Can we do worthwhile science outside academia?

[sedgequeen]

I’m exacerabate – exas – exasperated! Some of you are talking about how we non-academics can’t do science any more. And yet I’ve heard again and again from professional botanists that we’d better do the science – the alpha taxonomy – because the academics aren’t doing it. Oh, some are but they’re aging and not being replaced. We non-academics – agency botanists, consulting botanists, interested amateurs – had better do it because nobody else will. Be the expert you want to consult! Really.

Yeah, we’re not going to win the Nobel prize for learning and communicating how to identify various groups of plants or other organisms. But we’ll still perform a valuable service. I’ve published in science journals but you know what people will remember me for, what they’ll be using in 20 years or more? (Assuming that any kind of botany is a thing 20 years from now.) The field guides my colleagues and I wrote to grasses and Carex sedges. What could you figure out? How can you educate us?

Does becoming that expert involve science? Yes, yes, yes! Science, remember, involves observing carefully, getting ideas about what you’re seeing, testing those ideas, repeat. It involves a lot of discovery, at least for you. (I fondly member discovering the Alu family of transposons – years after it had originally been discovered, but it was new to me! I’m also thrilled that last week I saw a Sabine’s Gull for the first time. So much to discover, for myself at least and sometimes for other people too.) Science is not a process that’s dependent on whether you publish in Nature or Science (two respected science journals). It’s process that anybody can do. In fact, good auto mechanics do science, the ones who look at the car’s symptoms, form a hypothesis, and test it before buying the $500 part. (Yes, I’m referring to a specific incident involving an arrogant young man’s assumption that the poor woman could not be stating anything useful when she insisted that the muffler she’d purchased 3 months ago could not be rusted out. Turned out that backing into a rock had broken the muffler and exhaust pipe, but the replacement muffler plus some welding fixed it for about $125.)

Go forth and do science! Find out things! Share the things you think others might want to know. Become the experts on some things as you go. We’ll really appreciate that.

[anneclewis]

I coordinate a state volunteer water quality monitoring project. One of the volunteers collects WQ data on a stream that runs through her property. She changed the grazing management on the property after she bought it (aka fencing to keep out the cows) and she has been documenting the WQ and the change in plant community.

So while this “study” may never be published, it is observational data that is useful to watershed managers and researchers since it provides evidence of impact of a change of grazing regime. Once she gets a little more data under her belt, including iNat data, I will encourage and help to write it up to submit to a conference with a volunteer monitoring strand.

[lothlin]

I love your energy so much. Yes to everything in this comment.

[AdamWargon]

@sedgequeen

I’ve heard again and again from professional botanists that we’d better do the science – the alpha taxonomy – because the academics aren’t doing it.

For anyone who needs a refresher, like me, here is my current understanding of the term “alpha taxonomy”:

Alpha taxonomy: Finding, describing, and naming new species. Naming the leaves on the tree.

Beta taxonomy: Sorting out relationships. Are these two genera really in different families, or should this be the same family? Stuff like that. Redrawing the branches of the tree.

Gamma taxonomy: Studying evolution, ecology, and stuff like that. These organisms, which at first glance all look identical, actually occupy different ecological niches, and have had different evolutionary pathways. What evolutionary and ecological factors made the tree grow like that?

[upupa-epops]

Sabine’s Gulls are one of my favourite birds, beautiful and challenging to see. I’m glad you got to see one!

I don’t know how things compare in botany or mycology but I think photo/field ID is something where iNat and BugGuide have contributed a lot to entomology, since academic and museum taxonomists tend to focus on more reliable but microscopic or internal features. I guess we’re doing the arthropod equivalent to what Roger Tory Peterson started with his first bird field guide in 1934. Bird ID has advanced a ton since then but I still occasionally see discussions and articles about the potential uses of subtle features that nobody’s tried before. This kind of progress may or may not ever be published academically but it’s still very valuable. Looking at Peterson’s Wiki page I was amused by this little duck diagram from 1903 which apparently inspired his first field guide:

The sketches are so simple, but they work, and they’ve left a great legacy.

