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Citizen Science: Who Makes the Rules?
New submitter UnderCoverPenguin writes "At MakeZine, David Lang talks about the some of the legal issues around a planned, amateur science 'expedition,' as well as some other amateur science projects.
In the not too distant past, most science was amateur. Over the past 20 or so years, society has been making it harder for amateurs to do real science, despite the technical costs falling. With the recent upswing of the 'maker movement,' amateur science has seen an increase as well, but is running into an assortment of legal issues. (An exception is astronomy, where amateurs continue to play important roles. Of course, astronomy doesn't involve chemicals or other (currently) 'scary stuff.') Can amateur science make a come-back? Or are the legal obstacles too entrenched?"
Can amateur science make a come-back?.....amateur science has seen an increase
Sounds like the answer is, "Yes."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What's that? A placenta popsicle?
Thanks to the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on fireworks, the war on common sense and various other wars, its becoming harder and harder for amateurs who want to do chemistry (either generic experiments or genuine research) in their own home/shed/backyard.
Chemical suppliers wont sell to amateurs and hobbyists. Basic chemicals are restricted from sale because they happen to be used in drugs/fireworks/explosives as well as the 100 other uses those chemicals happen to be used for. Some US states require licenses or registration for even basic lab equipment. Hobby chemists who have done nothing illegal are being raided by the police and having their gear seized because it "could be used to make bombs/drugs/fireworks/etc"
Which can be worse than a merely inaccurate one. First of all, TFA says nothing about changes in the past 20 years, and many of the things described in the article have manifestly not just been made up in the past 20 years. Do you really think Mexico would have let you take biological specimens prior to 1994? Second, the tone of the summary implies that these experiments are being restricted because they are "scary stuff". Only a minority of the experiments described in the article are associated with scaring the public, such as the GMO one, and even that explains that Kickstarter came to that decision after consulting with scientists, rather than just banning such things because they sounded scary. In fact, the spin of the article is completely opposite from the summary--the summary implies that these restrictions are caused by hysteria, which really isn't in the article at all.
Why bother with the time, expense, and hard work of amateur science when you can just outsource it to people who make stuff up?
We live in a society of sheep that are controlled with fear. What do you expect. The US lags behind the rest of the world at neutering its citizens but we slowly follow right along. Outlawing anything that doesn't contribute to you being a good little worker bee.
Don't even bother with amateur software development. If you know anything about computers, you are a cyberterrorist. The Men In Suits will seize your computers and throw you in jail.
that they'll have even if/when distance learning for college degrees ever becomes widely accepted for launching professional careers.
Can somebody please explain to me what legal obsicles are?
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
Where is this David Lang getting this stuff from?
Just the other day I was listening to an interview of an artist that had published a well received book on avian anatomy. Pick just about any field and there are people without degrees in that field doing real science and getting it taken seriously.
TFA is not so much about "legal issues" as it is about the struggle to get permission to collect biological specimens in another country. Another country where there's unfortunately been a long history of scientists and pseudo-scientists from more wealthy countries showing up and taking whatever they wanted, sometimes to the severe detriment of the locals. Ok, we're talking about Mexico and the US if you're too lazy to read TFA. The "legal issues" are the system of review the Mexican government has put in place in response to prior abuses, designed to ensure new research projects don't exploit, destroy, or otherwise cause the kinds of problems both amateur and professional scientists have caused in the past. I'm glad the author of the TFA is attempting to work out how to make it work, rather than just declare that his 'right' to do research in another country trumps local law, and I'm also glad to hear the Mexican government people he emailed appear to be responding throughtfully.
TL,DR - this isn't about citizen science being stifled by The Man, it's about a particular project hitting a hiccup caused by a long history of 'amateur scientists' exploiting and destroying another country's cultural and biological heritage.
The fact that scientific knowledge, in the form of scientific articles, is locked behind exorbitant journal paywalls is what is preventing amateur science the most, not to mention would be professional science in places that can't afford the outlandish subscription fees.
It's a crime against humanity preventing what is often publicly funded scientific knowledge from being shared far and wide, as it could be with virtually no cost on the Internet.
This is a shameful state of affairs that needs to be fixed one way or the other. Long live Aaron!
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
We just try to discover them.
