Citizen Scientist:Out of the Lab And onto theStreets

　　民间科学家：走出实验室，走上街头

　　For most of human history, there were two reasonswhy people tinkered with the natural world: to stayalive - or live better); or to satisfy theircuriosity.From farming and building to creatingtelescopes, these endeavours sowed the seeds forscience.

　　历史上的大多数人改造自然界无非出于两个原因：为了活着(或生活得更好);或是为了满足自己的好奇心。从耕种和盖房到制造望远镜，这些努力都播下了科学的种子。

　　Over the centuries, science became institutionalized. At first, though, there was plenty ofroom for the unaffiliated amateur-the likes of Darwin or Einstein. But eventually, firmboundaries were established: inside were professional scientists, out-side were... whoexactly? Amateurs. And over time those enthusiasts scouring beaches for fossils, or mixingconcoctions in their garden sheds, came to be seen as lone eccentrics.

　　几个世纪以来，科学变得制度化。起初，虽然那些独立的业余科学爱好者有很大的自由空间，例如达尔文或爱因斯坦，但科学最终建立了固定的边界：在范围内的是专业的科学家，外面的又究竟是谁呢?业余爱好者。随着时间的推移，那些爱好者在海滩上搜寻化石，在自己的花园工棚里调制混合物，被看作是孤独的怪人。

　　But now there's a revolution going on. All you need is a bit of spare time, and stabletelecommunications. Millions of us have access to swathes of scientific information thanks to theinternet, open-access publishing and servers dishing up drafts of scientific papers before theyare formally published. Aside from sorting raw data and turning it into useful information, massparticipation can help us collect desperately needed big data from hard-to-reach places.

　　但现在正在进行一场革命。你需要的只是一点点空余的时间和稳定的通信。成千上万的人们可以了解到大量的科学信息，这要感谢互联网、开放式发行物和服务器，它们能在那些科学论文正式出版前就上传这些论文到网上。除了对原始数据进行排序，并将其转化为有用的信息外，广大的参与者也可以帮助科学家从难以接触的地方收集迫切需要的信息。

　　There are self-organized efforts, too, as individual log details^ about their own health, whichare then fastidiously collected into Quantified Self projects. Such projects can help highlightunforeseen trends. For example, the CureTogether website discovered that a subset of migrainesufferers were more likely to experience side effects when they took the migraine medication.

　　同时也可以自己进行组织，正如个人对自己的健康进行详细的记录，这些记录会被“量化自我”的项目收入这些项目可以帮助凸显一些不可预见的趋势。例如共同治愈网站发现，当偏头痛患者食用偏头痛药物舒马曲坦时，有一小部分患者更有可能出现副作用。

编辑：张雨

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