Table Of ContentCitizen Science Fiction
Citizen Science Fiction
Jerome Winter
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Names:Winter,Jerome,author.
Title:Citizensciencefiction/JeromeWinter.
Description:Lanham:LexingtonBooks,[2021]|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2020057374(print)|LCCN2020057375(ebook)|ISBN9781793621474(cloth)|
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Subjects:LCSH:Science--Studyandteaching.|Research--Citizenparticipation.|Science--Social
aspects.|Sciencefictioninscienceeducation.
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Contents
Introduction 1
1 MaddAddamiteScience:TeachingCitizenSciencethrough
theThresholdConceptsofGeneCulture 19
2 EducatingtheAnthropocene:CitizenScience,Science
Fiction,andClimate-ChangeResilience 55
3 NegotiatingtheArtandRhetoricofArtificialIntelligence
andCitizenSciencethroughScienceFiction 89
4 MappaMundi:IncorporatingNeuro-Literacyandthe
CognitiveScienceofEmotionintoTeachingComposition 119
5 ContemplatingtheScience-FictionalCosmos:Citizen
Science,Astronomy,andMindfulnessRhetoricand
Pedagogy 157
WorksCited 197
Index 209
AbouttheAuthor 215
v
Introduction
“Don’tdoit,Citizen!Litteringthestreetsisanoffense!”Thusshoutsthe
staunchfuture-copJudgeDreddinthe“FullEarthCrimes”(1978)comic-
stripstoryline,scriptedbyJohnWagnerandpenciledandinkedbyBrian
Bolland and Mike McMahon, first serialized in the influential magazine
2000AD.Retaininganessentialsuperheroiccorebeneathhisgrimantihe-
roic exterior, Judge Dredd yells this absurdly ecofascist warning as he
valiantlyswoopsdowninhisflyingmotorcycletorescueasuicidaljump-
er who has flung himself in despair from a towering overcrowded sky-
scraper. The stone-faced and forever behelmeted Judge Dredd then sub-
sequentlychargesthementallyillmanwithbeingapublicnuisanceand
harshlybooks him for ninety days of penal servitude, thereby maintain-
ing his no-nonsense fearsome reputation as the most merciless law en-
forcer in the postapocalyptic metropolis known as Mega-City One. Rhe-
torically,thispulp-infusedhailingofthelaw-abiding“citizen”asanhon-
orific epithet of dystopian propaganda suggests that the cultural idea of
citizenship cannot be neatly divorced from biopolitical discourses that
privilegethepolicingandsurveillanceofstatesovereigntyasHobbesian
hedgeonthewarofallagainstall.
Indeed, some academic critics contend that citizenship as an abstract
categoryamounts to an irredeemablyinvidiousdistinctionconcocted by
themoderncapitalism-drivennation-statethatdiscriminatesagainstand
arbitrarily excludes individuals from basic access to necessities of survi-
val.DimitryKochenov,forinstance,eloquentlycastigatesthecelebration
of good citizenship as an inherent democratic right and responsibility:
“abstractandessentially impersonal,citizenship is totalitarian in nature:
it does not emerge in ‘dialogue’ and is much less flexible than many
would like to think” (38). Against this problematic construction of citi-
zenship as a toothless variety of civility politics, many others argue that
the overriding mission of educational institutions should be, as Martha
Nussbaumdescribestheimperative,toproduceandcultivatethoughtful
citizens more broadly conceived as “the ideal of a citizen whose primary
loyaltyistohumanbeingstheworldover,andwhosenational,local,and
varied group loyalties are considered distinctly secondary” (9). Given
thiscontestedlinkagebetweensovereignty,citizenship,andeducation,it
isthereforeperhapsunsurprisingtofindacompellinglynuancedformal
definition of “citizen science” issued by the United States Congress in
TheCrowdsourcingandCitizenScienceActof2016:
1
2 Introduction
Theterm“citizenscience”meansaformofopencollaborationinwhich
individualsororganizationsparticipateinthescientificprocessinvari-
ous ways, including (A) enabling the formulation of research ques-
tions;(B)creatingandrefiningprojectdesign;(C)conductingscientific
experiments;(D)collectingandanalyzingdata;(E)interpretingthere-
sultsofdata;(F)developingtechnologiesandapplications;(G)making
discoveries;and(H)solvingproblems.
