Group leaders
Summary
The disconnect between “what science says” — yielded as a shield to shut down a conversation rather than as contextual evidence to drive discussions forward — and the extent to which conclusions can be drawn from the referenced results of scientific studies is becoming increasingly apparent. This group aims to foster scientific literacy and curiosity through a subject that 45% of households can meaningfully relate to (and actively participate in the study of) without having an extensive scientific background … Dogs!
The purpose of this group is to initiate the build of a canine science community platform and resource hub aimed to facilitate (and publish) collaborations between scientists and non-scientist field experts and enthusiasts, support open dialogue and curated community review, inform public policy, and boost the power and relevance of crowd-scale data sets. While specific topics and details of the platform will be structured around serving the canine community and resolving open questions in canine science, the outputs of the working group are intended to provide a template for empowering other sub-genres of resonant social interest and controversy, as well as directly address broader topics raised within behavior science, health and longevity, environmental input and disease modeling, and the ethics and use of technology for social interactions, quantification of self, interspecies communication, etc.
Everyone is welcome to join for what should be an engaging and widely accessible topic to focus our discussions and efforts around. In spirit of its goals, this group actively encourages the participation of dog geeks and “behavior engineers” who exist within and outside of traditional academic spheres. Those interested in discussing topics of social interest and concern and/or who can contribute to the build of a community hub are particularly encouraged to join. (We need you!)
Goals & deliverables
- Initiate a community collective that facilitates collaboration between research scientists with non-scientist field experts (combining forces to leverage expertise, partnerships and funding sources), identifies and supports ongoing studies and follow-ups of impact, curates citizen scientist participation and review (mustering enthusiasm and validation of crowd-sourced data, and enabling more impactful studies with deeper insights)
- Build a “Go To” resource hub that supports science education and citizen science contributions, collates and reviews existing scholarly contributions, builds a framework for leveraging and disseminating community efforts, curating feedback and informing matters of policy (including reaching out to policy makers and bridging active participation in matters of public policy).
- Stretch goal: Build a manuscript (Re)formatter and guided reader toolbox to promote scientific literacy and understanding about how to read, discern sufficient execution of, properly interpret the results from, and equitably disseminate the significance of scientific studies.
