Photograph courtesy of the St. Louis Science Center
The word “science” comes from the Latin verb scio, meaning “I know.” Science is what we know, but here on planet earth, as our species toddles forward, what we know to be true is a continually evolving body of understanding.
At the edge of what we understand, there’s disagreement. Controversy.
The St. Louis Science Center doesn’t court controversy, but as a couple of recent temporary exhibitions in the building attest, they don’t avoid it, either.
The Darwin: A Reluctant Revolutionary exhibition (organized by the American Museum of Natural History) which ran for a number of months last year, was a minor wonder. It addressed Darwin the man, predicted to be ignominious by his doubting family (they weren’t the only ones, it would turn out). It recreated his 19th century study, with cool clerical innovations he designed himself. It featured animal skeletons, and faux cliffs and creatures from the Galapagos Islands where big ideas began to click into place in Darwin’s impressive noggin. It offered a surfeit of explanatory materials, in text on the wall and video, about just what Darwin did and why it’s important.
Various measures were taken to smooth over potential consternation from evolution-deniers. (There are no statistics available on the number of evolution-deniers that frequent the Science Center, but admission to the attraction is free, which, I’ll wager, has been known to blunt certain convictions when the kids aren’t at school on the weekends.) Informational displays explained that a “theory,” to the scientific community, is not the sieve of logic some critics seem to think. Other areas discussed the current state of biological research on these matters. In video interviews, various scientists explained that their faith is not incompatible with their jobs. Near the end of the exhibition, visitors could leave comment cards.
The Science Center’s inflated Exploradome has another exhibition on view now which is likely to raise objections, not from holy rollers, but from those with an economic/political axe to grind. Climate Change (organized by those nutjobs at the American Museum of Natural History, again, along with the Science Center), breaks down the phenomenon with models, films, placards, artifacts, etc. According to the Center’s web site, “Climate Change presents evidence that human activity over the last 300 years has dramatically altered the natural world.” Apparently, mining and burning coal for the last 500 years, filling the land with burgeoning humanity, has not gone unnoticed by the planet. (A large diorama of a polar bear driven to forage through a trash heap is particularly memorable.) The exhibition goes on to instruct on how we can mitigate and try to taper off the damage to the environment.
Climate Change is one of those exhibitions where it was obvious from the get-go that it was going to push some people’s buttons. Thus, little piles of index-card sized pieces of paper printed with the “ST. LOUIS SCIENCE CENTER POSITION STATEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE” are available near the Exploradome. They read, in part, “…the St. Louis Science Center presents information on climate change based on the consensus of data-based scientific opinion on climate science. Our exhibits and programs will reflect new scientific evidence and discoveries as they emerge and shape our understanding of the Earth’s climate.”
Carol Valenta is the Senior Vice President of the Science Center, as well as its Associate Museum Director. Here’s what she had to say about mounting “controversial” exhibits like Darwin and Climate Change: “In the end, the decision of whether we want to display something is about if there’s data to back it from the best of scientific thought and the current state of research. The scientific community believes in evolution—it’s not something one would vote on… Museums by nature are very cautious about being stewards for their community and places of trust. If in fact the generally pervasive scientific thought is that the climate of the word is changing, regardless of what causes it, it is our responsibility to bring that to the public.”
Yes, but as we are all well aware, here in these United States we have religious zealots and business interests who don’t want to hear these “truths.” More and more, it seems, national conversations about education and the environment are dominated by organizations committed to something other than the facts. I had to ask, does the Science Center hear from these types? Has it been picketed by benighted fundamentalists, or had its funding threatened by corporate interests?
“We have had some individuals who have expressed a difference of opinion,” says Valenta, judiciously. “And we want to be respectful of others’ opinions. Your first choice is not to go here.”
“We also take comment cards,” she says, “and I read them all.”
Valenta also points out that these exhibitions are not unsupported by actual conversations on the topics. “We are open to programs that allow for conversation and dialogue,” she says. “With Climate Change we had Science Cafes for people to talk about what they were thinking.”
The Veep adds that science museums are, increasingly, not just places to let the kids release their energy as they run from one kiosk to another, occasionally picking up snatches of learning—they offer genuine education for adults, too.
“At the St. Louis Science Center almost a third of our visitors are adults without children now. That’s a new responsibility and an opportunity. In an area where contemporary science is very complicated, where do adults go for info? Climate change wasn’t a topic when I was in school. We were just collecting aluminum cans. We are always asking, how can we enrich the mix to provide the best opportunities for knowledge for the whole community?”
And the inevitable confrontations, she contends, are actually a sort of blessing. “Attacks on science are both a challenge and an opportunity,” she says. “The scientific world is becoming smarter and smarter about the importance of communicating what they’re doing instead of just saying to the public, ‘trust me.’ You attack what you don’t understand. As these topics become more and more complex, it’s unreasonable to expect people to decide before they know. Faith, economics, and political concerns all enter the mix. We create the conversation, and you decide for yourself.”
It sure is nice to have advocates for knowledge, no matter how controversial, disseminating the truth in entertaining bites for kids and adults both, with no admission charge, even.
To coin a phrase, thank god for the St. Louis Science Center.
