to take data and on the importance of intellectual rigor. I've long advocated instruction for citizen scientists that goes beyond how to take one or another kind of measurement. We could also use more emphasis on this aspect of science in schools, or when teaching any other intellectual discipline for that matter.
Q: You are co-founder of the Citizen Science League. Tell us a little of how the CSL came about.
A: CSL rose from the ashes of another pioneering science nonprofit organization, the Society for Amateur Scientists. I worked for SAS from 2001 to 2003 as a project manager and as the Editor of their electronic newsletter, what became known as "The Citizen Scientist." SAS started back in the early 90's and did a lot of great things to help promote amateur science and science literacy. Long story short, a combination of managerial miscalculations and a very unforgiving economic climate combined to close down the organization in the summer of 2010. Shortly afterward, Dr. Frtiz Faulhaber, a major donor to SAS, contact Forrest Mims and myself about starting a new organization to pick up where SAS had left off. At the time I was unemployed, so I had the time and the disposition to tackle this. My previous job had been building Henley-Putnam University, an online university, so I had lots of experience and ideas about distance education to bring to this.
Q: One frequent complaint from citizen scientists is lack of access to professional scientific journals. You negotiated an ingenious solution to this problem for your members. Can you tell us a little about that?
A: It's a huge problem. One critique leveled at amateur scientists is that they don't publish anything in peer-reviewed journals, which is the primary hallmark that you are doing legitimate scientific work. I realized that amateurs can't publish as long as they are shut out of the conversation by exorbitant fees just to look at professional articles.
When I was at Henley-Putnam I had the task of building an online library for our student. Naturally, there was little or no budget for this, which meant I had to get creative. I encountered the same problem there; professional journals and publishers were charging way too much, and none wanted to make a deal with us. Then I learned about EBSCO, which is a more enlightened provider of database access. They aren't publishers themselves, but they have enough customers that they can make it worthwhile for them to cut a deal. Eventually I crafted a package of several hundred journals. I found one or two other providers and we eventually put together a decent online library.
When I saw the problem in the citizen science world, I realized that EBSCO might be able to do the same thing for CSL, so I contacted them. It took a while to negotiate something we could work with, but we have an excellent package of thousands of scientific journals now for our paying members. No other citizen science organization has anything even remotely like this. I think it's one of CSL's more significant achievements thus far.
Q: Do you have a favorite CS project?
A: For sheer ingenuity, it's tough to beat a project headed up by an entomologist in the Netherlands. He asked volunteers to record where they drove each day and periodically send him pictures of the bugs that were splatted on their car's license plates. He was able to get some good data on local insect populations this way.
Q: The field of citizen science encompasses everything from butterflies to ladybugs to astronomy to undersea research. Are their any trends in the field that concern you?
A: Citizen science projects where ordinary people collect data are everywhere now, and I'm glad that they are raising awareness of science generally. However, there is a raging debate in the community as to whether these people are themselves "doing science" in the strictest sense. At the moment, I have to side with the skeptics on this. We have the "citizen" part down pat with the social organizing that goes into a CS project. But when the project is over, there's no follow-up. There is little if any training to teach people the science behind what they are doing and, most importantly, how to do their own science and science projects. Fortunately many in the CS community recognize this, but it will take some effort to change this.
Another concerning trend I have is the increasing politicization of science generally. We have elected officials flaunting their willful ignorance of science, sneering at scientists who understand that rigor is important and that you can't lobby the laws of physics. We also see industry taking great pains to stifle transparency and investigations into what I think are very legitimate questions of a scientific nature. Probably the best example is how the Japanese government would not release radiation numbers after the Fukushima disaster, so citizen scientists in that country set up their own radiation monitoring network. Doing something like that isn't trivial, but they've done an excellent job. Now people in Japan have access to solid information about what's going on.
Q: It goes without saying that CSL has a presence on Facebook and Twitter. How do you see the role of social networking in CS?
A: Intellectual movements from ancient Greece to the present day have always formed communities. The CS community is no exception, and today communities form online. I mentioned the top-down nature of most citizen science done today earlier, which must start growing laterally if we are to see the CS movement mature into something truly significant. Places like Facebook and Twitter are going to play a big role in that development, but so are sites that offer resources for science from CSL to universities like MIT where people can view top-flight courses in science and technology.
Ultimately, however, CS has to reach a point where it can teach its own scientists, publish their own findings, and conduct their own projects on a level comparable with the professionals. Incidentally, I don't see this as competitive, but collaborative. For lack of a better term, citizen science needs to establish itself as a culture and a community unto itself. We're still a long way from reaching that goal.
Q: One final question: over the years, concerns have been raised about education credentials for citizen scientists. Since there is, as yet, no doctoral program in CS, what is your vision for the future of citizen science education?
A: Citizen scientists are engaged in the same quest as every other sentient being on the planet, and that is the quest to be taken seriously. Credentials in the form of college degrees would be nice, but they are expensive. They are also designed for people who are in school to pursue a career, not for hobbyists or science enthusiasts.
That said, the citizen science community needs training programs to help us transform participants in CS projects from citizens into scientists. It's certainly possible to design courses and certificate programs targeted for citizen scientists and to make them affordable. To do that we need two things: programs and people who can design and administer them, and a robust, dynamic community to support those kinds of efforts. If we can do that, citizen science can become a very positive presence in the world.
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