[DianaStuder]

@upupa-epops

The other, arguing that good scientists (by the blog authors’ definition) need to have the right level of arrogance to think that they can still discover stuff after everything that’s already been done

That was an interesting rabbit hole. Potato diet, and the author is an interesting person in his own right. Improv and twoprov.

Adam once came in second place on a British reality show about hosting dinner parties

[GeolTel]

It’s a process that anybody can do… however, let’s not forget the role of scrutiny by, and later communication with, peers - who can be in academia, museums, industries, agencies, garages and whatnot. The Science™ seal of approval is not entirely about following proper checklists and recipes in the solitude of one’s own basement, greenhouse, or garage. Which is maybe why science is easiest (best?) performed as teams, if only to gather and (let’s hope) build upon necessary criticism early in the process.

Of course, anyone confident enough in their own expertise and in the worthiness of their ‘research’ is welcome to self-publish on ArxiV, a blog, or through AmazonKDP, and forgo editorial-critical annoyances. They’ll definitely find their readership.

[spiphany]

And yet it is still not clear to me what you understand as “doing worthwhile science” or what you desire to accomplish that you feel you cannot. Science is a broad and ultimately rather vague term, and as multiple people here have pointed out, in its most general sense science is a methodology that anyone can do regardless of whether they have access to funding or equipment. So I think the question you have posed here is loaded with a number of unspoken assumptions about what qualifies as “real science” and it would be valuable to tease out exactly what these are.

Does doing science for you mean:

• working in a lab
• carrying out experiments
• publishing in journals/attending conferences
• making discoveries
• conducting field surveys
• observing and documenting nature
• something else?

I wonder whether it is possible that you may be defining science as exclusively being the sort of science that is conducted in university biology departments and you are measuring success in academic terms. If this is the case, you are virtually setting yourself up for frustration from the outset, since the answer to the question “can I do (academic-type) science outside of academia” is by definition going to be “no”. But this is circular reasoning that depends on defining “science” a particular way.

I also think the “why” is relevant. I hardly think that anyone pursues knowledge merely for the sake of pursuing knowledge – rather, we do so because we feel something is gained by it. There is an implication that you wish to accomplish something by “doing science” and that the success or failure of this would determine whether it is “worthwhile”. You framed your question explicitly as wanting to do science, not as wanting to make a difference or wanting to earn a living doing something you care about, which might be more common ways of formulating this desire, so it seems to me that this is also worth exploring. Why is it important to you to engage with nature specifically as a scientific pursuit? How is this different from engaging with nature in some other way – say, as a hobby?

Such motivations might include, in no particular order:

• internal validation (self-image as a scientist; science is a serious pursuit whereas a hobby is frivolous, etc.)
• external validation (recognition by others; being respected/taken seriously; being treated as an equal)
• fame/leaving an intellectual legacy
• a greater sense of agency (active participant rather than a mere provider of data)
• contributing to collective knowledge/sharing what you have learned
• supporting yourself doing work you find meaningful
• having a real-world impact (influencing policy-making; helping protect a site or a species; finding solutions to ecological problems)

Obviously some of these goals are going to be easier to realize than others. (This applies regardless of whether one is working outside academia or within it, by the way.)

There also seems to be a bit of a belief that science only matters if it takes the form of some obvious significant discovery or breakthrough. From what I recall, you have mentioned doing work copyediting scientific articles. How many of these articles present major new insights vs. an analysis of a particular data set? Most scientific activity is not flashy or earth-shattering in its relevance. It is sitting down and analyzing data and trying to answer one specific question (what species are present at this site; which windows on which buildings are birds colliding with; how much genetic diversity is there within this population; what do urban squirrels eat; etc.).

