[HN Gopher] Enthusiastic amateurs advance science as they hunt f...
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Enthusiastic amateurs advance science as they hunt for exotic
mushrooms
Author : jdnier
Score : 94 points
Date : 2021-06-21 03:55 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| bredren wrote:
| Another example of this is in the study of domestic animal
| behavior with speak buttons.
|
| I believe this amateur wave is part of a much bigger set of
| societal actions "challenging assumptions" of the former era.
|
| There is a sharp decline in reverence for "authority" along with
| a lowering of barriers to entry. Almost anyone with interest and
| bravery to share has a chance to shine in any subject area.
|
| Computer science is leading the way, in part because it often
| requires little or no physical presence or collaboration. Proof
| of advancements can be disseminated in perfect fidelity and
| validated quickly.
|
| In other fields, people who happen to live among a rare natural
| phenomena have great potential to fall into discovery others
| could only hope to witness at great expense.
|
| Following this to its natural conclusion all fields will
| ultimately be advanced by a mix of professionals, academics and
| increasingly "amateurs" that earn reputation not by publishing
| but by pure contributions of content that unquestionably move the
| field forward.
| toto444 wrote:
| There are a lot of people very interested by science but from
| what I read academia does not seem to be a good place to be in.
| That might help explaining why we can see 'amateur scientists'
| coming up with interesting results.
| amelius wrote:
| Do you think the existence of these amateurs will help
| improve the current state in academia, or will it have the
| opposite effect?
| treeman79 wrote:
| Look at em drive. A nonsense device that caused a LOT of
| people to become very good at Torsion Pendulums.
|
| Was fastening to watch ever improving builds as people
| tried to prove/disprove. Did em drive work out, no. But a
| lot did come out of the effort.
| mc32 wrote:
| It looks like there could be a twofold problem:
|
| Some academics are interested in pushing a particular take
| (agenda). This is contrary to science but often serving some
| social or political sentiment.
|
| Amateur scientists might lack the rigor to give their claims
| validity and may reach undeserved conclusions leading to
| misunderstanding from a part of the public who want some
| validation for their own beliefs.
| scottLobster wrote:
| I'd say the root is likely much simpler: Money
|
| Getting a degree, particularly a PhD to do research, is
| hideously expensive in the US and rarely pays well relative
| to the cost, even for STEM.
|
| Science in general is underfunded IMO, and from what I'm
| told competition for grants can be extreme. Society says
| they want the next Thomas Edison but they aren't willing to
| fund all the other failed light bulb designs to find him.
|
| In that environment being an amateur scientist makes the
| most sense if you can swing it. Do something more lucrative
| to ensure prosperity and, if you're really passionate about
| something scientific and can afford the necessary equipment
| yourself, do it at home and blog about it.
|
| Worth remembering that prior to modern funding mechanisms a
| lot (most?) of science was done by the independently
| wealthy gentry.
| caddemon wrote:
| I agree competition for grants drives a lot of these
| problems, but getting a STEM PhD costs nothing at any
| remotely respectable institution. You will be spending 5+
| years making less than you could, so you still may not
| come out ahead financially, but it's purely an
| opportunity cost not an actual cost. It's not uncommon
| either for people to bail with a free masters after 2
| years.
|
| I like the idea of making money first and then pursuing
| research, but I think for certain fields the only way to
| do much of anything would be to latch on as a research
| volunteer to an existing lab. Because the cost to run any
| experiments is just way too high, particularly if you
| have no shared equipment to begin with.
|
| Alternatively, you could just start a PhD later in life.
| There are time limits on a bunch of the academic stages,
| but no clock really starts until after you've finished
| your PhD. I do think it would be a lot more comfortable
| to do a PhD once you've already financially established
| yourself, plus I think it produces a better culture when
| people aren't so attached to progressing up the academic
| ladder, like their life depends on it.
| akiselev wrote:
| I think you're underestimating opportunity cost and
| overestimating how much grant money is spent on actual
| science rather than overhead costs like the university's
| 25% cut, head count, administration, conferences, and so
| on. The actual numbers are staggering. When I dropped out
| and first moved to SV (pre facebook IPO), I lived with a
| Mozilla undergraduate intern who made twice what my mom
| made as a neuroscience postdoc with decades of
| experience. An engineer making mid to senior level FAANG
| money and investing savings in an index fund, probably
| makes $1 million to $2 million more over a _decade_. For
| someone who doesn 't make it into a tenured position, the
| life time difference in earnings is depressing to think
| about.
|
| The barriers to entry are intimidating but not
| insurmountable - there are so many hidden idiosyncrasies
| and inefficiencies in academia that obfuscate the real
| cost and make it seem harder than it really is. Just look
| at the proliferation of hackerspaces with their capital
| equipment which, although not as expensive as some lab
| equipment, still runs in the tens of thousands per
| machine. It's just that we've been doing it this way for
| so long we can't imagine any other way.
| caddemon wrote:
| Yes continuing on into postdoc is another 3+ years of
| opportunity cost, certainly it does add up quickly. But
| OP was implying that PhD students actually had to pay for
| their degrees which is not true. Most people will finish
| PhD before they are 30, if you compare to top SWE or
| finance jobs then sure there is expensive opportunity
| cost, but compared to entry level jobs more generally it
| really is not a huge deal. Most people doing a
| traditional STEM PhD wouldn't even be able to get one of
| the "high roller" jobs out of undergrad, because only a
| handful of majors are considered for the most part. A
| pure neuro undergrad wouldn't learn enough CS in school
| to be considered for a FAANG.
