Another example of this is in the study of domestic animal behavior with speak buttons.
I believe this amateur wave is part of a much bigger set of societal actions “challenging assumptions” of the former era.
There is a sharp decline in reverence for “authority” along with a lowering of barriers to entry. Almost anyone with interest and bravery to share has a chance to shine in any subject area.
Computer science is leading the way, in part because it often requires little or no physical presence or collaboration. Proof of advancements can be disseminated in perfect fidelity and validated quickly.
In other fields, people who happen to live among a rare natural phenomena have great potential to fall into discovery others could only hope to witness at great expense.
Following this to its natural conclusion all fields will ultimately be advanced by a mix of professionals, academics and increasingly “amateurs” that earn reputation not by publishing but by pure contributions of content that unquestionably move the field forward.
There are a lot of people very interested by science but from what I read academia does not seem to be a good place to be in. That might help explaining why we can see 'amateur scientists' coming up with interesting results.
Some academics are interested in pushing a particular take (agenda). This is contrary to science but often serving some social or political sentiment.
Amateur scientists might lack the rigor to give their claims validity and may reach undeserved conclusions leading to misunderstanding from a part of the public who want some validation for their own beliefs.
Getting a degree, particularly a PhD to do research, is hideously expensive in the US and rarely pays well relative to the cost, even for STEM.
Science in general is underfunded IMO, and from what I'm told competition for grants can be extreme. Society says they want the next Thomas Edison but they aren't willing to fund all the other failed light bulb designs to find him.
In that environment being an amateur scientist makes the most sense if you can swing it. Do something more lucrative to ensure prosperity and, if you're really passionate about something scientific and can afford the necessary equipment yourself, do it at home and blog about it.
Worth remembering that prior to modern funding mechanisms a lot (most?) of science was done by the independently wealthy gentry.
I agree competition for grants drives a lot of these problems, but getting a STEM PhD costs nothing at any remotely respectable institution. You will be spending 5+ years making less than you could, so you still may not come out ahead financially, but it's purely an opportunity cost not an actual cost. It's not uncommon either for people to bail with a free masters after 2 years.
I like the idea of making money first and then pursuing research, but I think for certain fields the only way to do much of anything would be to latch on as a research volunteer to an existing lab. Because the cost to run any experiments is just way too high, particularly if you have no shared equipment to begin with.
Alternatively, you could just start a PhD later in life. There are time limits on a bunch of the academic stages, but no clock really starts until after you've finished your PhD. I do think it would be a lot more comfortable to do a PhD once you've already financially established yourself, plus I think it produces a better culture when people aren't so attached to progressing up the academic ladder, like their life depends on it.
I think you're underestimating opportunity cost and overestimating how much grant money is spent on actual science rather than overhead costs like the university's 25% cut, head count, administration, conferences, and so on. The actual numbers are staggering. When I dropped out and first moved to SV (pre facebook IPO), I lived with a Mozilla undergraduate intern who made twice what my mom made as a neuroscience postdoc with decades of experience. An engineer making mid to senior level FAANG money and investing savings in an index fund, probably makes $1 million to $2 million more over a decade. For someone who doesn't make it into a tenured position, the life time difference in earnings is depressing to think about.
The barriers to entry are intimidating but not insurmountable - there are so many hidden idiosyncrasies and inefficiencies in academia that obfuscate the real cost and make it seem harder than it really is. Just look at the proliferation of hackerspaces with their capital equipment which, although not as expensive as some lab equipment, still runs in the tens of thousands per machine. It's just that we've been doing it this way for so long we can't imagine any other way.
Yes continuing on into postdoc is another 3+ years of opportunity cost, certainly it does add up quickly. But OP was implying that PhD students actually had to pay for their degrees which is not true. Most people will finish PhD before they are 30, if you compare to top SWE or finance jobs then sure there is expensive opportunity cost, but compared to entry level jobs more generally it really is not a huge deal. Most people doing a traditional STEM PhD wouldn't even be able to get one of the "high roller" jobs out of undergrad, because only a handful of majors are considered for the most part. A pure neuro undergrad wouldn't learn enough CS in school to be considered for a FAANG.
IMO postdoc is where people really start to get set back - you don't get benefits like free health insurance or subsidized housing anymore, you are getting older with additional life expenses, and you aren't getting a degree that can open doors to additional jobs anymore. You are basically just continuing to chase a university career at shit pay by the point you reach a postdoc. The worst part is that people are forced into postdocs almost immediately, because you literally can't get one after you are a certain number of years past graduation.
