I have been scrabbling around for recent invoices and whatnot so that I can apply for a police check certificate from ACRO0. This is so that I can get a different class of visa, and I need to do it quite quickly, otherwise I’ll be returning to the UK somewhat sooner than I intend. I also have to get my photo endorsed by a ‘professional’, just as for a passport application. Now, in Australia the list of people who may endorse passport photos is quite short, but the British, bless ’em, are more relaxed, accepting signatures from anyone on the following list:
- Accountant
- Bank/building society official
- Barrister
- Broker
- Chairman / Director / Manager / Personnel Officer (limited company)
- Chiropodist
- Commissioner of Oaths
- Councillor: local or county
- Civil Servant (permanent)
- Engineer (Qualified)
- Fire Service Official
- General Practitioner
- Minister of a recognised religion
- Nurse (SRN and SEN)
- Member of Parliament
- Merchant Navy Officer
- Optician/Chemist/Dentist
- Police Officer / Police Staff
- Post Office Official
- Solicitor
- Teacher or Lecturer
Furthermore, I am encouraged to
note that this list is not exhaustive, but
I must
ensure that the endorsing individual is a Professional
with a capital P.
Working in a University Department I can’t help but know a few lecturers–they usually beg me for food scraps as I pass them in the corridor–so it’s not a major problem. But it got me thinking about this whole Amateur/Professional divide.
Here at Nature Network we’ve been talking about pay and “fame and glory”:http://network.nature.com/people/UE19877E8/blog/2008/09/29/in-which-science-becomes-a-sport-–-hypothetically-speaking, mostly tongue-in-cheek (if you hadn’t realized), and one of the things that comes out is that most scientists are still doing this because they want to. That we’re, essentially, amateurs getting paid to do a hobby. The remarkable thing is that there are amateurs out there who are not getting paid for it, yet still do it. Science is a drug (this is something I’ll explore more in my own forthcoming novel. I know, everyone’s at it these days).
As Henry I think pointed out elsewhere, stuff like astronomy can be done by amateurs : you just need a decent telescope (couple of hundred quid, maybe) and time and patience. Theoretical physics can be done by anyone with access to a blackboard. Biological sciences are harder, generally requiring nubile young students expensive equipment and a shedload of paperwork. Folding@home (warning: it says ‘Mad Cow’ on that page) can be performed by the amateur, admittedly, but it’s basically physics, yeah?
(Big physics, small biology. Spot the difference. Actually, small physics and big biology are the flip-side of that coin.)
And I find that I have to do things that I don’t actually get paid to do, and so am actually an enthusiastic amateur in my day job, especially when it comes to extreme nerding (actually, I have to do this because it’s almost impossible to find computational people who (a) know any biology (b) are interested in relevant biological problems1. There are honorable exceptions of course).
What’s intriguing to me is that this, the ‘cult of the amateur’ if you like, is tightly linked to our engagement with the wider public. There are a lot of very smart people out there who are not doing science as a day job. They may not have scientific training, and might in fact have some wrong-headed notions, but that does not mean they’re stupid. They may, in fact, have a lot to contribute.
How do we engage with these people, explain why what we’re doing (both generally and specifically) is important? Should we do this? I could really do with some amateur help with my microarray dataset, someone with skills I don’t have, don’t really have the time to learn, but who wants to nerd around with code and answer the questions I think are interesting2. Is the Open Science movement a step in the right direction?
What, in effect, could we spool out to enthusiastic and capable amateurs in our own fields? Would it be useful? And as these people get involved, and talk to their friends and families, would it eventually serve to increase scientific literacy?
———————-
fn0. Australia, apparently, has had enough of other nations’ convicts. She produces enough of her own already, I guess.
1 Why are in silico fantasists so obsessed with proving the fossil record? Haven’t we done evolution already?
2 I can’t pay them, obviously…
Chiropodists? At least they could vouch for your feet.
bq. Biological sciences are harder, generally requiring expensive equipment and a shedload of paperwork.
Not if you’re looking at real organisms. You know, in the wild. There are a lot of amateur birders, lepidoptorists, coleoptorists and other observers of wild life who collect very useful data, and can get quite organized about it. The Millennium Atlas of Butterflies in Britain and Ireland, for example, is mainly based on data from amateurs.
Oh dear, I’m not going to have to explain to you that the natural habitat of E. coli isn’t Petri dishes, am I?
you mean shaking flasks don’t grow wild on the savannah?
I love what they are doing at the Institute for the Future, using gamers to simulate/forecast reality or to crunch through repetitive tasks. The only downside, from a sci-comm perspective, is that perhaps these gamers don’t want to know why they are doing what they are doing — they would need to suspend their disbelief to engage with the game’s ‘story’, and knowing how unglamorous their part in the science really is might shatter the necessary illusion.
Dash it all. I meant to link to this lovely article from Aunty Beeb. Interesting stuff.
Heh, Jenny: maybe we need to come up with some kind of game format for array analysis…?
Hmmm … “bank or building society official”. No comment!
I read “barista” instead of “barrister”.
Hey, now there’s a profession that deserves more respect.
>sups coffee from Azzuri’s
Richard> well at least you can get the photo endorsed by several different types of people. You can choose 😉 I wish you good luck with the photo.
For me, the only option was to go to a “special” photographer in sthlm to get my VISA for US, and for getting a passport photo in my native country you have to go to the police and let hem take a digital photo of you….
see, this is all one of the main reasons I don’t carry my passport with me in case it would get stolen. have to go back (without a passport) and then wait for at least 6 weeks for it all over again. Not so much.
Of course a Professor must be a Professional. I was asked by one of my neighbours (a senior manager in Astra Zeneca) to endorse his passport photographs but from that list could he return the favour? I think he could because he is a Chemical Engineer by training but possibly not otherwise from his industry position.
However, on the bright side note that the list does not endorse junk science/medicine it includes Chiropodists but not Chiropractors.
It doesn’t, I notice, include royalty.
How very republican.
(And I have to laugh at Engineer (Qualified). Engineer (Unqualified) is right out, presumably).
Some of my favourite museum collections are those of, often amateur, Victorian naturalists, geologists and other amateur *ists and *ologist. The attention to detail, the presentation and the oddness and sometimes nonsensical interpretations are utterly fascinating.
I’m not aware of it being a popular pass-time among adults today (children are different), and I wonder whether that is because science is seen as being so serious, and so hard. Whatever the reason, I feel that we’re the poorer for it, and amateur science should be encouraged.
‘Ello Charles.
I thought things like the Science Museum and the NHM were pretty popular? I’m not sure what there even is in Australia: Sydney has the Powerhouse but I’m not aware of anything like the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. A cultural rather than an age difference maybe?
They’re hugely popular, but despite the interactive displays, visiting a museum is a largely passive affair (I wasn’t allowed to touch the Apollo capsule at the Science Museum, for instance). It is the actual doing that doesn’t seem to be so popular anymore outside of school classes.
Hmm. There isn’t actually the infrastructure for the doing, outside of school, is there?
(Not to mention what would happen H&S-wise…)
I mean I know you like to do stuff, and have the ‘scope and whatnot, but there isn’t somewhere you can go to do it; you’ve got to find the motivation and buy the kit yourself.
Christmas Bird Count is the biggest amateur science activity in any given year. And it is quite useful.
That’s checking stocks of turkeys and geese at the Covered Market, yah?
I seem to remember the RSPB asking people count squished insects… ah! Here and here.