GIGO

Amateur Scientists

We had a reader suggest in Retorts a few issues ago that the day of the amateur scientist is dead. If my mail is anything to go by, there's a lot of amateur scientists out there still alive and kicking.

One active reader has pointed out that many physicists at the turn of the century were confident that all science was known, and that nothing remained but some tidying up. This was just before quantum mechanics hit the scene. He went on to mention a number of projects he was involved in, from recommending vitamin B supplements to avoid the depredations of mosquitoes, to wondering about the carbon fixing powers of shellfish and plankton and its possibilities for greenhouse effect control.

"The amateur scientist is freed from `what every scientist knows is true' and he/she has not got a reputation to safeguard", he went on to say. True, this can open the way for a whole host of weird and wonderful ideas, many totally off the wall, but encouraging people to think more -- and know more -- about the world around them cannot hurt.

In our last issue, we ran a Quick Dip on the discovery of a new species of weta. It was noticed by a tramper who thought it looked a bit different, and now the weta people at Victoria have a new beastie to pore over. A lot of good work continues to be done, particularly in the biological sciences, by amateurs working for the sheer love of their chosen science.

Even people without a science-related hobby act in some form as amateur scientists. We all use the scientific tools of observation, experimentation and replication. It might be in utilising the basic chemistry of the kitchen, observing the results of our gardening experiments or calculating the physics of driving a vehicle. We mightn't think consciously about the science behind these activities, but it's there.

Certainly a better understanding of general science would serve people well. It would make them less vulnerable to the blandishments of some of the more dubious forms of alternative therapies, and perhaps a bit more critical of the way in which conventional medicine is practiced at times.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.