I’m supposed to be turning an abstract I wrote into a paper and I’m having some troubles beginning. So rather than staring at the computer screen all day wondering how to begin, I’m going to try banging out my ideas here and see if that gives me a kernel to begin my “real” paper.
I’m presenting at the upcoming American Association of Geographer’s meeting as a panelist in a session called Lay Science and the Environment. Lay science, two terms I’ve hardly ever heard used together ((More typical for me would be Citizen Science.)), means the work done by non-professional scientists. Since they’re non-professional, scientist doesn’t really work, so I would suggest observer. Observer suggests that they only watch (which isn’t the case), so I’m going to use the term “naturalist.”