Personal Science

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Personal science is a term used by the late psychologist and scientist Seth Roberts, who defined it as: "using science to solve your own problems". [1] Associated fields are self-experimentation and citizen science. The concept has been further developed within the Quantified Self community. The first use of the term in a scientific publication was in 2016, [2] where it was associated with: "an interest in collecting data about their own bodies or lives in order to obtain insights into their everyday health or performance". In 2017, the scientific journal Methods of Information in Medicine published a focus theme on single subject (N-of-1) research design, which also included personal science. The editorial introducing the focus theme is titled "Single Subject (N-of-1) Research Design, Data Processing, and Personal Science" [3] is co-authored by Gary Wolf, who together with Kevin Kelly coined the phrase the quantified self. In the editorial, personal science was described as "self-directed N-of-1 studies ". In 2020, Wolf further developed the term together with Martijn de Groot in an article titled "A Conceptual Framework for Personal Science". [4] They defined personal science as "the practice of using empirical methods to explore personal questions". In a 2021 scientific article building on the previous ones, personal science is defined as: "the practice of exploring personally consequential questions by conducting self-directed N-of-1 studies using a structured empirical approach". [5]

Contents

In 2024, a MediaWiki-based knowledge management system [6] that had been co-designed by and for personal science practitioners was published by a team of researchers. [7]

History

The history of personal science is derived from several sources, one of which is the 1958 book Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy [8] by Michael Polanyi. His work especially highlighted the tacit and subjective dimensions of conventional scientific practices. Building on Polanyi's work, Martin and Brouwer introduced the term personal science in the 1993 article Exploring personal science, [9] as an approach for characterizing scientific practice for young students. They emphasized that “science is not simply rational and objective but that the inquiring person is an integral part of the enquiry.”

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Empirical research</span> Research using empirical evidence

Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively. Quantifying the evidence or making sense of it in qualitative form, a researcher can answer empirical questions, which should be clearly defined and answerable with the evidence collected. Research design varies by field and by the question being investigated. Many researchers combine qualitative and quantitative forms of analysis to better answer questions that cannot be studied in laboratory settings, particularly in the social sciences and in education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Polanyi</span> Hungarian-British polymath (1891–1976)

Michael Polanyi was a Hungarian-British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He argued that positivism is a false account of knowing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pseudoscience</span> Unscientific claims wrongly presented as scientific

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited. It is not the same as junk science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Research</span> Systematic study undertaken to increase knowledge

Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to controlling sources of bias and error. These activities are characterized by accounting and controlling for biases. A research project may be an expansion of past work in the field. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Experiment</span> Scientific procedure performed to validate a hypothesis

An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. There also exist natural experimental studies.

Tacit knowledge or implicit knowledge—as opposed to formalized, codified or explicit knowledge—is knowledge that is difficult to express or extract; therefore it is more difficult to transfer to others by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. This can include motor skills, personal wisdom, experience, insight, and intuition.

Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the scientific method:

Scientific consensus is the generally held judgment, position, and opinion of the majority or the supermajority of scientists in a particular field of study at any particular time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychonautics</span> Methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness

Psychonautics refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by meditation or mind-altering substances, and to a research cabal in which the researcher voluntarily immerses themselves into an altered mental state in order to explore the accompanying experiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literature review</span> Review of the current knowledge of a particular topic

A literature review is an overview of the previously published works on a topic. The term can refer to a full scholarly paper or a section of a scholarly work such as a book, or an article. Either way, a literature review is supposed to provide the researcher/author and the audiences with a general image of the existing knowledge on the topic under question. A good literature review can ensure that a proper research question has been asked and a proper theoretical framework and/or research methodology have been chosen. To be precise, a literature review serves to situate the current study within the body of the relevant literature and to provide context for the reader. In such case, the review usually precedes the methodology and results sections of the work.

Self-experimentation refers to single-subject research in which the experimenter conducts the experiment on themself.

