Self-Experimentation

Seth Roberts explains why he likes self-experimentation:

Self-experimentation, like blogs, Wikipedia, and open-source software (and before them, books) gives outsiders far more power. This took me a long time to figure out. For years, I liked self-experimentation for five reasons:

1. It worked.
2. It had unexpected benefits.
3. It was easy.
4. My conclusions fit what others had found — usually, facts that didn’t fit mainstream views.
5. My conclusions were surprising.

But I was still missing something — something obvious to many others. The power of blogging isn’t

(hobby) x (job skills).

That’s just one person. The total power of blogging is

(hobby) x (job skills) x (anyone can do it)

Which is very powerful. Finally I saw there was a sixth reason to like self-experimentation:

6.  Anyone can do it.

As Aaron Swartz has said, there are a lot more people than scientists. We will make a lot more progress if everyone, not just scientists, can contribute. Mendel and Darwin were amateurs. The amateurs may rise again.

A sentiment Glenn Reynolds echoes in An Army of Davids.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi also tells us amateurs will have just as much fun as the experts in his brilliant book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Read Seth's whole post for more great insights!