Т е к с т  2.   Grassroots Science

(9.600)

Grassroots science is science done by people outside the mainstream of professional science. Grassroots science includes research by amateurs and lay people as well as some dissident work by professional scientists.

Science – both professional and grassroots – involves the creation and use of systematic knowledge, using standard procedures, within a community of practitioners, involving both theory and experiment. Scientific knowledge is public knowledge, within the practitioner group and often beyond, thereby excluding some proprietary knowledge generated within corporations and some secret knowledge generated within intelligence agencies.

Professional science, in addition to these general features, is built around practitioners who have extensive formal training and work full-time as scientists. Professional science also often involves use of expensive equipment. Editors, referees, and prestigious scientists defend the boundaries of professional science, imposing definitions of what is and what is not science. Orthodox science is not as open to new or outside ideas as many people think.

Grassroots science, in contrast, is done by amateurs or by professionals separately from their main paid work, and it usually involves much less expensive equipment. Some people become grassroots scientists because they love to learn about nature but have no opportunity or no desire to undertake a professional career in science. Others want to challenge orthodox theories. Yet others believe that professional science is biased toward corporate and government priorities and that grassroots science provides a way to truths that are otherwise ignored or obscured by vested interests.

The boundaries between grassroots and professional science are blurry and changeable, and so are the boundaries between science and non-science.

Amateur Science

There is a thriving community of amateur astronomers, ranging from beginners who look at stars and planets with small telescopes to experienced observers who systematically seek to observe new objects in space. There seems to be a de facto division of labor, with professional astronomers mainly using massive instruments to look into deep space, such as faraway galaxies, and amateurs using smaller instruments to look at planets, moons, comets, and other more accessible phenomena.

Because there are so few professional astronomers and so many possible astronomical objects to observe, amateurs can make important contributions, especially now with the availability of cheap powerful computers, the Internet, and lower-cost high-tech telescopes and other instruments. Unlike most sciences, astronomy does not involve experimentation. Amateurs are also prominent in botany and zoology, other fields where observation, either directly or using low-cost instruments, retains a central importance.

The primary differences between amateur and professional astronomy are that the latter involves formal training, full-time paid work, and expensive equipment. The two groups largely agree on the goals and methods of science. The sophistication of new tools used by amateurs is making many professionals appreciate their contributions. Amateurs sometimes can support professional scientific endeavors by providing labor or resources, such as computer users who contribute spare computing power to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Ufology is the study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Mainstream scientists mostly reject the view that UFOs are manifestations of alien intelligence, and the whole field of ufology is often dismissed as pseudoscience. Although a few professionals are involved with ufology, the field is dominated by amateurs, with a thriving community of magazines, meetings, and communication networks. Ufology is thus a facet of grassroots science that is stigmatized by mainstream science. Mainstream scientists take various actions to ensure that their own work is kept separate from ufology, such as preventing UFO research from being published in mainstream journals. This process of distinguishing and separating mainstream science from what is labeled pseudoscience is called boundary work.

Independent inventors could be called grassroots technologists. James Lovelock, who made many important scientific contributions and developed the Gaia hypothesis, was a home-based inventor. Independent inventors typically work alone; many of them make a living from other activities. Computer hackers - in the original sense of building or modifying computers and software - are another species of grassroots technologist.

Much of science conducted before World War II was small in scale. Through the 1800s, amateurs played a major role in science. So it might be said that until the twentieth century, most science was grassroots science in that it was less dependent on governments, large corporations, or universities.

Amateur astronomy and independent invention can be highly sophisticated. These forms of grassroots science and technology are not easy or obvious for most people. Just as some members of amateur theater groups can be of professional caliber but not receive any payment, some grassroots science can be of professional standard but be undertaken out of pure interest.

Dissident Science

Dissent is central to science: the formulation of new ideas and the discovery of new evidence is the driving force behind scientific advance. At the same time, certain theories, methods, and ways of approaching the world - often called paradigms - are treated as sacrosanct within the professional scientific community. Those who persist in challenging paradigms may be treated not as legitimate scientists but as renegades or outcasts. Some of these dissidents could be said to be doing grassroots science because they operate outside the normal system of training, employment, and major equipment.

For example, there are many individuals who have developed challenges and alternatives to relativity, quantum mechanics, and the theory of evolution, three theories central to modern science. Some of these are amateurs who have jobs outside of science. Others are professional scientists who have degrees, publications, and honors but who undertake their dissident work as an adjunct to their mainstream careers. These dissident individuals, though they may espouse incompatible theories, are brought together through meetings, networks, and organizations such as the Natural Philosophy Alliance.

Linus Pauling is an example of a professional scientist who became a dissident: He won a Nobel Prize in chemistry but later developed unconventional ideas about vitamin C and cancer, in an area in which he had no formal training.

Dissident scientists usually agree with mainstream scientists about the aims of science - namely, the advancement of knowledge – and about the methods of science – namely, critical examination of theory and evidence - but disagree about what theories are correct.

Mainstream scientists sometimes ignore dissidents, sometimes attack them, and sometimes seek to incorporate their ideas into the mainstream. Cold fusion - nuclear fusion at room temperature - started out as a dramatic challenge to orthodoxy by established scientists. When initial results could not be widely reproduced, cold fusion research was attacked and then forgotten. In the aftermath of the original attention, many scientists continue to explore cold fusion, some with funding from corporations, but their findings are ignored by the mainstream. Cold fusion has elements of grassroots science, though professionals play a significant role in it.

Acupuncture is a method of healing long used in China as part of a non-Western understanding of the body. Traditional Chinese acupuncturists were often full-time healers, but the practice itself is inexpensive, so it can be said to be a form of grassroots medicine. Western medical authorities at first rejected acupuncture as unscientific but, following demonstrations of its effectiveness eventually accepted or tolerated it as a practice under the canons of western biomedicine, rejecting its associations with non-Western concepts of the body. Acupuncture thus is an example of grassroots science that has been incorporated into Western professional practice, in part severing its links with the grassroots. A similar process has occurred with some other parts of complementary medicine such as meditation.