the unused leverage of diy science
The various seedlings of DIY science that you can find (e.g. Citizen Science, DIYbio) all sell themselves short.
There is a significant opportunity for hackers and makers to capitalize on their community’s relative agility and flexibility to make a series of tools and platforms that scientists don’t even know they need. Rather than playing the credibility and credential game on the terms of standing institutions, there is a lot of ground to be gained by making and using tools that the mainstream community wants [and needs].
For instance, scientific equipment (particularly in the life sciences) is tremendously overpriced. The primary institutional customers are universities and corporations with research and development departments. The fact that time is more of a concern to these institutions than one-time equipment costs means that equipment costs are inflated.
Scientific equipment is rife with proprietary interfaces and software that create friction in the data collection and processing workflow. As science relies on ever larger datasets and ever more computationally intensive analysis, it will become increasingly necessary to streamline the connections between equipment, between labs, and across experiments.
Scientists don’t realize that they need a platform, and the DIY skills that are blossoming first (electronics, software) are exactly those needed. Science is not considered an open, cultural activity. I can work as a waiter during the day, jam with friends at night, and call myself a musician. I can paint in my spare time and call myself an artist. I can’t1 do science in my spare time and call myself a scientist, not only because the equipment isn’t available, but because there is no infrastructure to support a community like that. What if the process of making science available as a cultural activity entailed engineering tools the scientific community at large wants a part of? Can tools be the bridge between two communities? Are there any precedents in other domains?
The prospect of having scientific labs as analogues to hacker spaces is a pretty exciting vision. Soon to be concrete via NUBlabs!2
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3 responses to 'the unused leverage of diy science'
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I have to be honest, I am not a huge fan of DIY science. There are two components to this:
1.) I think that to actually understand science, philosophically speaking, is extremely difficult. To get your head around what it means to “do science” rather than just affecting science is way harder than getting your head around what it means to “do music” (though there’s still a difference between “doing music” and “affecting music”). I think it’s kind of dangerous (culturally) for people to just start doing science on their own.
2.) Practically, I can’t imagine what your layman could even accomplish. Maybe (probably) this is my own naivety/ignorance coming out, but what could your lay electrical engineer do in a week that Alex3, for instance, could not do with a flick of the wrist?
Are you thinking something more along the lines of long-term development of scientific talent/understanding?
I guess both of the above questions (the former being the “ideal” and the latter being the “pragmatic”) really have the question “What is science?” at their base. What is science?
Here’s a question for you:
How do our personal interests in hands-on, stimulating education meet with the hacker / DIY culture?
I think it’s something we’ve been circling around for a while. This is what I driving a little bit talking to Brady Forrest yesterday — is there a conference or meetup for people who create tools like Scratch, think in similar “get kids deigning/making and the concepts will come” lines, or have cool science/engineering apparati that they would love to make kid accessuble? He didn’t know of one, but it would be cool to somehow focus on creating a culture of educators with this DIY you-can-learn-or-do-anything spirit, rather than the traditional you-can-prepare-to-do-anything-educational mindset.
What would some first steps in that direction be?
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