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The Crowd and the Cosmos: Adventures in the Zooniverse
'fascinating'
Brian Cox
This is the story of citizen science.
Where once astronomers sat at the controls of giant telescopes in remote locations, praying for clear skies, now they have no need to budge from their desks, as data arrives in their inbox. And what they receive is overwhelming; projects now being built provide more data in a few nights than in the whole of humanity's history of observing the Universe.
It's not just astronomy either--dealing with this deluge of data is the major challenge for scientists at CERN, and for biologists who use automated cameras to spy on animals in their natural habitats. Artificial intelligence is one part of the solution--but will it spell the end of human involvement in scientific discovery?
No, argues Chris Lintott. We humans still have unique capabilities to bring to bear--our curiosity, our capacity for wonder, and, most importantly, our capacity for surprise. It seems that humans and computers working together do better than computers can on their own. But with so much scientific data, you need a lot of scientists--a crowd, in fact. Lintott found such a crowd in the Zooniverse, the web-based project that allows hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic volunteers to contribute to science.
In this book, Lintott describes the exciting discoveries that people all over the world have made, from galaxies to pulsars, exoplanets to moons, and from penguin behaviour to old ship's logs. This approach builds on a long history of so-called 'citizen science', given new power by fast internet and distributed data. Discovery is no longer the remit only of scientists in specialist labs or academics in ivory towers. It's something we can all take part in. As Lintott shows, it's a wonderful way to engage with science, yielding new insights daily. You, too, can help explore the Universe in your lunch hour.
Brian Cox
This is the story of citizen science.
Where once astronomers sat at the controls of giant telescopes in remote locations, praying for clear skies, now they have no need to budge from their desks, as data arrives in their inbox. And what they receive is overwhelming; projects now being built provide more data in a few nights than in the whole of humanity's history of observing the Universe.
It's not just astronomy either--dealing with this deluge of data is the major challenge for scientists at CERN, and for biologists who use automated cameras to spy on animals in their natural habitats. Artificial intelligence is one part of the solution--but will it spell the end of human involvement in scientific discovery?
No, argues Chris Lintott. We humans still have unique capabilities to bring to bear--our curiosity, our capacity for wonder, and, most importantly, our capacity for surprise. It seems that humans and computers working together do better than computers can on their own. But with so much scientific data, you need a lot of scientists--a crowd, in fact. Lintott found such a crowd in the Zooniverse, the web-based project that allows hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic volunteers to contribute to science.
In this book, Lintott describes the exciting discoveries that people all over the world have made, from galaxies to pulsars, exoplanets to moons, and from penguin behaviour to old ship's logs. This approach builds on a long history of so-called 'citizen science', given new power by fast internet and distributed data. Discovery is no longer the remit only of scientists in specialist labs or academics in ivory towers. It's something we can all take part in. As Lintott shows, it's a wonderful way to engage with science, yielding new insights daily. You, too, can help explore the Universe in your lunch hour.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published October 24, 2019
16 people are currently reading
1126 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 8, 2020
Q:
My idea of what constitutes recent history might have become slightly skewed after so much time spent thinking about the Universe. I consider the ‘present day’ to be an epoch lasting at least for hundreds of millions of years, and I spend most of my time worrying about things that happened billions of years ago. (c)
Q:
Once Galaxy Zoo had become an overnight success, we found ourselves casting about for words with which to describe it. Plenty of options were available: crowdsourcing, which I used for Robins’ efforts above, was coined by an editor at Wired magazine, Jeff Howe, as a portmanteau derived from ‘outsourcing to the crowd’. Howe’s definition draws on an analogy with ‘outsourcing’, which is what a company does when it replaces employees who would otherwise be engaged in a particular task with a call to outsiders to complete the task for them. Crowdsourcing would then be what happens when a company or organization asks the world to complete a task for them which would otherwise be handled by employees; a good example might be the recent call by Transport for London, which runs the city’s deep tube lines, for ideas as to how to install air conditioning in cramped tunnels.
