ABSTRACT
Voluntary Distributed Computing emerged after a time when science’s relationship with the public was at a low ebb. In the mid-1990s, Carl Sagan observed that the general public’s attitude toward science was increasingly one of alienation and even hostility. Two questions arise: if this is true, why had such alienation and hostility arisen? Secondly, given the alacrity and loyalty with which VDC participants participate, and the success of other ‘citizen science’ endeavours (Nielsen, 2011), is there evidence that there is a new engagement in and enthusiasm for science emerging because of a new ability to participate? It is certainly made possible by the changes enabled by new information and communication technologies: the overcoming of physical and cost barriers to participation in the production and communication of knowledge, and the rise of ‘empowered or networked individuals’ who can connect and collaborate with each other. But such individuals and collaborative endeavours must also connect and collaborate with the existing structures and institutions of science, which are primarily hierarchical. The tremendous growth of these institutions in the twentieth century facilitated scientific advances but also kept science behind the walls of those same science establishments and institutions.
