Professional vs amateur is a matter of attitude. In my estimation, that is. The professional devotes at least 50-60 percent of his waking time to his profession and its sidebars (writing blogs, for instance). In addition, he’s *serious* about it. He keeps up with the latest work in the field, and owns/uses the best equipment he can.

The amateur, on the other hand – for whatever reason – doesn’t do all of the above (though he may do one or even some). Other names for amateurs include “sunday driver”, “weekend sailor”, and ‘occasional pilot”

There is nothing in that description having anything to do with education, pay, or even the profession involved. I’m certain that there are many paid astronomers who aren’t professionals, and would imagine there are at least a few astrologers who are.

Come to think of it, I know a professional Pokemon trainer… but that’s going to change when I send Godzilla back to school in a week or so.

Look: Its the results, not the person who they come from. If you, Joe Blow, self-educated, non-elite, written-off-by-all-the-pros can prove it then you got yourself all you need. If you can build a nuclear fusion reactor and make it produce energy and demonstrate; this then guess what: All the scientists with eight Ph.D’s and decades of tenure at national laboratories who said that you couldn’t do it loose. You win. Simple as that. If you can, with your backyard telescope and your written-off theory prove that the “Ivory Tower” scientists are wrong, guess what? You will be recognized.

I’m not in any way shape or form putting down education or experience, don’t get me wrong. It’s simply not that the “elitist scientists” are in charge because they got a piece of paper which let them into the “Ivory tower.” It’s simply that they get results because they tend to know what they are doing. And hence… they tend to get results. But in the end… it is the results and the proof that matters.

Do amateurs upset science? Yes, sometimes in ground breaking, revolutionary ways. It doesn’t happen often and for every one who does I can show you a thousand who didn’t. It’s rare… but it does happen. If you really think that your guru who sells you anti-magnetic-field spray and astrology charts isn’t taken seriously because he isn’t part of the university elite/ivory tower club, you might want to consider it may be because he doesn’t have anything verifiable or any actual evidence.

Okay… end of my somewhat off-topic anti-”science is elitist” babble.

That was kind of my point. If professional means something less objective than “getting paid for it,” then sooner or later, it becomes a matter of making value judgments about what somebody does for a living.

And Rivi, it should be no surprise that there are some who have never gone beyond medieval thought.

We went on to use the same Halley Watch model for the Ulysses Comet Watch, again using amateur observers’ work in our analysis. We had a world-wide network of some 200 faithful observers, and through a period of four years, we observed half a dozen comets in detail. The images these folks sent were breathtaking and amazingly useful.

The funny thing was, in the beginning, a lot of “pro” astronomers scoffed at us for using amateurs, claiming that the work would be inferior (they said amateurs wouldn’t calibrate, follow instructions, etc.). We proved ‘em wrong, and we began to see the tide change to allow more respect and use of amateurs’ work. One of my teammates laughingly used to say, “The pros got real interested when they found out there were all these good observatories out there, acres of glass, available for use.”

Available for use if one cultivated the amateurs instead of laughing at them in derision.

A few years after I got my masters’ I did a survey of pro-am relationships and was quite gratified to see how much the field had flourished. Indeed, the AAS even had a pro-am event at a meeting in North Carolina, and it was amazing to see the two sides get together to “talk shop” — it was a long time coming.