This work revolves around the relation between scientists and lay people in the domain of Citizen Science (CS). In the first part, ‘Context and research question’, it presents a logical collection of relevant key concepts: origin of the term CS; clarification of the meaning of ‘citizen’ and ‘scientist’ used in the text; PUS and PES interpretations of public participation in Science; government
interests and efforts in developing CS; risk of presence of the deficit model; some classifications of CS projects and epistemic practices; post-normal science approach to society and
empowerment of citizens. The last section of this part is dedicated to pose the research question: ‘How is Citizen Science perceived by scientists of the scientific community?’.
In the second part, ‘Conclusions’, some concepts are presented and developed as results: existence of a polarization between scientists inside and outside the ivory tower of science;
perception of data quality, objectivity of CS research and peer judgement; authorship and pay of citizen scientists; inevitable growth of CS both for scientific projects and for the bottom-up empowerment of citizens. The work also presents the ‘affiliation principle’ and suggests how a definition of scientist, detached from this principle, could apply to lay people,
that is to a broader group of individuals than that of the ivory tower of science.
