Citizen Science Fiction PDF
Preview Citizen Science Fiction
Citizen Science Fiction Citizen Science Fiction Jerome Winter LEXINGTONBOOKS Lanham•Boulder•NewYork•London PublishedbyLexingtonBooks AnimprintofTheRowman&LittlefieldPublishingGroup,Inc. 4501ForbesBoulevard,Suite200,Lanham,Maryland20706 www.rowman.com 6TinworthStreet,LondonSE115AL,UnitedKingdom Copyright©2021byTheRowman&LittlefieldPublishingGroup,Inc. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorbyany electronicormechanicalmeans,includinginformationstorageandretrievalsystems, withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher,exceptbyareviewerwhomayquote passagesinareview. BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationInformationAvailable LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Names:Winter,Jerome,author. Title:Citizensciencefiction/JeromeWinter. Description:Lanham:LexingtonBooks,[2021]|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. Identifiers:LCCN2020057374(print)|LCCN2020057375(ebook)|ISBN9781793621474(cloth)| ISBN9781793621481(ebook) Subjects:LCSH:Science--Studyandteaching.|Research--Citizenparticipation.|Science--Social aspects.|Sciencefictioninscienceeducation. Classification:LCCQ181.W7542021(print)|LCCQ181(ebook)|DDC507.1--dc23 LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020057374 LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020057375 TMThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsofAmerican NationalStandardforInformationSciencesPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibrary Materials,ANSI/NISOZ39.48-1992. Contents Introduction 1 1 MaddAddamiteScience:TeachingCitizenSciencethrough theThresholdConceptsofGeneCulture 19 2 EducatingtheAnthropocene:CitizenScience,Science Fiction,andClimate-ChangeResilience 55 3 NegotiatingtheArtandRhetoricofArtificialIntelligence andCitizenSciencethroughScienceFiction 89 4 MappaMundi:IncorporatingNeuro-Literacyandthe CognitiveScienceofEmotionintoTeachingComposition 119 5 ContemplatingtheScience-FictionalCosmos:Citizen Science,Astronomy,andMindfulnessRhetoricand Pedagogy 157 WorksCited 197 Index 209 AbouttheAuthor 215 v Introduction “Don’tdoit,Citizen!Litteringthestreetsisanoffense!”Thusshoutsthe staunchfuture-copJudgeDreddinthe“FullEarthCrimes”(1978)comic- stripstoryline,scriptedbyJohnWagnerandpenciledandinkedbyBrian Bolland and Mike McMahon, first serialized in the influential magazine 2000AD.Retaininganessentialsuperheroiccorebeneathhisgrimantihe- roic exterior, Judge Dredd yells this absurdly ecofascist warning as he valiantlyswoopsdowninhisflyingmotorcycletorescueasuicidaljump- er who has flung himself in despair from a towering overcrowded sky- scraper. The stone-faced and forever behelmeted Judge Dredd then sub- sequentlychargesthementallyillmanwithbeingapublicnuisanceand harshlybooks him for ninety days of penal servitude, thereby maintain- ing his no-nonsense fearsome reputation as the most merciless law en- forcer in the postapocalyptic metropolis known as Mega-City One. Rhe- torically,thispulp-infusedhailingofthelaw-abiding“citizen”asanhon- orific epithet of dystopian propaganda suggests that the cultural idea of citizenship cannot be neatly divorced from biopolitical discourses that privilegethepolicingandsurveillanceofstatesovereigntyasHobbesian hedgeonthewarofallagainstall. Indeed, some academic critics contend that citizenship as an abstract categoryamounts to an irredeemablyinvidiousdistinctionconcocted by themoderncapitalism-drivennation-statethatdiscriminatesagainstand arbitrarily excludes individuals from basic access to necessities of survi- val.DimitryKochenov,forinstance,eloquentlycastigatesthecelebration of good citizenship as an inherent democratic right and responsibility: “abstractandessentially impersonal,citizenship is totalitarian in nature: it does not emerge in ‘dialogue’ and is much less flexible than many would like to think” (38). Against this problematic construction of citi- zenship as a toothless variety of civility politics, many others argue that the overriding mission of educational institutions should be, as Martha Nussbaumdescribestheimperative,toproduceandcultivatethoughtful citizens more broadly conceived as “the ideal of a citizen whose primary loyaltyistohumanbeingstheworldover,andwhosenational,local,and varied group loyalties are considered distinctly secondary” (9). Given thiscontestedlinkagebetweensovereignty,citizenship,andeducation,it isthereforeperhapsunsurprisingtofindacompellinglynuancedformal definition of “citizen science” issued by the United States Congress in TheCrowdsourcingandCitizenScienceActof2016: 1 2 Introduction Theterm“citizenscience”meansaformofopencollaborationinwhich individualsororganizationsparticipateinthescientificprocessinvari- ous ways, including (A) enabling the formulation of research ques- tions;(B)creatingandrefiningprojectdesign;(C)conductingscientific experiments;(D)collectingandanalyzingdata;(E)interpretingthere- sultsofdata;(F)developingtechnologiesandapplications;(G)making discoveries;and(H)solvingproblems. Bynomeansatotalitarianbill,thisinnocuouspieceoflegislationformal- ly grants the federal government and states the authority to sponsor, fund, and coordinate citizen-science projects, stipulates protections of privacy for participants, declares the official intention for citizen-science