As with the meteorology example, when you use ‘crowdsourcing’ it seem that you’re making a distinction between those wh direct the operation and those who provide the work. Even in the early days, it was clear that Galaxy Zoo seemed to be different; we didn’t want to replace Kevin’s work with that of the public, but rather to extend the scope of the investigation beyond what could be done by professional astronomers. In any case ‘crowdsourcing’ seemed a little unambitious, and I found myself leaning towards a more aspirational term—‘citizen science’—as something that was more inclusive. (c)
My idea of what constitutes recent history might have become slightly skewed after so much time spent thinking about the Universe. I consider the ‘present day’ to be an epoch lasting at least for hundreds of millions of years, and I spend most of my time worrying about things that happened billions of years ago. (c)
Q:
Once Galaxy Zoo had become an overnight success, we found ourselves casting about for words with which to describe it. Plenty of options were available: crowdsourcing, which I used for Robins’ efforts above, was coined by an editor at Wired magazine, Jeff Howe, as a portmanteau derived from ‘outsourcing to the crowd’. Howe’s definition draws on an analogy with ‘outsourcing’, which is what a company does when it replaces employees who would otherwise be engaged in a particular task with a call to outsiders to complete the task for them. Crowdsourcing would then be what happens when a company or organization asks the world to complete a task for them which would otherwise be handled by employees; a good example might be the recent call by Transport for London, which runs the city’s deep tube lines, for ideas as to how to install air conditioning in cramped tunnels.
As with the meteorology example, when you use ‘crowdsourcing’ it seem that you’re making a distinction between those wh direct the operation and those who provide the work. Even in the early days, it was clear that Galaxy Zoo seemed to be different; we didn’t want to replace Kevin’s work with that of the public, but rather to extend the scope of the investigation beyond what could be done by professional astronomers. In any case ‘crowdsourcing’ seemed a little unambitious, and I found myself leaning towards a more aspirational term—‘citizen science’—as something that was more inclusive. (c)
January 4, 2022
I found this fascinating and could not stop but I think that unless you are super interested in the subject of crowd-sourced science and/or astronomy then you will find this incredibly boring and tedious because the author often becomes a bit tedious even to me who is super invested in the topic.
November 12, 2021
Interesting book on how crowdsourced research has lead to some game changing discoveries about the universe and it’s origins.
Want to read
October 31, 2019Nature's review: https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
"Citizen science is booming. Today, anyone with a computer or a smartphone can participate in research in astronomy, oceanography, medicine, zoology and beyond. With such studies no longer the exclusive realm of an elite few, communities of amateur and professional scientists have joined together to democratize the discipline, harnessing mutual enthusiasm and collective wisdom to gather and analyse data. . . ."
I participated in a couple of their earlier studies: I recall one for penguins(!) and another to sort images of galaxies. Fun , but ultimately felt like Yet Another way to waste time on the Internet. I got plenty of those, already. Maybe if they did one for Cats! 😻
Still, TBR. Maybe, someday . . . 😎
"Citizen science is booming. Today, anyone with a computer or a smartphone can participate in research in astronomy, oceanography, medicine, zoology and beyond. With such studies no longer the exclusive realm of an elite few, communities of amateur and professional scientists have joined together to democratize the discipline, harnessing mutual enthusiasm and collective wisdom to gather and analyse data. . . ."
I participated in a couple of their earlier studies: I recall one for penguins(!) and another to sort images of galaxies. Fun , but ultimately felt like Yet Another way to waste time on the Internet. I got plenty of those, already. Maybe if they did one for Cats! 😻
Still, TBR. Maybe, someday . . . 😎
October 24, 2019
We tend to have a very old fashioned idea of what astronomers do - peering through telescopes on dark nights. In reality, not only do many of them not use optical telescopes, but almost all observations are now performed electronically. Chris Lintott does a great job of bringing alive the realities of modern astronomy, and the way that the flood of data that is produced by all these electronic devices is being in part addressed by 'citizen scientists' - volunteer individuals who check image after image for interesting features.
Inevitably, all this cataloguing and categorising brings to mind Ernest Rutherford's infamous quotation along the lines of 'all science is either physics or stamp collecting.' This occurred to me even before Chris Lintott brought it up. Lintott defends the process against the Rutherford attack by pointing out that it can be a useful starting point for real, new research. To be fair to Rutherford, I think this misses the great man's point, which was not that the activity has no worth, but that it's a touch boring. For me, although this book is really valuable for the insights it gives, this was the one real problem - quite a lot of what was going on verged on the tedious.
