Carving niches: are there still roles for amateur scientists?

Until the mid-nineteenth century the majority of scientists seem to have been unsalaried, so the barrier between paid practitioners and the rest of us is relatively recent. It has been said that with the contemporary emphasis on expensive equipment and increasing specialisation there is no room for dabblers in the field, but there is plenty of evidence to negate this. A good starting point is this year's BBC Amateur Scientist of the Year competition, which garnered over 1300 applications, some admittedly a bit on the fruitier side. So whilst Britain doesn't have anything to compete with the USA's Society for Amateur Scientists, there's clearly no lack of enthusiasm.

But of course anyone can dream up a bizarre idea without putting in the 99% perspiration afterwards. It is the latter that proves the mettle of the amateur scientist, prepared to doggedly test a hypothesis or utilise scientific techniques as and when time becomes available. It also seems to be true that there are very few amateur theoreticians: by and large, if you engage in science for fun, you're a practical person at heart. Many dedicate years to the cause, from those who tally local wildlife numbers (occasionally identifying new species, of which there are still plenty to be described scientifically) to the likes of Simon Cansick, whose website provides constantly updated weather forecasting data for his Yorkshire village. Mr Cansick may sound like the archetypal British eccentric, but his level of accuracy has apparently caused local farmers to snub the Met Office in favour of http://www.dugglenet.org/ instead.

The two main areas I've always considered easy for an amateur to explore are astronomy and palaeontology, mostly because the necessary equipment is comparatively cheap and readily available. Whilst large telescopes can cost a fortune, some enthusiasts build at least some of the mount themselves (as recommended by Patrick Moore, no less), if not necessarily going to the lengths of the brother and sister team William and Caroline Herschel, who several centuries ago cast telescope mirrors using the likes of horse dung for moulds. As a child I had a small refractor which was reasonably adequate for the limited seeing conditions in the light polluted sky of my small home town. I did however build my own observatory shed, complete with a sliding roof made from old wardrobe doors. Ah, the folly of youth!

Whilst it may seem daft for backyard astronomers to compete with 10 metre reflectors and orbiting telescopes, the world record for visual discoveries of supernovae is held by the Australian amateur Robert Evans, who has mostly utilised a variety of reflectors with primary mirrors under 50cm. Another example of amateurs at the forefront is the Transitsearch.org network, which helps part-time astronomers hunt for extra-solar planets using a combination of backyard telescopes and digital cameras, although to be sure the latter need to be in the several thousand pounds range.

As for palaeontology, I have already covered the delights of fossicking in an earlier post, although sad to say my daughters recently came away empty-handed from a trip to the Isle of Wight. Chips off the old block, they were lulled into thinking they might find dinosaur bone or even pterosaur remains by a University of Portsmouth palaeontologist they spoke to at the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition. Instead, the family returned with depressingly lightweight sample bags, the stars of which were a heavily worn tooth (most likely crocodile) and a possible gastrolith. As a brief aside, I must mention that the Royal Society event at London's South Bank Centre was in itself a superb example of encouraging amateur participation in science, with even my four year old donning goggles and latex gloves to conduct some nanoparticle experiments.

All in all, the idea that amateurs cannot conduct useful or even just enjoyable science couldn't be more wrong. And with the likes of cardboard telescope and microscope kits available for under twenty pounds, children can easily get on the bandwagon too, perhaps with a touch of parental persuasion. Now I have to go back the workbench and a 12 volt rotary grinding tool, as I've promised my children I'll find out whether the Isle of Wight tooth could just possibly be from a small iguanadon after all...

Technorati Tags: astronomy, dinosaurs, fossils

Lies, damned lies and the dubious world of cosmetics advertising

Let's face it, most people's ability to analyse statistics is pretty poor. In fact we can consider ourselves lucky if we know anything beyond mean, median, and mode, and certainly left- and right-skewing isn't a popular topic of conversation. Perhaps that's why the multi-billion pound global beauty industry uses such bizarre examples in their advertising, on the grounds that few punters will understand any of it. Not being a regular reader of women's magazines most of what I pick up is via flicking between TV channels, occasionally spotting some famous actress or supermodel accompanied by such interesting statements as '83 out of 114 women agree' (although I made that one up).

Isn't it fairly obvious that there are two concerns here? Firstly, the figures aren't easy to simplify to lowest common denominators, lacking the nice, rounded character of say, 80 out of 120. Secondly, the numbers are so small. Following the MMR scandal and its case study group of 12, surely few could think such a low sampling as my fictional 114 could be taken as a worthwhile trial? Yet I cannot think of a single example from this sector where the study (if we can call it that) exceeded 200. Are the numbers parts of some elaborate in-joke by the cosmetics industry or are they based on genuine data, in which case are the polls conducted by marketing agencies with very short attention spans?

Despite recommendations that the UK's Cosmetics, Toiletries and Perfumery Association members are meant to adhere to, outsider knowledge of what the beauty product multinationals get up to is minimal. Most companies test their products on other animals before moving onto humans, but how scientific is the research conducted on the latter? If the advertising figures are based around how punters ‘feel' (surely a profoundly subjective word), there is more than a hint that the research hasn't involved standard scientific procedures such as double-blind or placebo experiments.

And of course, no information is given as to where the punters were found: in statistical terms, how random was the sampling frame? So despite the sophisticated research that often goes into developing the products, their marketing appears to offer the antithesis in the form of essentially worthless polls and neo-scientific yet nonsensical compound words. Even innocent-sounding phrases such as "natural looking skin" aren't worth anything; after all, isn't all skin natural looking if it is free of make-up and cosmetic surgery? A combination of genetics and lifestyle - I really hate that last word - are responsible for the condition of your skin, with few people nowadays failing to recognise that sunbathing smokers are unlikely to retain a youthful complexion even with the aid of pots of ground up chicken feet and the food of queen bees.

That the product manufacturers have kept one step ahead of the cynicism is perhaps not all that difficult to explain. Our popular culture and media are obsessed with youth (which is nothing new - take classical Greece as an example) but at least modern legislation prevents the use of obviously insane ingredients. After all, it is far less than a century since radium was used in hair cream and toothpaste. It seems we may have slightly less gullibility than previous generations, yet even a temporary improvement in our appearance is inviting enough to fork out vast sums of money for.

But is all this about to change? In the last few years a radically different range of beauty products has been in development that appears to be rather more than usual temporary Polyfilla. Trials are taking place involving skin cream that may be an early form of "cosmeceutical", able to restore the structure of skin rather than simply obscuring aging and damage. As for me, I'm watching with interest the research into mimicking the effect of enzymes that prevent loss of hair colour - or even reverse it. What, vain? Me? Surveys suggest that only 1 in 10 men don't mind the natural greying process. Okay, I made that one up too!