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I am very surprised that anyone would NOT see this as a perfectly
good venue for discussing evolution. After all, is it not our goal
to help people understand the world around them? Don't we represent
currently held thinking based on the latest research? Charlie makes
a valuable point that there is a serious misunderstanding of what a
theory is. Doesn't that seem to imply that we collectively as a
field need to push toward programming that emphasizes an
understanding of HOW research is done as opposed to just WHAT is
being done?
Beryl
>ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
>*****************************************************************************
>
>This discussion always brings back an unpleasant memory for me and reminds me
>of the general public's mostly unintentional misunderstanding of the meaning
>of the word THEORY. In general the popular use of the term THEORY is what
>scientists mean by hypothesis. So the stickers on the books say
>"evolution is not
>a fact, but a theory" or words to that effect.
>
>When I was in grad school, I was part of a team that gave tours of the
>natural history museum on campus. One of the tours we offered was of
>the Wards casts
>of fossil fish, reptiles and amphibians located in the halls of the old
>building. During one tour offering, each time we stopped, as I was
>describing what
>we were looking at and to what time period the specimen belonged, the group
>leader interrupted and said that this was just THEORY and began to
>debate dating
>techniques. Among his points was that potassium argon dating was also just a
>THEORY and couldn't reveal the real ages of the specimens, which had to be
>something less than 6000 years. As I handed him the photocopies of the tour
>(making theirs a self-guided tour), I pointed out to him that by
>that reasoning, we
>must really be in the dark, which, as I'd hoped, he took the wrong way, which
>permitted me to surprise him and the group when I said that the lights in the
>old hallways were lit by electricity mostly (in our case) generated at a
>nuclear power plant based on the same THEORY of radioactive decay used in the
>potassium argon dating.
>
>Though I've always thought I could have handled the confrontational situation
>better, I still think that my use of THEORY as an object lesson on
>interlocking pieces of real, measurable experiential phenomena was a good one.
>
>Charlie
>
>Charles Stout
>Media Arts Manager
>Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum
>220 East Ann Street
>Ann Arbor, MI 48170
>
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--
Beryl Rosenthal, Ph.D.
Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs
MIT Museum
265 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139
Tel: 617-452-2111
Fax: 617-253-8994
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"A great place to explore ideas, invention, and innovation:
http://web.mit.edu/museum"
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