> Didn’t the greatest advancements in science occur during a time when it was more of a personal hobby (19th and early 20th centuries)?
Perhaps, but there was a lot of low-hanging fruit (as a sibling comment mentions).
Biology then was taking a cup of pond water and putting it under a microscope. Biology now is gene sequencing and using HPC clusters to search through FASTA files.
> What kind of new discoveries are available to backyard astronomers versus using JWST data?
There are lots of projects a backyard "citizen scientist" can get involved with, some even using a backyard telescope, but also covering a range of fields (for example, counting butterflies, providing computing power). Many of the ones in astronomy involve data from JWST or other telescopes, so you do not need to compete with JWST:
https://science.nasa.gov/citizen-science/
So your answer to modern science being incredibly expensive and difficult and requiring specialized equipment is... to use the data from enormously expensive, specialized equipment deployed in a public research project that could never be achieved without science funding?
I think science is a good thing for society, and I think giving interested volunteers the chance to participate in science is good, and maybe it also helps keep science accessible and accountable.
If it enables science to happen that would otherwise not happen, then that is even better.
And not all citizen science is about crowd-sourcing data analysis--some of it is simply observing your backyard.
Theoretical physics perhaps, but molecular biology or some other wet squishy science, no. Experiments can cost $$. This funding is for basic research and staff training, two things industry is allergic to.
* https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/...
* https://archive.is/iTqvp
Didn’t the greatest advancements in science occur during a time when it was more of a personal hobby (19th and early 20th centuries)?
Aren't we at a time when progress is quite slow (end 20th and early 21st centuries with big teams and a lot of funding)?
> Didn’t the greatest advancements in science occur during a time when it was more of a personal hobby (19th and early 20th centuries)?
Perhaps, but there was a lot of low-hanging fruit (as a sibling comment mentions).
Biology then was taking a cup of pond water and putting it under a microscope. Biology now is gene sequencing and using HPC clusters to search through FASTA files.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASTA_format
What kind of new discoveries are available to backyard astronomers versus using JWST data?
> What kind of new discoveries are available to backyard astronomers versus using JWST data?
There are lots of projects a backyard "citizen scientist" can get involved with, some even using a backyard telescope, but also covering a range of fields (for example, counting butterflies, providing computing power). Many of the ones in astronomy involve data from JWST or other telescopes, so you do not need to compete with JWST: https://science.nasa.gov/citizen-science/
So your answer to modern science being incredibly expensive and difficult and requiring specialized equipment is... to use the data from enormously expensive, specialized equipment deployed in a public research project that could never be achieved without science funding?
Why would that be a bad thing?
I guess I do not really understand the comment.
I think science is a good thing for society, and I think giving interested volunteers the chance to participate in science is good, and maybe it also helps keep science accessible and accountable. If it enables science to happen that would otherwise not happen, then that is even better.
And not all citizen science is about crowd-sourcing data analysis--some of it is simply observing your backyard.
Theoretical physics perhaps, but molecular biology or some other wet squishy science, no. Experiments can cost $$. This funding is for basic research and staff training, two things industry is allergic to.