SOC433H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Citizen Science, Postmodern Philosophy, Cancer Cluster
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Lecture 5 : Power, citizen science and post truth politics
• Citizen science: the way in which local community groups adopt some of the practices of
scientists in order to collect information on a local issue
• Connected to post truth politics because what we have thought about is citizen science but we
haven’t talked about the questioning of scientific institutions has led to the questioning of other
institutions like government and politics
• A profound questioning of expertise
• A lot of cariacutures of post modern theory references citizen science and leads to the broader
questioning of science (Brown)
• Post truth politics
Professional and lay wats of knowing
• Citizen science: scientific work undertaken by members of the general public, often in
collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists or scientific institutions
• One of the first recorded uses of this term was a study on acid rain, where they collected samples
of acid rain around the country
• Term was popularized in two different ways
o Working with local community with scientists to do research
o Allen Earwin, described it as a concept of citizenship that focuses on the necessity of
opening up science and science policy to the larger public
• Also in the rise due to increase in technology eg. Using data from peoples cellphones
• Budget cuts to universities and scientific research made models of citizen science as an important
option
o Allows them to work with others and cut costs
• Epidemiology is concerned with the distribution of disease or physiological conditions in human
populations and the factors that influence their distribution.
• Popular epidemiology: the process by which lay persons gather data and marshal the knowledge
and resources of experts in order to understand the epidemiology of disease, treat existing and
prevent future disease and remove the response environmental contaminants (refers to when the
lay public does work that is traditionally done by corporations, experts and officials)
o The lay publics work
o Can and look a lot like science
o Tends to be focused on social problems rather that statistical significance
o Tends to have a more social structural critique
o Meant to address a certain problem
o Makes the argument that both sides are important, they have different interest and
different conclusions they find and different standards of operation (Popular
epidemiology and citizen science) (Brown)
Brown Professional and lay ways of knowing: the Woburn Cancer cluster
• Looks at the stages of how a person become a citizen scientists (know for test)
o Noticing health affects and pollutants
o Hypothesizing connections
▪ Residents hypothesize something out of the ordinary
o Creating a common perspective
▪ Reliant on finding a lot of chemical drums from a leather tanning factory
o Looking for official sources and not finding any help
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o Organizing a community group
o Maping and collecting data
o Official studies are conducted by experts
o Activists that not satisfied but the CDC study, bring in their own experts
o Engage in litigation
o Press for official peroration of their findings
o Finally claim their lawsuit
Immanuel Kant “ what is the enlightenment”
• Enlightment is man’s emergence from his self incurred immaturity
• Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another
• This immaturity is self incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and
courage to use it wihout the guidance of another
• The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere Aude! (Have courage to use our own
understanding!)
• Science is the new direction of modernity
• We need to get away from belief and using rigourous methods and use scientific method
Durkheim, Emile “ Division of labour in society”
• How fundamentally important scientific reasoning for modern society
• We need to believe in science and support science
Trust in science
• What has happened to trust in science
• Over the past several decades, self-reported conservatives have lost confidence in the scientific
community, while moderates and liberals have remained relatively unchanged. 36 years of polling
done involving tens of thousands of Americans in the General Social Survey.
• Overall, public trust in science has not declined since the 1970s, except among conservatives and
those who frequently attend church.
• Conservatives began the period with the highest trust in science, relative to liberals and
moderates, and ended the period with the lowest.
• Both frequent churchgoers and conservatives reported a more than 25% drop since 1974 when it
came to faith in science (namely climate and evolution).
• This has been a fairly steady decline rather than an abrupt break.
• It cannot be explained by educational levels. Although it is true that higher educated individuals
tend to report greater trust in science, the effect of conservative political ideology holds across
educational groups.
• Even highly educated conservatives report higher levels of distrust in science than their moderate
and liberal counterparts.
• In fact, highly educated conservatives tend to show the highest level of distrust.
• Overall, globally trust in science has not declined
• But trust in science has declined in a specific group “ the conservatives” but not the republicans
or democrat
• People who report being radically conservative report that their trust in science is decreasing also
evangelical Christians also report a lack of trust in science
• decline in evangelical Christians might be due to a questioning on evolution and the origin of
species also because they frequently go to church and their beliefs are re-affirmed
• There is a alot of social movements that are anti-establishment
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Document Summary
Immanuel kant what is the enlightenment : enlightment is man"s emergence from his self incurred immaturity, this immaturity is self incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and. Durkheim, emile division of labour in society : how fundamentally important scientific reasoning for modern society, we need to believe in science and support science. Trust in science: what has happened to trust in science, over the past several decades, self-reported conservatives have lost confidence in the scientific community, while moderates and liberals have remained relatively unchanged. Us: he suggested that if he lost the election it meant the system was rigged against him; claiming some democrats would vote over 15 times. Post truth: relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. It"s making people want to not participate in democracy because they think it"s corrupt.
