Shakespeare had it wrong; the name does matter

Since 2008 I’ve been telling folks that I work with citizen scientists. That was the in vogue phrase of the moment and supplanted my favorite of “pro-am collaboration”. The change away from pro-am (or professional — amateur) collaboration was made because a lot of folks felt it was demeaning to be considered an amateur when they were making important contributions that were and are literally changing our understanding of the universe and this world we all share. Historically, we talked about gentle-person scientists; aristocrats who spent their monies on equipment many academics couldn’t afford. In the 1800s, changes in technology and the recognition of past efforts in areas like weather data collection (from revolutionary war farmers), fossils (Mary Annings in England deserves a google), and the collection of flora and fauna (have you heard of Audubon?)… well, it turns out when you pay attention to everyone who is contributing to science, as they started to do in the 1800s, you find all sorts of people who aren’t rich but are enabling science. With that recognition, “Amatuer” started to be the term of favor… and it just turned out to be a term that left some folks not entirely happy.

Unfortunately, we didn’t exactly focus-group test the term “citizen science”, and in these changing times the word “citizen” can just hurt. The world is full of refugees and immigrants trying to build new lives who are citizens of nowhere. In some cases, they no longer have a nation to go home to. Just like the phrase “manned space flight” led to a…