So I wonder if your presuppositions about “science” and how to contribute to it are limiting what you feel is possible. People have given a number of of examples in this thread of projects that can be carried out by laypeople without or with only limited institutional support; more could be adduced virtually ad infinitum – look at, say, the activities featured in iNat newsletters. A lot of these projects did not require substantial funds, just someone who recognized that there was some interesting data and was willing to take the initiative and say, let’s take a closer look at this. Some of these projects involve people in academia working with non-academics as equal partners. Others involve recruiting additional people to work on a task that is larger than a single individual could carry out on their own.

There is not, it seems to me, any inherent barrier that would prevent you from doing any of these things. In fact, it seems to me that the main challenge is likely to be quite the opposite: figuring out what you want to do and where you can best contribute from all of the thousands of possible topics you could investigate. It may well be the case that some of the activities you have already been doing would be suitable for being turned into more formal projects or publications. Or it may be that you want to focus on something different moving forward, because this would better allow you to satisfy your personal goals. What would be meaningful or not is something only you can decide.

[jnstuart]

Just as an example, lots of non-academics publish notes on range extensions and interesting natural history observations on herpetofauna in the journal Herpetological Review. I did myself many times when I was not affiliated with a university. Granted, there are fewer journals out there that accept these small more-anecdotal notes although 50 plus years ago even the major vertebrate journals did publish them before acceptable articles became more experimental and more data-heavy (e.g., thesis or dissertation-level research). But if you have an interesting observation or set of observations about an organism that might be something new. there’s probably a small journal out there that would publish it. And you don’t have to be within academia to do so.

As for more elaborate research involving experimental methods, statistical analyses, and high-tech methods and equipment, a lot of those are collaborative including multiple authors. And often some of those co-authors are not within academia.

Added: If curious, check out some of the regional journals such as Western Wildlife, Southwestern Naturalist, Southeastern Naturalist, Northwest Naturalist or small taxon-specific journals like Argia (for Odonata). I know there are some small botanical journals I’m less familiar with. You don’t have to do the equivalent of rocket science to publish your findings in these.

[upupa-epops]

@GeolTel

Of course, anyone confident enough in their own expertise and in the worthiness of their ‘research’ is welcome to self-publish on ArxiV, a blog, or through AmazonKDP, and forgo editorial-critical annoyances. They’ll definitely find their readership.

I had a bit of an argument with @charlie last year about whether independent informally published research is feasible:

@upupa-epops

@charlie

Cos when i hear ‘blog’ in 2024 i don’t think a good faith suggestion at all.

Oh no I’m serious. I agree there are a lot of issues with academic settings; as a result a lot of the cool research these days is happening on anonymous blogs. This guy’s blog is mostly about them. This includes personal iNat journals too; a lot of novel research and exploration is being done there. Like we can write out taxonomy hypotheses and discuss them on iNat; I just mean we shouldn’t be implementing them on the whole website.

The way I’m imagining you’d do it in a blog is basically writing out academic proposals but in a more informal way and doing distributed peer review through other random interested people commenting on the blog, rather than the normal formal academic process.

Now I have no doubt that it’s possible for iNatters to propose taxonomic hypotheses in their iNat journals which are helpful and intriguing alternatives to the academic consensus taxonomy. What I do have doubts about is whether anyone influential will take them seriously in that context. Which goes partially to the question of motivation and whether you need someone to take your contribution seriously, which a great point:

@spiphany

I also think the “why” is relevant. I hardly think that anyone pursues knowledge merely for the sake of pursuing knowledge – rather, we do so because we feel something is gained by it.

I am motivated largely by curiosity and learning for the sake of learning. But there is some joy I get when I can learn things the easy way as a result of other people learning things “the hard way” through tough research, and I have gratitude for that and want to contribute in a similar way when I have to work to learn something that few other people know. I also feel drawn to more obscure subjects where less is known by anyone and some hard work is required.

@spiphany

• contributing to collective knowledge/sharing what you have learned

My first response in this thread was in agreement with @jasonhernandez74 and I’ve kind of been walking back from that since, but it’s because the subjects I’m most curious about are ones where the unknowns require more resources to answer. I’m curious about them because they’re (relatively) big exciting things that nobody else knows, and nobody else knows because the few people who care don’t have the resources to commit to the project. So it is a bit circular there. If I were less ambitious then I could be more satisfied with documenting something less significant.