|
| IMO postdoc is where people really start to get set back
| - you don't get benefits like free health insurance or
| subsidized housing anymore, you are getting older with
| additional life expenses, and you aren't getting a degree
| that can open doors to additional jobs anymore. You are
| basically just continuing to chase a university career at
| shit pay by the point you reach a postdoc. The worst part
| is that people are forced into postdocs almost
| immediately, because you literally can't get one after
| you are a certain number of years past graduation.
|
| I don't disagree that as a society there are better ways.
| But as an individual actor unless you make an absolute
| killing with some start up or something there is no way
| you can afford to do proper biology research (for
| example). Perhaps if you're willing to move into some
| specific niche based on feasibility, but you'd have very
| little freedom in what questions you could ask this way.
| Beyond money there are also logistical questions
| surrounding care of animals or possible clinical
| collaboration, so unless you're happy doing in vitro work
| only this is another can of worms for someone attempting
| to be an independent researcher.
| treeman79 wrote:
| A lot of "amateurs" have access to far more resources than
| professionals of generations past.
|
| Equipment, training, larger communities, sometimes even
| functional wealth.
|
| Let's see what happens when we drop a car from a crane onto a
| trampoline.
|
| That's a lot more equipment then dropping a feather and a
| cannon ball off a tower.
| j4yav wrote:
| That's awesome. It is very much how I felt about computers when
| I was learning them in the 80s.. me, a little kid, could make
| or do something that nobody had ever done before exactly. And
| all the other homebrew clubs and hacker groups were doing the
| same thing. I guess 3d printing was similar recently, and I'm
| excited to see what the next ones are.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Absolutely. The dog "Bunny" for example is really an incredible
| version of that. Watch a few of these videos and it will change
| how you see dogs for ever. Some examples of these dogs just
| focus on food or play. Bunny gets into questions about family,
| concern for neighbours dogs and existential stuff like "Mom,
| were you dog?"
|
| https://www.instagram.com/whataboutbunny/
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Bunny as presented is pretty mind blowing. But I wonder:
| since we only see a tiny part of her interactions, is this an
| example of a million monkeys with a million typewriters?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It strikes me as more likely that bunny is just memorizing
| button combinations (or more likely just a button, with ad-
| lib other buttons thrown in) that lead to certain actions -
| totally independent of the words being said.
|
| Take chimps for example, who learned hundreds of sign
| words. Despite knowing how to "communicate", they never
| once asked a question.
|
| I haven't watched a bunch of bunny videos, but it strikes
| me more as astrological sign reading than "dogs finally
| have a meaningful way to communicate".
| creddit wrote:
| > There is a sharp decline in reverence for "authority" along
| with a lowering of barriers to entry.
|
| This feels so different to what I've observed in "blue" states
| and popular media/social media over the last 1.3yrs
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Reminded me of a piece I wrote years about about amateurs in
| science:
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/mar/03/amateu...
| akomtu wrote:
| I'm sure they'll advance science a lot more when they find those
| mushrooms!
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I know the parent comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but it
| reminds me of a theory about the origins of human intelligence
| that I heard in the documentary Fantastic Fungi. Long story
| short the theory is that our ancestors stumbled upon magic
| mushrooms and the psychedelic experience was a spark of new
| perspective, and then the one who discovered the mushrooms
| would take its tribe to other psychedelic mushrooms and have
| them try them so that they would all experience the perspective
| shift.
| bredren wrote:
| To bring this a little closer to this audience, readers may
| be interested in John Markoff's book What the Doormouse Said,
| which draws a direct line between the use of psychedelics and
| the development of the personal computer.
| ryder9 wrote:
| crackpot hypothesis without any basis in reality, can't even
| call it a hypothesis since legitimate hypotheses have
| somewhat of a basis in reality
|
| the sort of stuff joe rogan would spew under the influence
| pmoriarty wrote:
| My favorite amateur mushroom hunter is Alan Rockefeller, who I
| found out about through his fantastic talks on identifying
| psilocybin mushrooms: [1] [2]
|
| He talks about how he got in to mushroom hunting at about 18
| minutes in to [1]:
|
| _" About 2001 I went hiking, and I've always been in to nature
| and camping but around 2001 I was hiking and I kind of felt like
| it was sort of a waste of time to hike. Sure, it was exercise and
| it was pretty out there, but I was kind of like "What am I doing
| with my life?", but I saw all these mushrooms, and I'm like
| "Huh.. these are pretty interesting," and so I looked at them a
| little closer and thought "there must be people out there that
| know what these are, that know which ones are common, which ones
| are hallucinogenic, poisonous," and so I just started paying a
| little bit of attention to them and taking pictures of them and
| that gave me a reason to go out in to the woods, so I didn't feel
| nearly so guilty for wasting all my time in the forest anymore,
| since I had a mission._
|
| _" These days my mission is usually to take the best pictures I
| possibly can of every species of mushroom I come across and then
| I publish all the pictures online with a free license so anybody
| can use them forever. I do DNA sequencing of all of them and get
| them all in to genbank. But I think the path was just being
| really curious about them and just being really curious about
| nature and doing that. I never really expected to get well known
| for psilocybin mushrooms. That was kind of random. I just got
| really in to them at the same time they got kind of popular._
|
| _" I think psilocybin mushrooms are really useful for getting
| people interested in nature. So many people out there looking for
| psilocybin mushrooms. This gets them outside, gets them looking
| closely at the mushrooms. There are so many people looking for
| psilocybin mushrooms to get high and now they're super in to
| plants and mushrooms and all of nature. It's kind of like a
| gateway in to nature."_
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pInqVRRva7M
|
| [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs
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