Re: [-empyre-] pre-panic notes

[Paul Vanouse <vanouse@buffalo.edu>]

Perhaps a curious note on the subject of TechnoPanic: Terrors and  
Technologies, this is less of a "statement" than a curious little  
factoid, potentially of interest.

Working with biotechnology for the last 9 or 10 years (since before  
the heavy-duty panic and the villainization of the amateur), I often  
like to point people to a great example of when big government had a  
very different angle on non-expert experimentation with new  
technologies.  Basically, this discussion comes up when describing  
how the FBIs recent and continuing harassment of artists (and the  
scientists who help them in) working with biotechnology could  
seriously impede the long-standing scientific agenda of the US.

The example is from a 1960 publication of Scientific American called  
"The Amateur Scientist" in which Vannevar Bush (Cold war scientist  
and Director of the Office of Scientific Research, envisioner of  
hypertext, no relation to GW of course) himself writes the  
introduction.  In this introduction, V. Bush waxes at length about  
the importance of the amateur and the artist to the task of science.   
"It was an amateur who discovered the planet Pluto, and an amateur  
who was primarily responsible for the development of the vitamin  
b1"  (ok, so pluto isn't considered a planet anymore, but thats not  
my point).   Indeed this was a time of chemistry sets and ham radios  
and such.

Anyway, searching for an online version of the article today, I found  
something less expected.  Newt Gingerich also waxing poetic about the  
need for the amateur in science in 2000.  (Gingerich is generally  
held responsible for destroying the US National Endowment for the  
Arts circa 1990).  So, my usage of this quote from him is  for the  
sake of weird irony than a wave of support.  Perhaps it is also an  
interesting historical document as it probably couldn't have been  
uttered by a Republican after Cheney's duct-tape speech.

Excerpted from
 http://www.newt.org/backpage.asp?art=423
"4. We need a new commitment to integrate the hobbies and funnel the  
interests of amateur scientists into real discovery. Significant  
recent findings by amateur scientists include animal tracks in New  
Mexico older than dinosaurs, and discovering supernovae in distant  
galaxies (2). It is important to remember that Darwin the amateur  
beetle collector nurtured Darwin the evolutionary theorist. There is  
plenty to be discovered and explored by amateurs, and the Internet  
combined with new instrumentation can harness and focus the work that  
amateurs already do.

Shawn Carlson recognized the untapped resource of amateur scientists  
and in 1994 founded the Society for Amateur Scientists (3). He and  
others guide amateur scientists in their research and enlist their  
help in gathering data for professional scientists. The society's Web  
site sends out calls for assistance on projects at universities and  
laboratories around the country. The potential is massive but the  
funds are lacking.

The Ames Research Center hosts a program that is another excellent  
example of amateurs, in this case, students, helping professionals  
with research. National Aeronautic and Space Administration funds a  
collaborative project between Ames and the nonprofit Marine Sciences  
Institute, a science education organization that runs educational  
cruises for teachers and students in the San Francisco Bay area (4).  
The program's director, Lynn Rothschild, has utilized the samples and  
physical data (temperature, UV radiation, water clarity, etc.)  
collected by students on the cruise to help her identify UV-absorbing  
pigments in plankton and to measure DNA damage experienced by  
plankton in the Bay at different times of the year. This information  
could help scientists understand more about environmental effects on  
coastal communities. Students are being immersed in research by  
giving them part-ownership in scientific data. This program not only  
nurtures the next generation of scientists but has allowed Ames to  
provide useful data that would otherwise have an economically  
prohibitive price tag. We need federal funding to support more  
programs like this one."