[spiphany]

Yes, you are correct – I failed to include curiosity and wanting to solve mysteries as a motivation and certainly I agree that the satisfaction of figuring something out plays an important role for many of us.

But I was thinking about it in a more general sense of “why do science”. Accumulating knowledge – any knowledge, indiscriminately – is not typically an end in itself. We don’t do science for the sake of doing science any more than we go to the gym merely for the sake of going to the gym (instead of going to the gym get fit, or because exercising makes us feel good, or because all our friends go there, etc.). Rather, we hope that it will allow us to answer questions or provide insights or solve problems or have some application. Even basic scientific research is not purely about “because it is there” but because there is felt to be some relevance in investigating the phenomenon. I don’t necessarily mean practical relevance, but something that makes that particular topic seem worthy of attention (say, things we don’t have an explanation for).

And the particular reasons for engaging in science will also determine whether we feel that our activities are successful or worthwhile, as well as which sorts of activities are most suited to achieving that purpose.

[jnstuart]

@jhbratton

Beware scientists asking you to collect material for their DNA studies. I have wasted so much time collecting specimens for such people and have never received a paper based on the findings.

In these situations, I like to be clear that if I’m going to do some or all of the specimen collecting, I want a co-authorship on whatever paper(s) come out of the work. If someone is anxious to get published, whether you’re an academic or not, you need to establish these collaborative relationships up front. Don’t contribute and hope you’re remembered when publishing time comes around.

Added: On another note, there has been a lot of discussion about the death of natural history study in professional biology and how you can’t hardly publish natural history information anymore. The field biologist has been replaced in many cases by the lab biologist. The mainstream journals are basically all experimental or molecular systematics these days. What most naturalists, such as iNat users, focus on can only be published in smaller, more niche journals. I like to think that iNat is a way that natural history study is being reinvigorated, that it is still important in understanding the natural world, and has a place in biology, and that journals that focus on natural history will continue alongside the “big science” journals. And there is plenty of room for the non-academics to fill the void in natural history research.

[lothlin]

A few small journals that folks I know have published in are McIlvania (Published by the North American Mycological Society - https://namyco.org/publications/mcilvainea-journal-of-american-amateur-mycology/) and Mycologia, which is larger and more active than McIlvania (https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/umyc20). Both are open source, peer reviewed, and very useful for the kind of smaller species publications that are being discussed in this thread as examples of ways that folks can contribute.

[upupa-epops]

@upupa-epops

I’ve since seen so many similar state/province/country-firsts documented on iNat that I’m not even sure whether it’s worth publishing papers for them.

Do you think it’s worth writing brief articles about finds like these and submitting them to small journals? I can think of multiple invertebrate examples. My thinking has been that anyone can go look on iNat and see the record for themselves, but perhaps there’s value in additional documentation. Another question I’d have is how to confirm that there isn’t a previous record hidden in a museum collection or database somewhere… right now all I have to go by is the word of taxon specialists on iNat, or maybe an outdated published checklist.

[jnstuart]

I suppose it depends on the taxon. For herps, there is Herpetological Review where you can publish short notes on new county/province/state or country/regional records. In addition to preserved specimen records they accept photo vouchers, including many that have appeared in iNat, although the photo and data also have to be deposited in a photo archive at a university, which has become rather easy to do. I suppose the idea is that an iNat record could disappear and it’s not a permanent archive. This system isn’t available for many other taxa but the herpetologists have made publication of range extensions and “filling in holes” in distribution the standard. It does require you to do some research on what has been previously published so you aren’t duplicating earlier records.

[cthawley]

I would point out that, given

@anneclewis

She changed the grazing management on the property after she bought it (aka fencing to keep out the cows) and she has been documenting the WQ and the change in plant community

this is actually experimental data now, not just observational data.