It's certainly not true of all the book. Interestingly, although I'm far more interested in astronomy than wildlife, the parts where the writing really came alive tended to be on applications of this kind of crowdsourced data processing to natural history. In an example on penguin surveys, the reason for the lift in interest was that Lintott gave us an entertaining (and self-deprecating) description of his own spare-time involvement in replacing cameras for such a survey. In another example, involving cameras spotting African wildlife, what was particularly interesting was the discovery that the volunteers didn't like it if software was used to pre-select images that had animals in - they seemed to prefer the animals to be a surprise, rather than a constant presence.
There were some interesting accounts of astronomy-based citizen science (working with the misleadingly titled 'Zooniverse' software - I assumed from the 'zoo' part it was to do with living things), particularly where a discovery was made pretty much live on a TV show from Jodrell Bank, but it was in the astronomical sections that things did get a bit bogged down, perhaps because Lintott was inclined to go into too much detail. Incidentally, his repeated explanations of astronomical terminology does emphasise that maybe it's time astronomers got their act together and used proper scientific terms.
The book finishes with some interesting speculation on how things will develop as computer image recognition gets better. So far, humans are far better at spotting exceptions - the question is whether we will get to the point where machines have been trained with sufficient exceptions to be likely not to miss things in the long tail of the distribution. Perhaps citizen science is doomed long term - but it remains an interesting venture and opportunity for outreach for the moment.
I wish I had found the content more interesting, but there can be no doubt that the book is an excellent introduction to ways of handling large quantities of visual data.
Inevitably, all this cataloguing and categorising brings to mind Ernest Rutherford's infamous quotation along the lines of 'all science is either physics or stamp collecting.' This occurred to me even before Chris Lintott brought it up. Lintott defends the process against the Rutherford attack by pointing out that it can be a useful starting point for real, new research. To be fair to Rutherford, I think this misses the great man's point, which was not that the activity has no worth, but that it's a touch boring. For me, although this book is really valuable for the insights it gives, this was the one real problem - quite a lot of what was going on verged on the tedious.
It's certainly not true of all the book. Interestingly, although I'm far more interested in astronomy than wildlife, the parts where the writing really came alive tended to be on applications of this kind of crowdsourced data processing to natural history. In an example on penguin surveys, the reason for the lift in interest was that Lintott gave us an entertaining (and self-deprecating) description of his own spare-time involvement in replacing cameras for such a survey. In another example, involving cameras spotting African wildlife, what was particularly interesting was the discovery that the volunteers didn't like it if software was used to pre-select images that had animals in - they seemed to prefer the animals to be a surprise, rather than a constant presence.
There were some interesting accounts of astronomy-based citizen science (working with the misleadingly titled 'Zooniverse' software - I assumed from the 'zoo' part it was to do with living things), particularly where a discovery was made pretty much live on a TV show from Jodrell Bank, but it was in the astronomical sections that things did get a bit bogged down, perhaps because Lintott was inclined to go into too much detail. Incidentally, his repeated explanations of astronomical terminology does emphasise that maybe it's time astronomers got their act together and used proper scientific terms.
The book finishes with some interesting speculation on how things will develop as computer image recognition gets better. So far, humans are far better at spotting exceptions - the question is whether we will get to the point where machines have been trained with sufficient exceptions to be likely not to miss things in the long tail of the distribution. Perhaps citizen science is doomed long term - but it remains an interesting venture and opportunity for outreach for the moment.
I wish I had found the content more interesting, but there can be no doubt that the book is an excellent introduction to ways of handling large quantities of visual data.
February 3, 2021
So this was an unexpected gem. I picked it up for cosmos in the title but the crowd was the real star. It tells the story of volunteers helping work through mountains of data in the name of science. But that is a very dry way of describing a really interesting, and accessible book, that is just full of tidbits and historical ephemera that will charm anyone interested in stars, or science. It really is a very readable, interesting and surprising book. Im so glad I got it ... and it was through the library audiobook service too. WinWinWin!!!
Read
February 28, 2020DNF
July 4, 2021
Did you know anything about crowd-sourced science, aka citizen science?