Anyone can do it if they ask reality the right questions (experiments).
For a group of citizen explorers, without an affiliation to a scientific institution, this is a daunting endeavor.
I think this could just be amended to "For a group of scientists this is a daunting endeavor." Of course scientists attached to a legal institution can probably draw on the help of other resources and people who know how to jump through some of these hoops. But they still have to deal with the same legal issues.
I prefer illegal popsicles.
...to the state/country where their work will be legal and hopefully profitable to the state/country that makes them welcome.
Sounds like a nice start to a science fiction novel.
http://nwbagpipes.com/
Wouldn't the complexity of doing stuff be the biggest bottleneck at some point?
Just like game programming: in the past you could code simple games in a week (or a weekend if you are a tough guy). Compare that to modern shader-based graphics programming -- you will spend the first month just finding out how to set up things to draw anything meaningful on the screen.
I'm going to have to go with the DHS on this one. How many people know enough, or care enough, to try to perform real science on their own money? People like John Carmack, and Jeff Greason, are quite abnormal. If someone really has the intelligence, and the willingness to spend years, go for a pHD, and you can be around real scientists.
Own a cellphone? You own a 'remote detonator for an explosive device' - you terrorist!
Bleach and ammonia in your house? You have the makings of 'chemical weapons' - you terrorist!
Can of gasoline and some fertilizer for your garden? You have 'elements for an explosive device' - you terrorist!
(And heaven help you if you happen to own a pressure canner, and perhaps a box of nails or two!)
And, damn, if you have even more electrical know-how and can program an Arudino or BS2 or something, you are an 'advanced' terrorist!
And then of course, if you are here posting on slashdot about such things... well, you must be an anti-government subversive! And terrorist!
If you want to do science on your own, you can and should incorporate. Be a non-profit if you'd like. The entrenched system which stifles non-university researchers gladly accepts small businesses and NGOs, as long as they have some funding.
The number one thing you should not expect about doing science, at any level, is that it will be cheap, quick or lean. When it comes to science those words mean the same thing as "violating environmental and safety law" or simply doing a piss-poor job.
If you want to do real chemistry or biology work, you will find that renting or begging lab space somewhere will be cheaper than actually making your garage legally suitable.
.........and that state/country will suddenly find its sky full of drones.
Nowhere on Earth is safe from the Americans, and good luck trying to leave.
Oh and you'd better be planning to sell that novel at a profit so you can pay some taxes, otherwise it's a terrorist training manual.
In that you choose which rules to follow, and which to ignore, subvert, avoid, or not even bother learning about.
Small correction. The editors on this site are paid employees. This was done by a professional illiterate.
The US has a vastly under educated public that can get behind some really bad laws. On top of that we now know that chemicals can be quite an environmental problem and the idea that many amateurs might not handle dangerous waste safely is an issue. Combine that with people who cower in fear over the slightest thing and we can see a dismal future for home chemistry and experiments in general. Law enforcement has gone nuts over harmless kids noise makers such as dry ice and water in a soda bottle. And a person with enough ambition to develop a new personal firearm can have all kinds of legal problems as well. There is a very real loss of freedom taking place. And even worse there are some neighborhoods where even more freedoms need to be restricted.
I'm a second year biochemistry student who's had a lifelong passion for chemistry. I've slowly built myself a lab over the years, where I've mostly been making or purifying OTC chemicals to common lab reagents. One day I came across an old paper claiming high yields of acetonitrile when using calcium carbide as a dehydrating agents instead of phosphorus pentoxide. I've talked to quite a few people having problems finding phosphorus pentoxide, or it just being too expensive to use. So being the curious person I am, I thought I'd try both agents and report my yields on the forums. Because I wanted good numbers, I decided to buy some acetamide instead if making it. The only other reagent you use in the distillation. Simply ordered a 250 g jar off ebay, but the order never arrived. Four months later I receive a phone call by the police, interrogating me about the contents of the package, and my intentions with it. I invented a little half-lie on the spot, said I used it for a curing bath for photographic film. A month later I do receive it, labeled "Seized by customs". But now I'm afraid to do anything, expecting them to be at my door at any moment, to see what I'm "really" using it for. So I close down my "lab" temporarily, pack it all into some cases and put them for storage. The next week I get another call from the police, this time from an investigator on "my case". Asking about the amounts I had used, and for what. Etc.