Bynomeansatotalitarianbill,thisinnocuouspieceoflegislationformal-
ly grants the federal government and states the authority to sponsor,
fund, and coordinate citizen-science projects, stipulates protections of
privacy for participants, declares the official intention for citizen-science
datatobemadepublicandopen-sourced,setsupsguidelinesforpartner-
shipsbetweenmarket and nonprofit organizations in the administration
ofcitizenscience,andcreatesanaccessibletoolkitandwebsitetoassistin
thedevelopmentofcitizen-scienceprojects.Thecongressionalbillmight
be seen, then, as officially sanctioning what had already become readily
apparent to the previously converted legions of citizen-science acolytes,
aficionados,andprofessionalswhohadbeenbusilyamassingtheirnum-
bersfordecades,ifnotcenturies.Thebill,afterall,isonlythenextlogical
extension of the recent rapid expansion of citizen commitment to the
operations of science, a technologically assisted transformative shift in
the relationship between scientific communities and the public sphere,
laypeople, and experts. The bill endows citizen science with an aura of
public trust, confidence, and credibility it has already widely begun to
wieldintherealmoflocalandglobalculturalpoliticswritlarge,further
legitimating the phenomenon as a significant restructuring of the social
networks, institutions, methodologies, and apparatuses that constitute
howordinarypeopleunderstandandgetinvolvedinsciencetoday.
Intheeducationalcontext,however,thedystopian,exclusionarycon-
notations of citizenship in citizen-science rhetoric and discourses have
notgoneunnoticed.A2018NationalAcademiesofScienceReport,Learn-
ingthroughCitizenScience,followinginthefootstepsofthecongressional
act,frankly expresses the concern that “the term ‘citizen,’ particularly in
the United States, connects to a contentious immigration debate about
who is eligible to participate in civic life, including science and educa-
tion” (14). Indeed, as a devastatingly frank critic might put it, citizen
science can all too easily be characterized as overworked and under-
funded scientific experts, experimenters, and authorities deploying ma-
nipulative guile to dragoon unpaid menial labor from entitled, naïve
dilletantes who have the privileged luxury of flaunting their civic status
anddonatingtheirpreciousleisuretimetotheirglorifiedhobbies.With-
outeverdismissingthisperhapsundulyfiercecritiqueoutofhand,how-
ever,CitizenScienceFictionarguesincontrastthatcitizensciencemightbe
viewedasaremarkableevolutionofcrowd-sourcedprojects,anintensifi-
cation of a globally affiliated network of cosmopolitan citizens, and a
Introduction 3
sociological sea change in the scientific establishment. This social and
politicaltransformationpromisestodismantlesomesalient cultural bar-
riersthatblockadelaypeoplefromscientificexpertiseandunproductive-
ly entrench pro-science from antiscience ideologues in cultural ex-
changes.Evenso,itmustcontinuallyberememberedthatcitizenscience,
even when uncomfortably draped in outwardly benevolent or progres-
siverhetoric,isnotmerelyequivalenttoothernobleactsofcivicengage-
ment, such as volunteering in a soup kitchen, donating blood, marching
againstasocialinjustice,orcanvassingforalocalelection.
Citizen science has become affiliated with many acronyms and key-
words in the proliferating academic literature on the subject, such as
participatoryactionresearch,community-basedmanagement,andpublic
participation in scientific research. However, citizen science is what the
phenomenon is usually referred to in colloquial conversation, perhaps
because a companionate marriage between the everyday understanding
ofcitizenship and scienceisintegral to the phenomenon. This book Citi-
zen Science Fiction continues the precedent set by James Wynn’s Citizen
Science in the Digital Age (2017), which invokes the Aristotelian ethical-
rhetorical terminology of “good judgment” (phronesis), “virtuousness”
(arête),and“goodwill”(eunoia)tosegregatetheconsumerhobbyofregur-
gitatingbeer-matfunfactsandventriloquizingmass-mediasciencepop-
ularization, or what Wynn identifies as “semi-expertise” or “association
to expertise,” from more substantial “interactional” and “contributory”
citizen-science expertise in which one can witness “interaction with the
culture and contribution to the production of science that will guide the
theoreticaldistinction...betweentechnicalandnontechnicalethos”(71).
As discussed in chapters that follow, the plentiful examples of citizen
sciencestudiedinthebookand validated as credible and qualified even
byauthoritativeexpertiseachievethisobjectiveandtransparentmethod-
ologicalortechnicalethosbydoingthehardworkofrealscience:gener-
ating research questions, testing hypotheses, assessing risks, demystify-
ing expertise, and making policy. Readers will recall that The Crowd-
sourcingandCitizenScienceActof2016definedcitizenscienceasaspir-
ingtotransmittingsuchinteractionalandcontributorytechnicalethosto
its eager and accomplished participants. Nevertheless, what this book
wishes to add to Wynn’s astute inquiry into the Aristotelian rhetoric of
citizen science is that the putatively objective and neutral purity of the
technicalethosadditionallyreliesonacoproductionofscientificcredibil-
ity and an intricate matrix of historical discourses, cultural politics, and
social norms ripe for integrating into rhetoric-and-composition pedago-
gy.
Indarktimesmarkedbyposttruthdisinformationcampaignsandthe
viral dissemination of false media endorsed by autocratic rulers, pro-
science apologists, committed popularizers, and earnest activists fre-
quently assume that science-deniers, the misinformed, and fact-ignorers
