We the People – Average Joes (and Jolines)

Caught in the headlights on the superhighway to the stars

We the People don't have a voice in the scientific community. Am I the only one that’s noticed this?

Conscientious corporations occasionally place a "Shareholders Advocate" on their Boards of Directors. State and local agencies will sometimes add local citizens to their commissions. School Boards will add a parent, or in some rare cases, even a student to their fold. The idea is get a fresh view: one from 'outside the beltway', so to speak.

But, within the scientific community, the public is considered persona non grata - or worse. Jennifer Kahn, in her Discover Magazine article, "Notes from a Parallel Universe" (Apr. 2002), indicates we the people are viewed as "maverick theorists" or simply "cranks." Those of us that quite often fund the research of the scientific community are viewed as cranks – and worse, cranks who couldn't understand a scientific concept if it was spelled out ‘fo-ne-tick-ly’.

Am I whining here? The fact is, for the most part, the scientific community is right. We the People are generally not the sharpest pencils in the drawer when it comes to hard science. Most of us will never be caught serving up the potato salad at a Mensa picnic.

In his Social Studies of Science article entitled "Harry Collins's [sic; no kidding!] Gravitational Wave Project" (Apr. 1999), Harry describes the “Consumers of Scientific Papers” with his own hand-drawn illustration. It’s a target-looking affair with the "core group of scientists working on a particular problem" in the middle of his target, and layers defined outward from this core group. Outside of the core group is what Harry calls "Scientifically Literate Commentators". That’s the twenty-five cent description of ‘peer reviewers’. The layer outside of this group he calls "Policy Makers"; i.e. politicians and funders of the scientific endeavors.

Collins studied the ebb and flow of information among the various layers of his science communications model and how that flow affected acceptance of certain theories: and even the scientists who proposed the theories. He goes to great lengths in describing the fluctuations in the boundaries among these groups. He describes the fact that a funding committee could be subjected to inner-circle or outer-circle science, even bad science, and subsequently be moved to be in favor of, or against, continued funding of a project.

"[P]oliticians, policy makers, and funders are exposed to every shade of opinion irrespective of whatever formal or informal digesting processes have taken place," Harry comments. He states that core group scientists can themselves be marginalized by competing theories which gain acceptance, along with a separate core constituency in the science community. Good ‘schtuff’.

But, it's the last layer – the outermost layer – in Collins’ diagram with which I am concerned here: The Public. "Outside the outer ring of the target are the general public and their representatives, but they do not concern us here." Ouch! And, kick me while I'm down too! We the People are considered nothing more than tedious background noise!

Are we really that bad? Is there no value whatsoever in all of ‘maverick theorism’ and crankdom? If there is anything at all history has taught us, it's to check our fly before public speaking and to look at the Big Picture. The question, when it comes to us quacks and con artists, is How? Let's look at a comparable problem first.

A fascinating article called “The Worldwide Computer” appeared in Scientific American (Mar. 2002) about super-computing on the cheap. It was based on the concept of using the interconnected computers of the Internet. The idea, as near as I could cipher it, was that a centralized operating system could mete out snippets of large computational problems to millions, or even tens of millions of otherwise idle computers connected via the Internet.

Problems that would normally require monstrous levels of processing power at enormous cost could be solved handily using just a smidgen of your computer and a smidgen of mine, and all of the others that might be made available. (Did I just plagiarize a few terms from the article? Oh well. What-ta-ya-gonna-do?)

Well, what if, in the same manner, we were able to harness the massive power in the tedious background noise of our own Illiterati – for the good of the Core Scientists? Individually, of course, we have nothing to add to the Core Competencies of the Core Scientists in the Core Group. But, are there diamonds in the rough somewhere out there – here – just the same? The idea, I believe, is to separate the wheat from the chaff.

We need a Voice for the Silent Public: someone who will speak up for us numbskulls and crackpots. Let me think for a moment... Hmmm... Maybe it could be... Well... How about Moi? I mean, hey, why not? Could be worse. Could be Geraldo!

I'll be the self-anointed Scribe for the Paltry Publicans, the Fiddle Music Aficionados and the Dirt Track Devoteés. I guarantee you will not find a more conscientious peer reviewer for the toothless goobers who submit cockamamie material proffered as 'science'. I will stand like a Rock amongst the detritus of pseudo-science, piling up chaff like a lumber mill kickin' up sawdust. (for a small administrative fee, of course). And, I will pass along what jewels I may find to the Layer 1 Core Group Scientists. Or, at least to the Layer 2 Scientifically Literate Peer Reviewers. Or, if they won't listen, to the Layer 3 Telemarketers, Politicians and Thugs (was that Layer 3?).

Hey, if push comes to shove, the tabloids will take this garbage. They'll take anything. And, in deference to Jennifer and Harry, I'll try to stay out of the realm of 'theory', and well within the bounds of 'observation'. I won't be using any highfalutin processes to gin up numbers or anything. In fact, this will be a fairly low faluting modus operandus: e.g. hit the Quick Pick button and run like hell to beat the Meter Maid.

With that behind us, and having ascended The Chair, I will work my way through the wheat and the chaff and take suggestions for our first order of business in the realm of “Science Commentary from the Average Joe (and Joline)”. I say "our" first order of business although I haven't actually received the first truckload of chaffed wheat at this point. If push comes to shove, I’ll grow my own, so to speak. But, we're on a roll, folks. So, let's not throw a spanner in the works. Get me some jive to work with here! Times a wastin’, mon ami!


S. Arthur Yegge - Philosopher
(As well as the Newly Self-Anointed Chair of “The Society for the Average Joe (and Joline)”)