And now I don't know what to do anymore. And all this for acetamide, a substance you get when mixing ammonia and "non-acetone nail polish remover", not even a precursor to any drugs (although it can be used to make a precursor), and has no use in either bombs or pyrotechnics.
Seems like a quick end to a rather short-lived hobby.
Thanks to the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on fireworks, the war on common sense and various other wars, its becoming harder and harder for amateurs who want to do chemistry in their own home/shed/backyard.
Chemical suppliers wont sell to amateurs and hobbyists.
The A C Gilbert Heirloom Chemistry Set project was fully funded three days ago. ($149,000)
H.M.S. Beagle has about 600 chemicals for sale online. H.M.S. Beagle Publications: Materials Safety Data Sheets
United Nuclear is a rich resource for the amateur scientist. Radioactive Isotopes. Chemistry Experiments
-----
Chemistry Supply Websites
just a suggestion from a citizen
Very misleading original article full of misguided complaints. Controls on the export of native plants or other biological specimen have been in place for hundreds of years, and with much harsher penalties.
The members of the expedition have a, admittedly tedious, path to get permits. Just play by the rules.
When John Rolfe smuggled tobacco from Trinidad to Virginia in 1611, establishing its tobacco farming industry, there was a mandatory death sentence for seed smugglers imposed by the Spanish colonialists.
Na + h20 = FU
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
What are you USA, the damn matrix that can take kill anyone, even HITLER would be so jealous of the powers of USA.
Or have ex-3rd reight taken over usa in the 50s and run it now.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Microryza, which appears to basically be Kickstarter for science projects, was recently brought to my attention. It doesn't look like there's anything barring non-academics / "amateurs" from starting up a project.
It's disgusting to blame scientists for multinational corporations using a broken patent system as a blunt instrument. That's just kicking the cat.
Franklin sued to pay people to steal corpses so he and his friends could dissect them and learn about anatomy. This was very highly illegal in Colonial America. They had a basement in a where he was staying . It was a part of the Enlighenment impulse to to come to understand reality through natural science without the *benefit* of the intermediaries of his day the Church and the King, who were glad to tell you everything you needed to know about any topic whatsoever.
As is sometimes the case with facts about historical Americans you have to go overseas to get a unbiased analysis of what was going on. US web pages will tell you Franklin this universally curious and endlessly inventive guy, golly, just knew nothing about what was happening in the basement of the house he lived- he was more interested in non-squimish subject matter like physics . Overseas of course they're less sensitive to the idea that one of our Founding Fathers may have been involved in grave robbing and dissecting corpses merely for curiosity's sake:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/11/usa.past
Dump a styrofoam container from McD's in your gas tank and you've got napalm. So driving is out as well.
I am interested in those areas where "doing it for a living" does not, overall, result in the highest skill compared to those who do not. Look especially at difficult areas of endeavor.
Getting good at science---or any other rigorous profession---requires both underlying talent, and long-term motivation to study and practice for at least a decade as an adult.
The professional side, meaning that people get paid to do work, also comes with a substantial initial filter on knowledge and talent, because people who pay others to do work want to get the most from their money.
The obvious other example is in sports---is there any sport which has a professional league where a substantial number of amateurs are seriously competitive? I'm unaware of any. In fact, professional sports teams are enormously better than even the best amateur clubs.
Amateurism won't achieve this other than exceptionally rare and globally insignificant individuals. The intersection of a) sufficiently self-funded b) sufficiently talented and c) sufficiently motivated to work intensely at one thing for a long time is very small. Generally people with enough money to be (a) won't want to bother with (c). Why should they, when they can do whatever they want? If they have to work for a living like most people, they may not be sufficiently talented, but more importantly they don't have the time to devote to it.
It also helps to learn the core ideas between age 18 and 30.
What does work is for billionaires to set up companies and foundations in areas that they are particularly interested, for example Craig Venter or Fred Kavli. The billionaire may close enough to the science to understand it, but not able to advance it more than the people he hires.
