Citizen science programs like that at Galaxy Zoo are making, and have long made, significant contributions to many fields: Citizen science is the new black – Bbc

Although he would not have been familiar with the term, Charles Darwin built his theory of evolution by natural selection on the evidence supplied by hundreds of citizen scientists all over the world. Some 15,000 of the letters he sent or received survive at the Darwin Correspondence Project in the Cambridge University Library.

Associate director Alison Pearn says Darwin could never have compiled the astonishing wealth of evidence to support his theory without the enthusiastic support of amateur naturalists.