Did you know that anybody can take part to the elaboration and classification online of the terrifying mass of data that today's technology is able to produce?
Did you know that without this classification data are very difficult to crunch and risk to sit in a virtual drawer, unitilised (well, we all probably know that, but it was not worth breaking the list of questions, was it?)
Did you know that no machine learning programming is able to match the human brain's knack for distinguishing and classifying shapes?
Did you know that YOU CAN TAKE PART TO SCIENCE?
One becomes instantly twelve year old again, drops everything and signs up to Zooniverse.
Unless you are a researcher already, in which case crowd-sourced data classification may be a very elegant solution.
This is what this book is about: a big advertisement for participation to projects like Zooniverse, and one cannot but approve of it, last but not the least because it is packed with well-designed popularisation, full of British humour, and if one chooses the audio-book, it is also narrated by the author in a very pleasant way.
From slipping in guano while trying to follow a researcher checking the photographic traps in the middle of a penguin colony, to shedding light on Tabby star's alien civilisation hypothesis (it's most probably not aliens), to exploring galaxy formation, the book explains a whole lot of science, at least to an ignorant layman like the one writing here.
We like!
Did you know that anybody can take part to the elaboration and classification online of the terrifying mass of data that today's technology is able to produce?
Did you know that without this classification data are very difficult to crunch and risk to sit in a virtual drawer, unitilised (well, we all probably know that, but it was not worth breaking the list of questions, was it?)
Did you know that no machine learning programming is able to match the human brain's knack for distinguishing and classifying shapes?
Did you know that YOU CAN TAKE PART TO SCIENCE?
One becomes instantly twelve year old again, drops everything and signs up to Zooniverse.
Unless you are a researcher already, in which case crowd-sourced data classification may be a very elegant solution.
This is what this book is about: a big advertisement for participation to projects like Zooniverse, and one cannot but approve of it, last but not the least because it is packed with well-designed popularisation, full of British humour, and if one chooses the audio-book, it is also narrated by the author in a very pleasant way.
From slipping in guano while trying to follow a researcher checking the photographic traps in the middle of a penguin colony, to shedding light on Tabby star's alien civilisation hypothesis (it's most probably not aliens), to exploring galaxy formation, the book explains a whole lot of science, at least to an ignorant layman like the one writing here.
We like!
October 23, 2022
Turned out to be really quite interesting. The book talks about the “citizen science” projects run through what was Galaxy Zoo and has now evolved into the broader Zooinverse, and also gives us insights and information into some of the astronomy challenges that the citizen scientists have helped to address. He discusses the advantages and disadvantages of machine learning versus humans (each is good at different things), and the power and knowledge that has been unlocked by using both on some massive data sets. Interesting stuff, written in an engaging style.
May 25, 2020
A good, fun popular science book. The book is part history of the Galaxy Zoo/Zooniverse project and in part collected thoughts on astronomy and the role of citizen scientists in endeavours across a range of fields. Clearly written and engaging, the only slight niggle for me was some of the Dad jokes throughout. Most were fine, but some just felt a little like trying too hard. No reason not to read it though. Recommended!
October 16, 2020
An interesting view at the inception and development of ‘citizen scientists’, the concept that people fro their own homes can help out scientists and researchers with no prior knowledge, whether by clicking on each Penguin in a photo, or stars, or helping to translate and go through old documents not entered into the digital archives.
I have heard a bit about these activities before, but it was enjoyable learning how this data is used, and where this movement may be heading in the future
I have heard a bit about these activities before, but it was enjoyable learning how this data is used, and where this movement may be heading in the future
June 17, 2022
An interesting book, I listened to the audio book which made may have made it more digestible, it was read with enthusiasm by the author. Although the focus is crowd sourcing scientific research, there are plenty of entertaining anecdotes and stories, plus enough hard(ish) science to get your geek on. It is a satisfying mix which describes a different side to scientific research, some nice connections to big data and media algorithms too.
December 27, 2020
A fascinating read about how crowd sourcing comes to the aid of science in the Zooniverse project. This democratisation of science gives the new phrase #CitizenScience. Would Wikipedia be the first such successful crowd creation?
