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Time to open up knowledge generation to people untrained in science
It is to the benefit of science and society to engage the public in supporting and questioning scientific knowledge. But the very engagement unsettles the current boundaries between what is considered valid knowledge and what is not.
VANCOUVER, B.C.—Until recently the notion of "democratizing" science—reforming the scientific elite—seemed ridiculous to me. I had spent years of my life in graduate school, surrounded by fleece-wearing, coffee-drinking, slightly introverted physicists. I saw no evidence of an elite. But working in women's health research over the last few years, I have begun to understand how knowledge is related to power. Power can be held by people conducting research, but more importantly there is an automatic prestige associated with science because scientific knowledge is the dominant epistemology in our society.
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Time to open up knowledge generation to people untrained in science
It is to the benefit of science and society to engage the public in supporting and questioning scientific knowledge. But the very engagement unsettles the current boundaries between what is considered valid knowledge and what is not.
VANCOUVER, B.C.—Until recently the notion of "democratizing" science—reforming the scientific elite—seemed ridiculous to me. I had spent years of my life in graduate school, surrounded by fleece-wearing, coffee-drinking, slightly introverted physicists. I saw no evidence of an elite. But working in women's health research over the last few years, I have begun to understand how knowledge is related to power. Power can be held by people conducting research, but more importantly there is an automatic prestige associated with science because scientific knowledge is the dominant epistemology in our society.
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