NATS 1760 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Laity, Relational Theory
3 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
Layperson: a person without professional or specialized knowledge in a particular subject. Citizenship involvement in the realm (synonym: territory) of science. The classic position in the science community is that technical matters are the sole realm of experts and only nontechnical issues are properly the domain of laypeople. Radical variety of democratization is when laypeople are involved in decision-making and other practices that are traditionally viewed as solely the purview (synonym: concept or notion or scope) of trained scientists. In cases in which citizens are involved in establishing research guideline, these laypeople must grabble with technical material. They are not restricted to social and ethical considerations. Scientists define the agenda, marginalized lay input and excluded nontechnical matters from serious considerations. Living in a community where hazards are present often gives citizens access to information about themselves and their environment before it is visible to outsiders including scientists.
