It’s been a couple months since the symposium now, and I am still contemplating the complexities and mysteries of the world. Most of those thoughts however, have been dedicated to issues of public participation in science (okay, okay, maybe this is an exaggeration- I have been mostly thinking about what in the world I am going to do with my life after graduation, but that’s for another time). I recently finished my paper on the Personal Genome Project and its structure of participation, and it helped me to think about public participation a bit more concretely. Well, sort of – I think I just have even more questions.
One of the first questions that I started pondering about was the kinds of political philosophies that inspire our current notions of participation. On one hand, there are some theorists like Mill that believe that participation should be used to educate citizens (Mill, 1972). On the other hand, there are philosophers who argue that participation should be allowed only once citizens have been educated. I would also imagine that there is some sort of hybrid model of these two as well. Where then, does public participation in the world of science fall today? (When I discuss science here, I mean everything in the bio community, from the big research projects down to Outlaw Biology. Whether the bio community should be classified this way could be another topic of discussion.) In my initial empirical observations of the world around me, it seems like the purpose of modern day participation in science is indeed to educate or to learn more, at least from the perspective of the average joe. However, it also seems to erect some sort of barrier that prevents some people from participating. For example, the symposium would have excluded anyone who did not have a basic grasp of biological and genetic concepts (admittedly I did strawberry extractions with a four-year old, but is this true participation on his part?… another question for the ages). Also, this correlates with the fact that most of the people I met at the symposium were academics in biology, philosophy of science, biochem, etc.
In the above, I am assuming of course that the public refers to the entire population of the US – which brings me to my next question of “What is the public?” Professor Kelty raises this same question in his essay on Outlaw Bio (Kelty, 2010). I believe that the “public” as defined by science is narrower than the normal idea of the entire populace; I believe that another requirement for the “public” in science is that they must also have some background which exposes them to an interest in biology. My initial gut reaction to this is that the public should include all members of the populace capable of making their own decisions. But then again, bio participation is different from participation as a US citizen. Or is it?
This brings me to another question, which is how much can citizens affect the structure of participation in science, and what are the best methods for doing so? In other words, is the current participatory structure of science set up so that participants get a say in what goes on? Does Big Bio really have a grasp on science? Are Outlaws chipping away at the structure of Bio? How does participation as an Outlaw differ from participation as a patient in a research study?
I could go on and on with such questions, and as I mentioned before, I think I have even more now, especially after writing this. But I think it serves as a great springboard for more discussions, just like Prof Kelty’s piece. In other words, maybe y’all could help me tame this wild bronco of a subject known as public participation in science. Yeeehaw!
Jtheil
References
Mill, J.S. 1972. Utilitarianism, On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government. London: Everyman’s Library/Dent.
Kelty, C. 2010. “Outlaws, Hackers, Victorian Gentlemen”. From www.outlawbiology.net.
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