Evidence-based practice is the idea that occupational practices ought to be based on scientific evidence. The movement towards evidence-based practices attempts to encourage and, in some instances, require professionals and other decision-makers to pay more attention to evidence to inform their decision-making. The goal of evidence-based practice is to eliminate unsound or outdated practices in favor of more-effective ones by shifting the basis for decision making from tradition, intuition, and unsystematic experience to firmly grounded scientific research. The proposal has been controversial, with some arguing that results may not specialize to individuals as well as traditional practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seth Roberts</span> Psychology professor and blogger

Seth Roberts was a professor of psychology at Tsinghua University in Beijing and emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. A prolific blogger, He was the author of the bestselling book The Shangri-La Diet. He was well known for his work in self-experimentation which led to many discoveries, including his personal diet, multiple publications and his expansive blog.

The branches of science, also referred to as scientificfields or scientific disciplines, are commonly divided into three major groups:

Hard science and soft science are colloquial terms used to compare scientific fields on the basis of perceived methodological rigor, exactitude, and objectivity. In general, the formal sciences and natural sciences are considered hard science, whereas the social sciences and other sciences are described as soft science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Kuhn</span> American philosopher of science (1922–1996)

Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term paradigm shift, which has since become an English-language idiom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quantified self</span> Movement of people who track themselves with body-related data

Quantified self refers both to the cultural phenomenon of self-tracking with technology and to a community of users and makers of self-tracking tools who share an interest in "self-knowledge through numbers". Quantified self practices overlap with the practice of lifelogging and other trends that incorporate technology and data acquisition into daily life, often with the goal of improving physical, mental, and emotional performance. The widespread adoption in recent years of wearable fitness and sleep trackers such as the Fitbit or the Apple Watch, combined with the increased presence of Internet of things in healthcare and in exercise equipment, have made self-tracking accessible to a large segment of the population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literature-based discovery</span> Research method using published knowledge as data

Literature-based discovery (LBD), also called literature-related discovery (LRD) is a form of knowledge extraction and automated hypothesis generation that uses papers and other academic publications to find new relationships between existing knowledge. Literature-based discovery aims to discover new knowledge by connecting information which have been explicitly stated in literature to deduce connections which have not been explicitly stated.

The GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences is the largest German infrastructure institute for the social sciences. It is headquartered in Mannheim, with a location in Cologne. With basic research-based services and consulting covering all levels of the scientific process, GESIS supports researchers in the social sciences. As of 2017, the president of GESIS is Christof Wolf.

References

  1. Roberts, Seth (16 March 2011). "Is Medical Research a Veblen Good?". Seth's blog. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  2. Heyen, Nils B (2016). Self-tracking as knowledge production: Quantified self between prosumption and citizen science (in Lifelogging. Digital Self-Tracking between disruptive technology and cultural change, Selke, Stefan (Editor)). Springer VS. pp. 283–301. ISBN   978-3-658-13136-4.
  3. de Groot, Martijn; Drangsholt, Mark; Martin-Sanchez, Fernando J; Wolf, Gary (2017). "Single Subject (N-of-1) Research Design, Data Processing, and Personal Science". Methods of Information in Medicine. 56 (6): 416–418. doi:10.3414/ME17-03-0001. PMID   29582912.
  4. Wolf, Gary; de Groot, Martijn (2020). "A Conceptual Framework for Personal Science". Frontiers in Computer Science. 2. doi: 10.3389/fcomp.2020.00021 .
  5. Riggare, Sara; Hägglund, Maria; Bredenoord, Annelien L; de Groot, Martijn; Bloem, Bastiaan R (2021). "Ethical Aspects of Personal Science for Persons with Parkinson's Disease: What Happens When Self-Tracking Goes from Selfcare to Publication?". Journal of Parkinson's Disease. 11 (4): 1927–1933. doi: 10.3233/JPD-212647 . PMC   8609698 . PMID   34120915. S2CID   235409005.
  6. "Personal Science Wiki". wiki.openhumans.org. Retrieved 2024-09-03.
  7. Kloppenborg, Katharina; Price Ball, Mad; Jonas, Steven; Wolf, Gary Isaac; Greshake Tzovaras, Bastian (July 2024). "Co-designing a wiki-based community knowledge management system for personal science". Royal Society Open Science. 11 (7). doi:10.1098/rsos.240275. ISSN   2054-5703. PMC   11285521 . PMID   39076354.
  8. Polanyi, Michael (1958). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. University of Chicago Press.
  9. Martin, B.; Brouwer, W. (1993). "Exploring personal science". Science Education. 77 (4): 441–459. Bibcode:1993SciEd..77..441M. doi:10.1002/sce.3730770407. ISSN   0036-8326.