datatobemadepublicandopen-sourced,setsupsguidelinesforpartner- shipsbetweenmarket and nonprofit organizations in the administration ofcitizenscience,andcreatesanaccessibletoolkitandwebsitetoassistin thedevelopmentofcitizen-scienceprojects.Thecongressionalbillmight be seen, then, as officially sanctioning what had already become readily apparent to the previously converted legions of citizen-science acolytes, aficionados,andprofessionalswhohadbeenbusilyamassingtheirnum- bersfordecades,ifnotcenturies.Thebill,afterall,isonlythenextlogical extension of the recent rapid expansion of citizen commitment to the operations of science, a technologically assisted transformative shift in the relationship between scientific communities and the public sphere, laypeople, and experts. The bill endows citizen science with an aura of public trust, confidence, and credibility it has already widely begun to wieldintherealmoflocalandglobalculturalpoliticswritlarge,further legitimating the phenomenon as a significant restructuring of the social networks, institutions, methodologies, and apparatuses that constitute howordinarypeopleunderstandandgetinvolvedinsciencetoday. Intheeducationalcontext,however,thedystopian,exclusionarycon- notations of citizenship in citizen-science rhetoric and discourses have notgoneunnoticed.A2018NationalAcademiesofScienceReport,Learn- ingthroughCitizenScience,followinginthefootstepsofthecongressional act,frankly expresses the concern that “the term ‘citizen,’ particularly in the United States, connects to a contentious immigration debate about who is eligible to participate in civic life, including science and educa- tion” (14). Indeed, as a devastatingly frank critic might put it, citizen science can all too easily be characterized as overworked and under- funded scientific experts, experimenters, and authorities deploying ma- nipulative guile to dragoon unpaid menial labor from entitled, naïve dilletantes who have the privileged luxury of flaunting their civic status anddonatingtheirpreciousleisuretimetotheirglorifiedhobbies.With- outeverdismissingthisperhapsundulyfiercecritiqueoutofhand,how- ever,CitizenScienceFictionarguesincontrastthatcitizensciencemightbe viewedasaremarkableevolutionofcrowd-sourcedprojects,anintensifi- cation of a globally affiliated network of cosmopolitan citizens, and a Introduction 3 sociological sea change in the scientific establishment. This social and politicaltransformationpromisestodismantlesomesalient cultural bar- riersthatblockadelaypeoplefromscientificexpertiseandunproductive- ly entrench pro-science from antiscience ideologues in cultural ex- changes.Evenso,itmustcontinuallyberememberedthatcitizenscience, even when uncomfortably draped in outwardly benevolent or progres- siverhetoric,isnotmerelyequivalenttoothernobleactsofcivicengage- ment, such as volunteering in a soup kitchen, donating blood, marching againstasocialinjustice,orcanvassingforalocalelection. Citizen science has become affiliated with many acronyms and key- words in the proliferating academic literature on the subject, such as participatoryactionresearch,community-basedmanagement,andpublic participation in scientific research. However, citizen science is what the phenomenon is usually referred to in colloquial conversation, perhaps because a companionate marriage between the everyday understanding ofcitizenship and scienceisintegral to the phenomenon. This book Citi- zen Science Fiction continues the precedent set by James Wynn’s Citizen Science in the Digital Age (2017), which invokes the Aristotelian ethical- rhetorical terminology of “good judgment” (phronesis), “virtuousness” (arête),and“goodwill”(eunoia)tosegregatetheconsumerhobbyofregur- gitatingbeer-matfunfactsandventriloquizingmass-mediasciencepop- ularization, or what Wynn identifies as “semi-expertise” or “association to expertise,” from more substantial “interactional” and “contributory” citizen-science expertise in which one can witness “interaction with the culture and contribution to the production of science that will guide the theoreticaldistinction...betweentechnicalandnontechnicalethos”(71). As discussed in chapters that follow, the plentiful examples of citizen sciencestudiedinthebookand validated as credible and qualified even byauthoritativeexpertiseachievethisobjectiveandtransparentmethod- ologicalortechnicalethosbydoingthehardworkofrealscience:gener- ating research questions, testing hypotheses, assessing risks, demystify- ing expertise, and making policy. Readers will recall that The Crowd- sourcingandCitizenScienceActof2016definedcitizenscienceasaspir- ingtotransmittingsuchinteractionalandcontributorytechnicalethosto its eager and accomplished participants. Nevertheless, what this book wishes to add to Wynn’s astute inquiry into the Aristotelian rhetoric of citizen science is that the putatively objective and neutral purity of the technicalethosadditionallyreliesonacoproductionofscientificcredibil- ity and an intricate matrix of historical discourses, cultural politics, and social norms ripe for integrating into rhetoric-and-composition pedago- gy. Indarktimesmarkedbyposttruthdisinformationcampaignsandthe viral dissemination of false media endorsed by autocratic rulers, pro- science apologists, committed popularizers, and earnest activists fre- quently assume that science-deniers, the misinformed, and fact-ignorers
The list of books you might like
