While most people are familiar with the fundamental forces of nature - like gravity - citizen scientists get to see other, more obscure forces at work. These immutable, annoying and sometimes expletive-provoking powers are the Seven Fundamental Forces of Citizen Science:
1. The Vehicular Force: This entirely-predictable force makes its presence known when you’re on a deserted backroad in the remote bush with a normal traffic count of 0.6 vehicles per day. While observing some skittish rarity, a massive exhaust-belching logging truck, dump truck or pick-up truck hauling a bass boat the size of your first house suddenly roars out of nowhere, leaving you standing in a rarity-free cloud of dust.
2. The Linear Force: Familiar to all butterfly photographers, the Linear force causes a butterfly to always appear head on, no matter how you try to carefully reposition and contort yourself to take the shot without spooking said butterfly. The resulting pix of two little eyes and a dark line are forever unidentifiable.
3. The Calligraphic Force: My personal bugbear, this force only works on writing implements, causing them to fall out of your hand into a parallel dimension. The implement will reappear months or sometimes years later in a crevice of your car you didn’t know existed…and you may not have even been in your car when the force hit…
4. The Ventral Force: Bird photographers often see this force at work. It causes cameras to lose focus on every part of a bird except the rear end. Unfortunately, the crystal-clear detail of the rump matched with 29 pix of a puce-colored smudge in some leaves is generally still insufficient for ID.
5. The Entanglement Force: This force often strikes without warning on a nature trail or park you’ve spent years trying to visit. The force brings to your immediate location your pal EmZee, remember? OMG! We filled out a draw ticket next to one another at LeechCon '17? Did you get the 32 awesome Starling photos I emailed you? And I just saw this rock on the trail that looked like my Auntie Grace’s cat…
6. The Interruptus Force: Also known as the “Curse of Station Six,” this force causes a random entity to crash the top percentage location on your survey route, leaving you with a gaping hole where data should have lived. Documented encounters include an agitated skunk, a sudden gale-force headwind and a bad-tempered old man on a riding lawnmower.
7. The Shady Force: Most unwelcome of all, the Shady Force causes an extreme rarity to disappear as soon as you arrive…and then reappear immediately after you leave…usually at a location you’ve visited 27 times. Generally, the Shady Force also invokes a big-shot out-of-town naturalist who will find this extreme rarity during a three-minute check of the site and then spend an eternity boasting to you about it.
There are undoubtedly other citizen science forces at work. Feel free to share your experience!