Crowdsourcing & Citizen Science

This lecture explores the concept of Citizen Science (CS) as a bridge between science and politics, historicizing its development and discussing its impact on scientific knowledge. It delves into the role of amateurs in scientific practices, the classification of CS projects, and the significance of crowdsourcing in tackling complex challenges. Examples such as SETI@home, Microbiome Immunity Project, and CoCoRaHS are presented to illustrate the diverse applications of citizen science. The lecture also covers the evolution of amateur science from the 18th century to countercultural movements in the 1960s-80s, emphasizing the shift towards science for the people and the democratization of scientific knowledge.