You just wait. Someday an amateur astronomer is going to discover an asteroid that will hit the earth and kill us all. Then you'll see how scary amateur astronomy really is! We can only be safe by prohibiting these dangerous amateurs and leaving the field to the responsible professionals.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Stealing bodies led to many medical advances and for a period of time was what medical schools were forced into. It's what you had to do if you wanted to learn about human physiology in those times.
Eventually it became such a problem that grave robbers started taking short cuts and created their own corpses (cf. Burke and Hare). This eventually led to the 1832 Anatomy Act in England addressing the crisis in medical education that the short supply of cadavers created.
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders#Anatomy_Act_1832
"Burke and Hare ... it is said, are the real authors of the measure, and that which would never have been sanctioned by the deliberate wisdom of parliament, is about to be extorted from its fears ... It would have been well if this fear had been manifested and acted upon before sixteen human beings had fallen victims to the supineness of the Government and the Legislature. It required no extraordinary sagacity, to foresee that the worst consequences must inevitably result from the system of traffic between resurrectionists and anatomists, which the executive government has so long suffered to exist. Government is already in a great degree, responsible for the crime which it has fostered by its negligence, and even encouraged by a system of forbearance."
Most likely because the local zoning rules say that "chemical labs shall be in areas zoned M-3, and no closer than 0.5 miles from any residence" and "holders of chemical lab permits shall post a bond or otherwise indemnify the city for $10M in the event of an accident" and "The local fire department shall inspect and certify that the facility..."
The odds of you getting a permit for a garage or outbuilding lab in or near a residence are vanishingly small.
Check out the ATF rules for storage of low explosives, for instance.
Grandfathering in things like the West,TX fertilizer plant.
You mean regulatory authorities don't want random yahoos hauling biological samples across borders and flying unmanned drones all over the place? Shocking!
Shit, they probably don't want people building nuclear reactors in their backyards, either.
I remember reading in the [now discontinued] "Amateur Scientist" column that used to publish in Scientific American, a guide to how one could build a medium power infrared CO2 laser. Nowadays, just buying the parts would have DHS knocking on your door[or maybe they don't bother with knocking?]
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Can aperture science make a condom?
One of the major issues here has been the problem of intellectual property. Post plans online, download and print and bypass the licensed manufacturers and distribution network. So the press grabbed the plastic guns issue and ran with it, trying to demonize the hobby.
Its all about open source vs securitized and privatized models for knowledge. You figure out how to make something yourself and you put a dent in corporate shareholders' property.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yep. Same thing with computers. If it was up to IBM et al computers and the internet would still be the sole providence of the elites- unbelievably pricey stuff we only heard about second and third hand. The whole industry would be tiny, and super expensive. It's not he elites who ever pass anything along downstream, it's the tinkerers and hobbyists and garage inventors.
...to amateur science is lack of access to advanced instrumentation and infrastructure in many disciplines. And the knowledge and training to use it. There is a reason good scientists earn advanced degrees and engage in continuous professional training throughout their careers.
Amateur astronomer here. Several times I've been at a star party, and a visitor will look around at the equipment sitting on the field then ask me "You are allowed to do this?" The first time it happened, I didn't understand the question. I had to ask for repeated clarification before I understood what they were getting at. They assumed that someone would need some sort of government permission or licensing to use such expensive and technical equipment.
When I finally got it, I was dumbfounded. I carefully explained that no licensing or permission was needed at all. And they were confused by that. To them, it seemed "wrong" that it would be that way. I've had this happen several more times and now I readily understand the question. But I am still at a loss to explain to them how their thinking is wrong.
I think the proper explanation is simply "screw it". There are too many laws to be able to follow them and many are counter productive to what the laws are intending to do. At least unless you can afford it that is. So I think people are losing respect for the law and are simply going for the "screw it" answer. Just ignore it and move on or hide it. A review, debug and in a lot of cases simplification needs to happen to mitigate this I think. Even then that will not undo the damage we have taken decades to inflict on our selves.
All I see here are a bunch of people whining about science being difficult.
Stop whining and do it.
Problems getting chemicals?
Get a business license and order them through your business.
Frick'n whiners.
Own a cellphone? You own a 'remote detonator for an explosive device' - you terrorist!
And if you take pictures of your kids with that phone, you're a pedophile terrorist.