November 4, 2021
A joy to read, especially the chapter about penguins. It's funny and heartfelt and it makes you feel like we as a human race can accomplish anything when we come together, including making new discoveries about the universe.
August 3, 2025
The story of citizen science. You too can contribute to science in your spare time! The author is entertaining, funny even. And, in case you're still not sure, the book is recommended by Sir Brian May, the lead guitarist for Queen.
January 24, 2020
Enjoyed learning about the Zooniverse and how it is not at all what the title makes you think at first.
December 1, 2022
Fascinating book, my intrest is from the data aspect but I found it interesting what the 'hive mind' has discovered
February 17, 2020
I won a copy of this book.
Highly readable, Linott is an expert when it comes to "outer space". His book is crazy intellectual, but easy to understand and interesting. I love the Citizen Scientist movement and knowing that I (or someone I know) could be part of something much larger for the greater good of all humanity. I am now obsessed with the Zooniverse and can't wait to add to it.
Highly readable, Linott is an expert when it comes to "outer space". His book is crazy intellectual, but easy to understand and interesting. I love the Citizen Scientist movement and knowing that I (or someone I know) could be part of something much larger for the greater good of all humanity. I am now obsessed with the Zooniverse and can't wait to add to it.
June 22, 2024
Wat een geweldig boek! Ik denk dat het niet voor iedereen is maar ik vond het zeker interessant. Ik heb enorm genoten van het boek.
Ik ben al een paar jaar een groot fan van Zooniverse. Het was erg leuk om te lezen over de uitkomsten van de website en de avonturen van de medevrijwilligers. Interessant om ook de gedachtes en dillema's van de ontwikkelaars van de website te horen.
De rode draad door het boek is voornamelijk hoe de analyse van grote hoeveelheden data een steeds belangrijker deel is geworden van de wetenschap en hoe mensen in hun vrije tijd kunnen helpen bij het verwerken van data. De verschillen tussen verwerking neurale netwerken en mensen worden aan bod gebracht. Verder gaat een deel van het boek ook over de ontwikkeling van sterrenstelsels met een stukje achter de schermen bij de processen om uit te zoeken wat observaties betekenen. (De schrijver is tenslotte een astrophysicist).
Het boek illustreert verschillende vormen van wetenschap die hier gebruik van maken en de opbrengsten van deze projecten. Het was ook leuk om te lezen hoe crowdsourcing in de wetenschap geen nieuw concept is en dat wetenschappers vroeger ook al pogingen hebben gedaan.
Het boek is heel erg prettig om te lezen. De schrijver heeft humor en brengt de onderwerpen duidelijk in beeld. Zijn persoonlijke ervaringen en verhalen waren een geweldige toevoeging en gaven een interessant perspectief. Wat een veelzijdig boek zeg. Ik ben helemaal hyped na het lezen van dit boek.
Ik ben al een paar jaar een groot fan van Zooniverse. Het was erg leuk om te lezen over de uitkomsten van de website en de avonturen van de medevrijwilligers. Interessant om ook de gedachtes en dillema's van de ontwikkelaars van de website te horen.
De rode draad door het boek is voornamelijk hoe de analyse van grote hoeveelheden data een steeds belangrijker deel is geworden van de wetenschap en hoe mensen in hun vrije tijd kunnen helpen bij het verwerken van data. De verschillen tussen verwerking neurale netwerken en mensen worden aan bod gebracht. Verder gaat een deel van het boek ook over de ontwikkeling van sterrenstelsels met een stukje achter de schermen bij de processen om uit te zoeken wat observaties betekenen. (De schrijver is tenslotte een astrophysicist).
Het boek illustreert verschillende vormen van wetenschap die hier gebruik van maken en de opbrengsten van deze projecten. Het was ook leuk om te lezen hoe crowdsourcing in de wetenschap geen nieuw concept is en dat wetenschappers vroeger ook al pogingen hebben gedaan.
Het boek is heel erg prettig om te lezen. De schrijver heeft humor en brengt de onderwerpen duidelijk in beeld. Zijn persoonlijke ervaringen en verhalen waren een geweldige toevoeging en gaven een interessant perspectief. Wat een veelzijdig boek zeg. Ik ben helemaal hyped na het lezen van dit boek.
May 24, 2023
excellent book!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews