{"title":"What’s in a name? Citizen science in pandemic times","authors":"S. Priest","doi":"10.7203/METODE.12.20694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/METODE.12.20694","url":null,"abstract":"The phrase citizen science is certainly appealing, especially for many of us who have championed the notion of increasing public engagement in science. Citizen science refers most often to projects in which non-scientists provide some of the labor needed for the collection of scientific data, often in environmental research contexts. This involvement provides volunteer workers in support of science while in turn, ideally, offering rewarding and educational participation opportunities for the volunteers. An early U.S. model for citizen participation has been the Cornell University ornithology laboratory, where the recruitment of a widely dispersed army of bird watchers and other non-scientist citizens continues to assist with bird population research and related studies. \u0000But the specific phrase citizen science also conjures up the idea of a sort of participatory democracy operating in the service of science, allowing fresh ideas to bubble up and their policy implications to receive thoughtful attention and popular feedback early on (or, as we later learned to say, «upstream»). It might also suggest science that operates more clearly in the service of society, taking research direction from what its citizens (as community members) actually have to say. This train of thought brings citizen science closer to the idea of community-based participatory research, in which scientific goals are defined in part by communities outside of science itself. The emergence of university-based «science shops», more a European than an American phenomenon, is another close cousin in which scientists allow communities to suggest research problems that reflect community needs. \u0000This issue of Metode presents a series of cases that illustrate both the concept and its divergent objectives: facilitating communication between scientists and non-scientists, raising public interest in science and levels of science literacy, empowering the pursuit of public policy goals, and even pushing the boundaries of social science theory. Younger participants in particular might be motivated to consider alternative career paths, potentially increasing diversity among scientific professionals. Collectively, these goals represent an ambitious agenda for the future through the advancement of frontiers in communication, education, and politics – as well as science itself. And these intriguing cases are still only a handful among many. \u0000Who is a «citizen» and in what sense can they actually «do science»? In the early days of scientific journals, most authors were gentlemen of status. Must a citizen scientist of our own time likewise be a gentleman of status? That certainly does not seem right or fair. Yet, at the same time, the idea that «just anyone» can do science is just not quite right either. Both scientific expertise and scientific authority still matter, especially in the era of climate and COVID where misinformation is often said to be rampant – and is potentially deadly. Given that,","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127326816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring radiation measurement after Fukushima: When media ecology meets citizen science","authors":"Yasuhito Abe","doi":"10.7203/METODE.12.17642","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/METODE.12.17642","url":null,"abstract":"While various scholars have investigated the role of citizens in generating scientific data after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster under the labels of citizen science and citizen sensing, this essay draws on media ecology and explores its potential theoretical usefulness for enhancing our understanding of post-Fukushima citizen science practices. Taking Marshall McLuhan’s perspective of technology as a medium, this essay creates a theoretical framework for foregrounding the role of a measurement device (of radiation levels, in this case) in extending its user’s body and mind. In doing so, this essay attempts to contribute to the fields of media studies and Science, Technology, and Society (STS).","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116945845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Pedrós-Alió, Josep Piqué, Rafel Simó i Martorell
{"title":"Oceans. The impact of global change on the sea","authors":"C. Pedrós-Alió, Josep Piqué, Rafel Simó i Martorell","doi":"10.7203/METODE.11.19797","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/METODE.11.19797","url":null,"abstract":"A phenomenon of exceptional importance such as global change and its multiple effects has been discussed in several Mètode monographs. In recent years, public concern about what we already perceive to be the greatest threat to humanity has not stopped growing; at the same time, the United Nations have proclaimed the period 2021-2030 as the Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development, recognising the close relationship between the oceans, climate, and social welfare. The sea is a climate regulator and a reservoir of biodiversity, a source of food and other resources, a transport route, a cultural asset, and the driving force behind the tourism industry; it is also a natural hazard and, unfortunately, a dumping ground for waste and refuse.","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123371192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"COVID-19: A forest fire rather than a wave?","authors":"E. Semino","doi":"10.7203/METODE.11.19336","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/METODE.11.19336","url":null,"abstract":"As I write this piece, many countries around the world are being described as experiencing a «second wave» of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, on 19 September 2020, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: «We are now seeing a second wave coming in. We’ve seen it in France, in Spain, across Europe. It’s been absolutely inevitable, I’m afraid, that we would see it in this country». \u0000Metaphors are crucial tools for communication and thinking, and can be particularly useful in public health communication. For example, the «second wave» metaphor suggests that there is renewed danger and threat from the virus, and may therefore encourage compliance with measures aimed at reducing transmission. However, all metaphors have both strengths and limitations, and the potential to be used both to enlighten and to obfuscate. The metaphor of the pandemic as a series of waves suggests that changes in the number of infections are due to the virus itself (cf. the idea that it may be seasonal), rather than the result of actions taken to slow its spread. In this sense, this metaphor is inaccurate. As Dr. Margaret Harris from the World Health Organization put it, «We are in the first wave. There is going to be one big wave». In addition, precisely because waves follow one another uncontrollably, this metaphor can be used strategically to present new increases in infection as inevitable, as in Boris Johnson’s statement, and thus to deflect responsibility from governments and their policies. \u0000As with any other complex and long-term problem, different metaphors are needed to capture different aspects of the pandemic, convey different messages, and address different audiences. \u0000Based on the analysis of two different datasets (the #ReframeCovid multilingual metaphor collection – an open-source repository of non-war-related language on COVID-19 – and the English Coronavirus Corpus – a multi-million-word database of news articles in English since January 2020 – I suggest that the metaphor of COVID-19 as a fire, and specifically a forest fire, is particularly apt and versatile. Forest fires are dangerous and hard to control. However, they can be controlled, with prompt and appropriate action. They can even be prevented, by looking after the land properly, protecting the environment, and