Let me finish plagerizing the website for ideas of how a genspace like thing would work for chemistry
[Edited on 13-6-2018 by symboom]
[Edited on 6-13-2018 by Texium (zts16)]
[Edited on 14-6-2018 by symboom]Texium - 13-6-2018 at 11:12
"Citizen science," from what I've seen, is typically a system where the citizens serve as unpaid, uncredited data collectors for the REAL scientists,
who dictate what information they need collected and do all the actual research. The citizen scientists are typically given very simple observational
tasks that anyone could do- like counting birds, measuring rainfall, or just filling out surveys. It isn't particularly glamorous, but it makes some
"normal" people feel important and Sciencey.
There doesn't seem to be such a thing as citizen chemistry, and the article you linked doesn't even mention the word chemistry! So what are you even
talking about? This is highly misleading, and I will change the title of this thread from "Article About Citizen Chemistry" to something more
accurate...symboom - 13-6-2018 at 15:39
Lost the link for chemistry related part
So sorry about missing information
Quote
Citizen science," from what I've seen, is typically a system where the citizens serve as unpaid, uncredited data collectors for the REAL scientists
There doesn't seem to be such a thing as citizen chemistry, and the article you linked doesn't even mention the word chemistry
I made up the word citizen chemistry but definatly dont want it like that.
I had a link about home chemistry i was combining the idea with.
I havnt thought about it like that
Not liking the idea either
[Edited on 14-6-2018 by symboom]streety - 13-6-2018 at 16:02
A simular concept might work for chemistry
A hackerspace like place for biotech for members https://www.genspace.org
I think there are two different ideas here and the approach illustrated by genspace is, to my mind, the more interesting.
I agree that the term citizen science when used by academics often boils down to getting free labor from "citizens" to get grunt work done.
Genspace is an example of a community lab more engaged with DIYBio[1] and potentially could be relevant to amateur chemistry. Essentially a group of
people who came together to share lab space, reagents, etc to do synthetic biology.
Applied to amateur chemistry a group of people who live close together might collectively rent a lab space or industrial unit rather than each
building out their lab space and worrying about problems with neighbors/county inspectors/etc. Collectively they could afford more
glassware/reagents/equipment/etc.
[1] Largely now synonymous with synthetic biology in an amateur setting, which I think is a shame
