#Citizen Science

Citizen science is a participatory art project that lumps hobbies and painstaking effort under the banner of environmental protection. To scholars, it’s nothing more than a reserve of “experimental collaborators,” where social media appeal often trumps scientific rigor. The quality of data is questionable, yet participants revel in the thrill of “saving the planet.” Inexperienced observation reports flood into researchers’ inboxes, and serious analyses are often blocked by a “volunteer filter.” Above all, as long as the noble cause exists, mistakes and misunderstandings are glorified as part of the “learning process.”

Citizen science is the ritual in which ordinary people, armed with smartphones instead of lab coats, promise to save the world without the scholar’s credentials. It masquerades as a scientific method but often degenerates into a carnival of hashtag experiments and anecdotal observations. While efforts to extract truth from piles of so-called data are praised, the final results are invariably staged on the grand platform of social media and public hearings. Undeniably, it is a democratic quest for knowledge—or at least for attention.