After 25 years collecting, analysing, reporting, and translating environmental data, I faced an identity crisis when I started a PhD and was told that I wasn’t a scientist without a doctorate. So, what have I been doing all these years? Who is a scientist and who says?
Science may be as old as society but somewhere it shifted from survival to status. The origin story of science that starts with Aristotle completely ignores the observation and inquiry conducted by First Nations and women over millennia. Farmers, midwives, hunters, and herbalists were scientists before science. Even scientific researchers once equated the term ‘scientist’ with ‘sell-out’ but over time, western science laid claim to knowledge. Knowledge became knotted with progress and power and only those within the ivory tower could record observations and produce ‘creditable evidence’. As white men haunted the hallowed halls of academia almost exclusively for centuries, they hoarded, wielded, and brokered scientific credibility.
But science by the people and for the people is re-emerging. The latent curiosity within communities is bubbling to the surface, fuelled by a technological revolution in the form of smartphones that places data collection tools in the hands of almost half the world’s population. Citizen science is knocking at the ivory tower door and demanding to be heard. More than 140 million bird sightings were posted to eBird last year and globally, a billion people are expected to contribute to citizen science this year. There is also growing recognition and respect for indigenous ways of knowing and enhanced channels for knowledge sharing across institutional and cultural boundaries. The eroding exclusivity of science makes space for a wider community of curious minds that can conduct science that is responsive, representative, and relevant.
As powerful propaganda assaults science and scientists, our instincts say to raise the bridge and raise the bar but gate-keeping can no longer protect the institution. Instead of retreating, we should be recruiting. We are all capable of observation, inquiry, critical thinking, and action. Science will always require rigour, research, and expertise but the scale of solutions we seek exceeds what traditional western science can supply. Novel ecosystems rendered by abrupt environmental changes require novel, broader thinking.
I resent the arrogance and refuse to apply the ‘scientist’ label only to those with doctoral degrees. It’s no wonder most of the students in my daughter’s class drew men in lab coats when asked to ‘draw a scientist’. I’m touched that my daughter drew me but it would be even better if she were to draw herself. We can all be scientists. Let’s go forth and observe, listen, and learn so that we can collectively stand against misinformation, ignorant policy, and the exploitation of irreplaceable natural resources. Science by the people, science for society, is a science of survival.
