What is Science? Part 4

This is the fourth episode in this mini series trying to answer the question What is Science? In this episode, I am having a chat with Duncan Richardson, a music teacher, avid naturalist and citizen scientist. In a previous life he was a mathematician, and has aways kept a love for recording events and analysing them. He's part of several projects: the UK ladybird survey, a few for the British Trust for Ornithology, traps moths for the Butterfly Conservation Database. Anything he sees and identifies correctly he sends to the right people so get a good idea of the bigger picture. To Duncan, his view of science hasn't changed since he started doing citizen science projects. He's always believed that science is a way of trying to explain how things work, and seeing the theories and the relationships between the things around us. The change in definition of science for Duncan comes with the essence of citizen science itself: it is open and accessible to everyone and anyone. He believes that we are brought up to think science is for the incredibly intelligent in lab coats, not the average Joe. Whereas now, anyone can take part, anyone can help. And he thinks social media has the biggest part to play in this. Things like twitter make science and communication so immediate. He will collect data, and ask questions on Twitter to scientists and they respond back with suggested experiments. The interaction is key. #CitizenScience #LadybirdSurvey