[radekwalkowiak]

I fully agree that practice, especially in biology, is extremely important; I’m a living example of this. Unfortunately, scientists have too narrow specialized areas, often resulting in a lack of general knowledge. The lesson for naturalists is this: without combining formal education with a passion for nature, and a lack of education with a passion for science, there will be no results. Furthermore, everyone should practice science by reading scientific publications.

[spiphany]

@upupa-epops

Do you think it’s worth writing brief articles about finds like these and submitting them to small journals? I can think of multiple invertebrate examples. My thinking has been that anyone can go look on iNat and see the record for themselves, but perhaps there’s value in additional documentation.

Given the number of articles with a title that includes “new records of…” or “first record of…” in the forum wikis listing publications using iNaturalist data, I would say yes, there does seem to be a purpose in writing up such finds. One thing that is worth considering is that just because the data is there on iNat/GBIF doesn’t mean it will be noticed amongst all the other thousands of records unless one is specifically looking for it (which one might not be doing if the species is not expected in that place).

This publication genre (new records/notable records/survey of x site) seems to be fairly important for certain taxa here in Germany (botany, entomology) and while the function of such reports is arguably less crucial in a digital age where the raw data is accessible online, they don’t seem to be in any danger of disappearing. The data still needs to be verified, it may be scattered across various sources (in Germany there are at least two other widely-used citizen science platforms), or the iNat observations may serve as a starting point for more in-depth research or discussion about the context of the finds etc.

Another good strategy if you aren’t sure whether your material would be of interest is to look at some recent issues of potentially relevant publications and see what sort of topics they cover and what data sources they use.

[barry]

Look, I’m just some old dude from south Mississippi, but, I can tell you, that I and others learn from folks like you. I wanted to be biologist or ecologist since I was a kid, but wound up going into telecom/IT. Now, I wish I had at least an undergrad degree in ecology or botany, etc. There is so much room for studies. I’m ignorant of much, I admit, but it’s my observation that big funding typically gets thrown to research that helps out some big corporation or whatever is ‘popular’ at the moment. I may be wrong, and I probably am.

But folks like me, we see you guys/gals. We see you doing your thing. This probably sounds dumb, but I do spend time on academia.edu and researchgate.net reading reports, theses, etc. I dig what y’all do. I don’t always understand it, but I admire it. I can appreciate it. And because of you, and because of other novices like myself, I have learned so much.

Please don’t think that you can’t contribute to the betterment of this world, or at least it’s understanding. WE SEE YOU. I try to speak to my local wildlife agency folks every chance I get when I see them, from the state level to the federal level. I know the struggle is real. There are still issues to solve, new species to discover, and advancement of knowledge. To you and ANY of you academia types, don’t quit. I, at least, appreciate you.

[GeolTel]

In my part of the world, “easy” scientific works (by hobbyist and professional botanists alike) get routinely published as short ‘notes’ in a long-running series of edited papers dealing with the regional flora, backed by a renowned museal institution. At least one of several conditions must be met:

1. addition to the regional checklist… mostly exotic species, nowadays;
2. evidence for a taxon that was doubtfully present for lack of photos or specimen;
3. new population of a ‘very rare’ or ‘rare’ species, known from <5 or <10 localities;
4. new population of a ‘common’ species far from its usual range or usual habitat;
5. mini-review for a taxon of interest (example: compile a map + list of collection specimens + insights into variability and local issues): usually in the wake of a taxonomic upheaval or chance encounter with dusty herbarium material…

Points 1 to 4 may take some luck, yet they are well within the reach of anyone who is well-versed in the regional flora and has a keen eye, spare time, sturdy shoes… and is comfortable with sharing new data with whoever has a duty to double-check it. Point 5 tops it up with a dose of head-scratching, in order to deal with scientific literature, collections, and social contacts in museum/academia - all in an orderly fashion.

At the end of the day such ‘notes’ inform conservation policies, lay the groundwork for future science projects, and find their way into mainstream guidebooks: is it not worth it?