Historical Perspectives on Citizen Science for the “Post-Normal” Age

Over the past two decades, STS scholars have argued that the high-stakes, low-certainty conditions of much contemporary scientific research imply an urgent need for new ways of doing science. They have proposed variants such as “Mode 2 science” and “post-normal science,” which would draw policy-makers and concerned citizens into the process of designing and evaluating research. Their stated aim is to democratize the knowledge-making process and orient it more firmly towards users’ needs. More recently, scientists themselves have begun to echo these recommendations. They emphasize the value of public engagement for a variety of purposes, from gaining legitimacy for their research, to mining big data, to ensuring that their conclusions will be taken up by policy-makers. This reorientation is evident, for instance, in recent initiatives arrayed under the banner of “citizen science,” such as the Cornell bird count or Galaxy Zoo. But how novel are these modes of scientific research? Assessing the degree to which these initiatives depart from “normal science” requires historical and epistemological analysis. Accordingly, participants in this session will analyze past experiments in participatory research in a range of sciences (seismology, climatology, astronomy, biomedicine, and scientific agriculture) and in various transnational historical contexts (from the Progressive Era to the post-Cold War), in order to generate critical historical perspectives on contemporary modes of participatory research. What can history teach us about the promise and limitations of these endeavors?