I don't disagree that as a society there are better ways. But as an individual actor unless you make an absolute killing with some start up or something there is no way you can afford to do proper biology research (for example). Perhaps if you're willing to move into some specific niche based on feasibility, but you'd have very little freedom in what questions you could ask this way. Beyond money there are also logistical questions surrounding care of animals or possible clinical collaboration, so unless you're happy doing in vitro work only this is another can of worms for someone attempting to be an independent researcher.
That’s awesome. It is very much how I felt about computers when I was learning them in the 80s.. me, a little kid, could make or do something that nobody had ever done before exactly. And all the other homebrew clubs and hacker groups were doing the same thing. I guess 3d printing was similar recently, and I’m excited to see what the next ones are.
Absolutely. The dog "Bunny" for example is really an incredible version of that. Watch a few of these videos and it will change how you see dogs for ever. Some examples of these dogs just focus on food or play. Bunny gets into questions about family, concern for neighbours dogs and existential stuff like "Mom, were you dog?"
Bunny as presented is pretty mind blowing. But I wonder: since we only see a tiny part of her interactions, is this an example of a million monkeys with a million typewriters?
It strikes me as more likely that bunny is just memorizing button combinations (or more likely just a button, with ad-lib other buttons thrown in) that lead to certain actions - totally independent of the words being said.
Take chimps for example, who learned hundreds of sign words. Despite knowing how to "communicate", they never once asked a question.
I haven't watched a bunch of bunny videos, but it strikes me more as astrological sign reading than "dogs finally have a meaningful way to communicate".
My favorite amateur mushroom hunter is Alan Rockefeller, who I found out about through his fantastic talks on identifying psilocybin mushrooms: [1] [2]
He talks about how he got in to mushroom hunting at about 18 minutes in to [1]:
"About 2001 I went hiking, and I've always been in to nature and camping but around 2001 I was hiking and I kind of felt like it was sort of a waste of time to hike. Sure, it was exercise and it was pretty out there, but I was kind of like "What am I doing with my life?", but I saw all these mushrooms, and I'm like "Huh.. these are pretty interesting," and so I looked at them a little closer and thought "there must be people out there that know what these are, that know which ones are common, which ones are hallucinogenic, poisonous," and so I just started paying a little bit of attention to them and taking pictures of them and that gave me a reason to go out in to the woods, so I didn't feel nearly so guilty for wasting all my time in the forest anymore, since I had a mission.
"These days my mission is usually to take the best pictures I possibly can of every species of mushroom I come across and then I publish all the pictures online with a free license so anybody can use them forever. I do DNA sequencing of all of them and get them all in to genbank. But I think the path was just being really curious about them and just being really curious about nature and doing that. I never really expected to get well known for psilocybin mushrooms. That was kind of random. I just got really in to them at the same time they got kind of popular.
"I think psilocybin mushrooms are really useful for getting people interested in nature. So many people out there looking for psilocybin mushrooms. This gets them outside, gets them looking closely at the mushrooms. There are so many people looking for psilocybin mushrooms to get high and now they're super in to plants and mushrooms and all of nature. It's kind of like a gateway in to nature."
I know the parent comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but it reminds me of a theory about the origins of human intelligence that I heard in the documentary Fantastic Fungi. Long story short the theory is that our ancestors stumbled upon magic mushrooms and the psychedelic experience was a spark of new perspective, and then the one who discovered the mushrooms would take its tribe to other psychedelic mushrooms and have them try them so that they would all experience the perspective shift.
To bring this a little closer to this audience, readers may be interested in John Markoff’s book What the Doormouse Said, which draws a direct line between the use of psychedelics and the development of the personal computer.
I believe this amateur wave is part of a much bigger set of societal actions “challenging assumptions” of the former era.
There is a sharp decline in reverence for “authority” along with a lowering of barriers to entry. Almost anyone with interest and bravery to share has a chance to shine in any subject area.
Computer science is leading the way, in part because it often requires little or no physical presence or collaboration. Proof of advancements can be disseminated in perfect fidelity and validated quickly.
In other fields, people who happen to live among a rare natural phenomena have great potential to fall into discovery others could only hope to witness at great expense.
Following this to its natural conclusion all fields will ultimately be advanced by a mix of professionals, academics and increasingly “amateurs” that earn reputation not by publishing but by pure contributions of content that unquestionably move the field forward.