can we play science heuristic strategies of science research jies 2013

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of

Science Research

João André Duarte

jduarte@museus.ul.pt

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Citizen Science

Project or Activity in which the public collects and/or analyses data to helpunderstand large scale research questions

Aims

Increase Scientific Knowledge

Gather meaningfull data for large-scale research questions

Increase Scientific literacy and develop problem-solving skills

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Citizen Science

Public Participation in Science ResearchUSA’ NSF – PPSR, 1992

Three categories:

Contributory projects

Collaborative projects

Co-created projects

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Citizen Science

Public Participation in Science Research

is growingin numbers – “hundreds”impact – published papersmethodology - Citizen Science Toolkit

(CAISE Inquiry Group Report, 2009)

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Web 2.0

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

The detour

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Experience

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Experience

John Dewey (1859 – 1952)

Instrumentalism

Uncertain agencies

Efficient instruments

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Experience

John Dewey (1859 – 1952)

Empirical Naturalism“(…) experience, if scientific inquiry is justified, is no infinitesimally thin layer or foreground of nature, butthat it penetrates into it, reaching down into itsdepths, and in such a way that its grasp is capable ofexpansion”.

(Dewey, 1958)

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Experience

John Dewey (1859 – 1952)

Empirical Naturalism

Is a Humanist Naturalism

Experience as the place ‘where paupers andprinces meet as equals’

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Experience

John Dewey (1859 – 1952)

Pragmatism

Negation modern dualism - separationmind/physical -

Inferences – Practical consequences

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Solving Puzzles

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Solving Puzzles

to predict the structure of proteins withhuman’s puzzle-solving intuitions

http://fold.it

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Abduction

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914)

“Hypothesis is where we find somevery curious circumstance, whichwould be explained by the suppositionthat it was a case of a certain generalrule, and thereupon adopt thatsupposition.”

(Charles S. Peirce CP 2.624, Deduction, Induction, Hypothesis, 1878)

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Habit of mind

“That which determines us, from given premises, to draw one inference rather than

another, is some habit of mind, whether it be constitutional or acquired. The habit

is good or otherwise, according as it produces true conclusions from true premises

or not; and an inference is regarded as valid or not, without reference to the truth

or falsity of its conclusion specially, but according as the habit which determines it is

such as to produce true conclusions in general or not.”

(Charles S. Peirce, CP 5.367, The fixation of belief, 1877)

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Diagrammatic reasoning

“With the exception of knowledge, in the present instant, of the contents ofconsciousness in that instant (the existence of which knowledge is open to doubt)all our thought and knowledge is by signs. A sign therefore is an object which is inrelation to its object on the one hand and to an interpretant on the other, in such away as to bring the interpretant into a relation to the object, corresponding to itsown relation to the object. I might say 'similar to its own' for a correspondenceconsists in a similarity; but perhaps correspondence is narrower.”

(Peirce, 8.332, 1904, Letter to Lady Welby))

Can we play science? Heuristic Strategies of Science Research

Conclusions

• Citizen Science experience is compatible with Pragmatistheuristics;

• Is Citizen Science close to Dewey’s pedagogy and social project?• Is Peirce’s ‘logic of signs’ becoming more relevant?• Inclusion of this perspective in a wider media philosophy?