Making it Easier to Make Your Own IRB

In 2016, I faced the same obstacle that citizen scientists Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte faced in 2013. Best practices in research ethics included submitting one’s research plan to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of one’s institution, but, being citizen scientists, we had no institutions and therefore no IRBs. Jessica and Zachary hired a commercial IRB as a short-term workaround, but called for future reform in “Crowdfunding and IRBs: the Case of uBiome.” I answered that call by making an IRB called the “Belleville Research Ethics Committee” (BREC) which was designed to be “forked” like open-source software, thus providing a template other citizen scientists could adapt.

The background for this story began before I had even heard the term “citizen science.” I thought my responsibilities as a father included teaching my children about ethics, and honest teaching seemed to require investigating claims of moral psychology. My research was casual at first, but grew cyclically: it gave me uncommon experiences, which seemed to single me out as the person obliged to investigate deeper. As with The Matrix’s red pill, this cycle took-over my identity—even though science wasn’t my career—and other people seemed unlikely to take my discoveries seriously without testing the science for themselves, thus risking their own identities.

For example, as a part of a national survey I conducted, I encountered evidence that Americans who convert to no religion are about ten times as likely to identify with certain moral types as those who convert to Christianity. People of the types who convert to no religion follow 1 Thessalonians 5:20–21, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all” (New International Version). As a devout Christian, I was shocked to discover evidence that I am part of an institution that discriminates against these people.

To put the implication in Christian terms, the children in a typical Sunday school class are “gifted” to join different organs in the “body of Christ.” For some students, a relationship with Christ will primarily be about prayer. For others, it will primarily be about service. Others may relate through the arts, and yet others will not be able to relate with Christ without attempting to discern Christ’s will through scripture and science. The last group is fresh blood for the organ that implements 1 Thessalonians 5:20–21, but their organ is currently missing, so those children bleed out. Recent Pew research indicates that two in five American Sunday school students will abandon the church and one of them will blame it on the church’s failure to examine the evidence. As a parent to four, this measure of discrimination by the global church implies 87% odds that the global church will ultimately become a point of contention dividing my family.

Ethicists who regulate professional science may perceive citizen science merely as a way to circumvent regulations, but I see it as a parent’s moral responsibility, a red-pill-like conversion mechanism, and a missing organ of my church.

Citizen Science Belleville

The popularity of the term “citizen science” (plus 1 Thessalonians 5:20–21) allowed me to convince my bible study to devote the first and third Monday nights of each month to citizen science, when I would facilitate replication studies of experiments that promise to improve health, relationships, and well-being for future generations. If we could do this, then millions of other churches could do the same and collectively become one of the world’s most important centers of citizen science. The bleeding could stop.

Average attendance started with three to five people. We invited people of all faiths and called ourselves “Citizen Science Belleville,” identifying with the entire village of Belleville, Wisconsin. Our first replication project, selected via open nomination and vote, was originally conducted in 2007 at Claremont Graduate University in California. Fifty-eight male students each administered a nasal spray—either placebo or a hormone called “oxytocin”—and answered surveys about how much they trust various political entities. The original researchers expected oxytocin to increase trust in one’s own...