With respect, that is the complete opposite of science! The only difference, the only barrier, between you and a 'scientist' is that someone else took that step to do it themselves. Tomorrow you could be a scientist - next time you have an idea!
You don't have to publish in Nature to be a scientist. Really, I mean that in the best way. I am a scientist every day. It's powerful, it's joyful, it's curious and exploratory (very important parts of your brain to work out, per research by professional scientists), it's extraordinarily practical: Science, by me, has reduced my energy consumption and bill by around (very roughly) 70%.
You're likely describing citizen science and engineering, which cannot really be considered for publication in Nature.
The work here represents many thousands if not millions of hours of accumulated scientific skill in building experiments that are likely to produce useful conclusions, rather than falsely rejecting the null hypothesis.
I've worked in citizen science and I have even done some exciting stuff in my garage, which attracted the world's leading researcher in my area of interest. The first thing I'd need to do with my tech is to bring it to his lab and reproduce it on science-grade equipment. then we would need to come up with good hypotheses we could test, and spend an enormous amount of time designing protocols, and debugging lab details. All of that comes before even thinking about writing a manuscript that would be accepted in nature, which is one of the most prestigious journals with enormous readership.
I don't want to discourage young folks who want to get into science, but the reality is that the vast majority of real science is dull work, such as requesting money, writing presentations to convince people you're right, and debugging experiments. I'm not defending this as the way it should be, but observing the reality of the situation. I have actually met a very small number of people who managed to turn citizen science into Big Science and get published, but they are a much smaller group than the folks who do bad citizen science in their garages and get attention on sites like Hackaday.
> You're likely describing citizen science and engineering
That's what you are describing. If you read my comments, I am not talking about that (though I don't object to it), and my main point is that science is not defined by the type of work that gets published in journals, or by whatever qualifies as 'citizen science'.
I read all your comments carefully, in detail, before responding. Can you give us some examples of what you mean? I'm struggling to see how somebody on their own could come up with a non-trivial scientific result that was meaningful in any way.
> a non-trivial scientific result that was meaningful in any way
I assume you mean non-trivial and meaningful to society and to the progress of human knowledge. My whole point is that those properties are not necessary to doing 'science'.
What I do is non-trivial and meaningful to me and sometimes to people I know, to a few people on the Internet, and/or to my community or co-workers. Though sometimes the data is trivial even to me, and still it's a joy, the joy of exploration and curiosity. Also, there are infinite questions beneath the threshold of professional science costs that can be investigated (and some of those are just hyper-local questions).
Science doesn't have to be big and globally meaningful. That stuff is very important, but that's not all there is - not nearly. Just do science - just do it and stop debating if and the semantics - do some experimentation, with some hacked objectivity, controls, etc. It's a powerful tool: what you discover when you actually try it, whatever it is, will change your perspective, will raise new questions, and will lift up your mind and spirits, guaranteed. I know so much more about the world than many people, simply by doing a bit of exploration through experimentation.
> I'm struggling to see how somebody on their own could come up with a non-trivial scientific result that was meaningful in any way.
Richard Feynman at 67, partaking in an inquiry into the space shuttle challenger disaster, dunked some pieces of rubber, taken from a model of the challenger, in ice cold water and observed that they lacked springiness. The full story is fascinating. Other simple, non-rigorous experiments he performed also had meaning and whether they were “non-trivial” is nothing to do with science, that’s political nonsense.
There’s a lot of examples of individuals performing simple experiments that are meaningful.
Um, feynman was a professional physicist who worked on billion dollar projects. For the o-ring, he (and NASA, and Morton Thiokol already knew the behavior of o-rings in cold weather, and it was engineering, not science.
He would call what wolverine above is describing as similar to cargo cult science.
You’ve stated that “the majority of real science is dull work, such as requesting money, writing presentations to convince people you're right, and debugging experiments.” (I agree on the third point)
But regarding the first two as being “real science” and claiming authority on where Feynman’s comments about cargo cult science would be directed? You must acknowledge the hypocritical stance you’ve taken.
You’ve co-mingled the initial statements that Wolverine made with your disdain for people who write hackaday articles and are written up in the media. You’ve introduced that notion and then derided human curiosity and informal experiments as being “not science” or being “engineering” (and somehow mutually exclusive from science) or “citizen science”.
All of these different ways to deride something that you introduced to the conversation - the perils of bad science journalism.
You’ve stated
“ I've worked in citizen science and I have even done some exciting stuff in my garage, which attracted the world's leading researcher in my area of interest. The first thing I'd need to do with my tech is to bring it to his lab and…”
That’s where you’ve made your off-by-one error. You’ve said “the first thing I’d need to do” when you meant “the next thing I’d need to do” — as if the Real Science had not already begun.
“Real Science” starts a lot sooner than you claim.
> I'm struggling to see how somebody on their own could come up with a non-trivial scientific result that was meaningful in any way.
This is a very dominant attitude but that in itself gives guidance for more alternatives than there would be otherwise.
Naturally some people are better prepared and/or more promising on their own than others having the overwhelming support and encouragement of an established institution.
It's just plain "Nature" after all, naturally.
A certain number of the very most promising individuals are simply not ready for an institution.
That's just plain statistics.
Sometimes the individual themself is not suitable for institutionalization, other times the institution is not suitable for the individual.
>Can you give us some examples of what you mean?
ASTM contains some of the most repeatable & reproducible science published. Repeatability & Reproducibility statements are required before the vast majority of material will even be considered for publication. Mainly a committee of leading scientists will carefully conduct the proposed procedures in all of their individual laboratories, before using the data to arrive at an agreed-upon consensus. This has always been a significant effort that would be impossible without highly co-ordinated dispersed team effort. But that's just the publication. Now to some people almost everything in ASTM will always be considered more reliable on the whole than the bulk of everything in Nature, for others it's vice versa. To each his own, I would consider both publications to be equally prestigious even though ASTM almost never names contributors in the pages of its volumes. ASTM scientists participate on a volunteer basis anyway. Publication wouldn't be possible without the bureaucracy, but so many of the actual proven scientific ASTM procedures were completely originated by individuals whether or not they were working in their home institution basically alone, or using their own resources in the equivalent of their own "home".
With the dangerous chemicals I worked with, I always recommended "don't try this at home" myself.
Regardless, some of the most outstanding scientific minds and experimentalists just aren't going to limit themsleves to what is recommended no matter what you say.
But that's besides the point, IIRC since I was a toddler, publication is over-rated.
Plus there are more kinds of industrious people than there are institutions or industries to accept them.
Any attitude which reduces acceptance further can only be expected to reduce chances for overall scientic progress proportionally.
You don't have to publish in Nature to be a scientist. Really, I mean that in the best way. I am a scientist every day. It's powerful, it's joyful, it's curious and exploratory (very important parts of your brain to work out, per research by professional scientists), it's extraordinarily practical: Science, by me, has reduced my energy consumption and bill by around (very roughly) 70%.