ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************

Hello,

I have truly enjoyed this discussion. Many brilliant and eloquent opinions
and statements have been made. I have felt somewhat unworthy in contributing
to this discussion because I do not work in a museum but rather work with
museums and other formal and informal educational institutions to promote
skepticism and critical thinking towards ideas and claims that are often
dubbed as pseudoscience. (On a side note, it has always bothered me that
museums are considered "informal" but I'm assuming this is because they are
optional?)

The organization I work for is often considered to lie at the other end of
the spectrum to creationist organizations and other
pseudoscientific/paranormal entities, as are science museums and
"traditional" science education in the classrooms (but less often.) I do not
believe this to be true, however, because I do not see science educators
(and related institutions) to have an agenda that their ideas must conform
to -- rather the opposite, in my opinion. Our organization has also been
accused of extremism, scientism, dogmatism, and in many ways as much of a
fundamentalist organization as those we stand against.

Evolution is one of our most popular subjects - demanding to be addressed
time and again. We work with organizations such as the National Center for
Science Education (www.ncseweb.org) and we are often called upon by the
media when the topic resurfaces.

Before taking on this particular job, I worked in museum education and had
the experience of working in both northern and southern institutions of the
USA, and Canadian and European institutions. I have several disturbing
memories of how this subject was dealt with in North America. At the natural
history and science museum in Houston, educators were provided with a
document that originated from the Chicago museum of natural history and
which focused on the "E" word. We were discouraged to use the term and
instead refer to "biological change through time" but only when absolutely
necessary. Another, earlier experience, when I was finishing a graduate
degree and volunteering as a docent, involved comments made by teachers when
touring the museum with a class of young students. One memorable comment
that occurred at the plate tectonics exhibit was "Oh yes children, you may
remember this topic dealt with in the Bible." Many others involved teacher
add-on comments to my own "humans actually did live at the same time as
dinosaurs, just as the Flinstones portray." --  "You do not have to believe
what you see and are told here, God doesn't and if you believe in God, you
shouldn't either."

After these experiences, it became somewhat of a quest for me to improve the
public understanding of science and I was fortunate to have the opportunity
to work with such greats as Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Richard Dawkins,
Arthur C Clarke, John Maynard Smith, Ernst Mayr, Stephen Jay Gould, Clifford
Pickover, Eugenie Scott, and others. It was not until recently that I
concluded that science education in the classroom may be at such a serious
risk that there was simply no hope to "save" it in our present political
climate and that our last candles in the dark were the science centers and
natural history museums. And now I am deeply concerned that they too may be
at such a risk that a new dark age is looming. (Excuse the melodrama!)

What provides me with some hope is that the creationist phenomenon - to the
degree we discuss here - is largely an American one. It has begun to
infiltrate other countries, especially those close, like Canada, and those
where religion is deeply connected to government, like Turkey, but still,
throughout Europe and Oceania, creationism does not pose much of a threat.
The evolution exhibit at the Natural History Museum in London is
extraordinary (though it may have changed since I last saw it.) At the very
start of the exhibit we see the primate lineage with life-sized examples of
both the "monkey branch" and the "human branch." And of course, because
Britain is home to Darwin, there is a lavish collection of his discoveries
upon the Beagle and more. I have seen similar uncensored evolution exhibits
at museums in Germany, Spain, France, Russia, Greece, and New Zealand. When
I created the global Darwin Day movement (which I have since passed on) it
was the non-American museums that jumped in with little reservation. Perhaps
an objective way for American institutions to decide how to address this
issue is to look at how the issue is addressed at those museums that are
somewhat unaffected by creationism. I believe there are many non-American
museums and science centers represented in this ASTC forum - perhaps they
could relate how their institutions deal with the subject of evolution and
if this has changed in the past decade with respect to creationist activity.
And, how do they see the effect of creationism on American science
education. I remember the headlines when Kansas removed evolution from their
textbooks in 1999 and it seemed clear that we were a laughing stock to most
developed countries across the pond.

Forgive the length of this post - a few more brief comments:

1. To the gentleman who proposed a concerted statement on this subject -
please see NCSE's "Voices for Evolution"
(http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp?category=2) which, if memory serves me
right, does include supportive statements from several museums and science
centers and which is available online and in book format.

2. To those who have suggested an exhibit on "the nature of science" and/or
"knowledge/truth/understanding" - there was a fascinating exhibit at the
Ontario Science Center at least a decade ago on "Truth" and it addressed
both religion and science. I know there is a representative from this
institution on the list, perhaps he or she could look into the archives and
provide more information on this exhibit. Somewhere in my files I have a few
handouts from the exhibit and will photocopy them and pass them along to
anyone who may be interested (though they do not aptly show the totality of
this exhibit and it may take me months to find them... and I recall having
to take many handouts in different languages because they were all out of
the English versions!)

3. My organization, and our flagship publication _The Skeptical Inquirer_
hopes to report on the specific IMAX story and include it on our new, online
resource entitled "Creation Watch" at http://www.csicop.org/creationwatch -
Some of you may be interested in this.

Thank you again for such an enthralling thread and my apologies for the
blether!

Amanda Chesworth
Educational Director, CSICOP
www.csicop.org
www.inquiringminds.org

***********************************************************************
More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
Association of Science-Technology Centers may be found at http://www.astc.org.
To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the
message  SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to
[log in to unmask]