microscience

The word "microscience" may already mean something else, but this post is about an idea that should steal the term away.

One difference between scientists and non-scientists is that scientists tend to have more experience and skill at testing hypotheses and conducting experiments in a particular area of expertise. However, non-scientists (and scientists in other areas) also benefit from the results of these experiments. In addition, individual non-scientists may have specific questions they'd like answered for which scientists have not yet conducted any experiments.

The problem, if you want to call it that, is that scientists tend to study things that make sense for them career-wise. Often this means making a little bit of progress on an important existing problem, other times spending some effort carving out a new area, either way it is something that will further their careers as scientists. I hope I'm not sounding too cynical here, Robin Hanson seems to agree. This isn't unreasonable, as scientists are motivated by long-term incentives such as tenure and multi-year grants. For the overall progress of science, this is probably a good thing, but it potentially leaves smaller questions unanswered, even if knowing the answers to these questions would be valuable to some individuals. Questions that have little potential of leading to other interesting scientific questions are likely ignored. (This itself is a hypothesis I would like tested.)

I would like to see something I'm calling "microscience", where individuals post hypotheses and freelance scientists bid on testing the hypotheses through experiment. The experiments might be things that can be completed in anywhere from a few days to a few months, but fall outside the realm of current NSF funding practices.

And no, I have no idea if this kind of thing would really work for science.