educating citizens to behave responsibly. \u0000Indeed, forest fire metaphors for COVID-19 have been used since the start of the pandemic for multiple purposes, including to: convey danger and urgency (e.g., COVID-19 as a «forest fire that may not slow down»); distinguish between different phases of the pandemic (e.g., «a fire raging» vs. «embers» that must be stopped from causing a new fire); explain how contagion happens and the role of individuals within that (e.g., people as trees in a forest catching fire one after the other, or as breathing out «invisible embers»); justify measures for reducing contagion (e.g., social distancing as «fire lines» in a forest); connect the pandemic with hea","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122090497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Saving the pharmacy of the sea: How does global change affect species with bioactive potential in the Mediterranean?","authors":"A. Carreño, Àngel Izquierdo-Font, J. Lloret","doi":"10.7203/metode.11.17002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.17002","url":null,"abstract":"Several marine species in the Mediterranean produce molecules with bioactive potential that could be used to develop new drugs (antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, and antitumourals). Different human activities such as pollution, marine recreation, and fishing, as well as climate change, threaten and even endanger some of these species. These vulnerable species with bioactive potential must be protected, especially in marine reserves, not only because they are valuable components of marine ecosystems, but also because they are a potential source of molecules with pharmacological properties that are currently being researched for the creation of new drugs.","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"172 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132819415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sea-level rise: Which is the role of glaciers and polar ice sheets?","authors":"F. Navarro","doi":"10.7203/metode.11.16988","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16988","url":null,"abstract":"Sea-level has been rising at an accelerated rate during recent decades and is projected to continue increasing at an accelerated rate over the twenty-first century and beyond, mostly as a result of anthropogenic warming. A substantially raised sea level can have severe impacts on low-lying coastal areas, including coastal erosion and flooding of inhabited areas. Under continued climate warming, these impacts will be exacerbated by extreme meteorological events and extreme wave heights, posing severe risks to the human communities and coastal ecosystems. In this paper we review the recent advances on the contributions of glaciers and sheets to sea-level rise, in the light of the recently released IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128540794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Gómez-Donoso, M. Martínez-González, M. Bes-Rastrollo
{"title":"Disentagling nutrition facts from fiction: Towards healthy and sustainable consumption in industrialized societies","authors":"C. Gómez-Donoso, M. Martínez-González, M. Bes-Rastrollo","doi":"10.7203/METODE.11.16202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/METODE.11.16202","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last centuries, in the context of industrialization, globalization and urbanization, profound dietary changes have occurred. Ubiquitous access to cheap, readily available and highly palatable unhealthy products, together with aggressive marketing that forcefully impacts social norms, have led to overconsumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods. This has not only been associated with a higher prevalence of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, but also with detrimental effects on the world’s natural resources. Broader and braver public health measures favoring the availability and affordability of healthy, minimally processed foods should be implemented in conjunction with educational strategies to re-encourage a healthy and sustainable food consumption. ","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122992832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The long and winding road: Accidents and tinkering in software standardization","authors":"S. Valverde","doi":"10.7203/metode.11.16112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16112","url":null,"abstract":"Software is based on universal principles but not its development. Relating software to hardware is never automatic or easy. Attempts to optimize software production and drastically reduce their costs (like in hardware) have been very restricted. Instead, highly-skilled and experienced individuals are ultimately responsible for project success. The long and convoluted path towards useful and reliable software is often plagued by idiosyncratic accidents and emergent complexity. It was expected that software standardisation would remove these sources of unwanted diversity by aiming to controllable development processes, universal programming languages, and toolkits of reusable software components. However, limited adoption of development standards suggests that we still do not understand why software is so difficult to produce. Software standardisation has been limited by our poor understanding of humans’ role at the origin of technological diversity.","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125252134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards the right standards: The intersection of open science, responsible research and innovation, and standards","authors":"M. Garfinkel","doi":"10.7203/metode.11.16103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16103","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction of standards in research and development leading to new products or innovative processes can be thought of as a particularly technical approach to framing scientific enterprises. At the other end of the spectrum, open science or responsible research and innovation may be initially thought of as concepts with no underlying technical approaches to support them. In reality as currently practiced, the development and use of standards engages significant non-technical aspects, needing to take into account research cultures or desired societal outcomes. Similarly, open science, and responsible research and innovation can operate using very practical and technical approaches. This essay focuses at the intersections of these concepts to try to contribute to larger discussions in both the research and governance communities as to how researchers should conduct their research, and what respective responsibilities of researchers, their institutes, and their supporters are.","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130911709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Standardisation and social ordering: A change of perspective","authors":"Pablo Schyfter","doi":"10.7203/metode.11.16013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16013","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines standardisation in synthetic biology as a form of social coordination and ordering. I discuss standardisation by exploring what makes standards possible, and offer an understanding based on infrastructures: technical and social systems that support the existence and operation of accepted standards. By exploring the role of social infrastructures, I contend that standards depend upon social ordering: ways of arranging people in particular positions, relations, and hierarchies. I suggest that synthetic biologists ought to develop an awareness of these social orders, take responsibility for their creation, and accept accountability for their consequences, both technical and social.","PeriodicalId":291069,"journal":{"name":"Mètode Revista\nde difusió de la\ninvestigació","volume":"123 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134281552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}