I went to the Science Museum in London the other day, and was a little surprised to find that pretty much none of it is actually about science in any way whatsoever.
The majority of the exhibits and ‘interactives’ (it’s a noun now) are completely devoid of anything that is recognisably scientific: instead you get, look! This is what astronauts have to poo in. Isn’t zero gravity weird? A longer lever makes things easier to move than a shorter one, you’re shown. Why? Who cares! The only explanations you get anywhere are utterly trite, as in the exhibition about personality. Why are people different? The answer: it’s because of their DNA and brains, and because of things that have happened to them in the past. Which, as explanations go, doesn’t really add anything of value, apart from some vaguely sciency terms.
Nothing in the place ever bothers to ask how? or why? Instead, you get touch screens, various costly and fictional space flight simulators, and pointless personality tests like you might waste time doing on the Internet (well, it’s not Are You a Penis or Vagina?, but it’s not much better). Nowhere is it asked or explained, what is science? And most people will leave the place without having a clue.
Worst of all is the interactive about the MMR vaccine and autism. Videos of two people give opposing sides of the ‘debate’ are shown: a woman doctor (who’s name and position I have forgotten) gives the (correct) summary that the evidence shows no link between the two. This is followed by a video from a professor (of what?) from the University of Sunderland*, in which he claims that the evidence for a link is overwhelming. And that’s it.
There’s nothing to tell you the truth, which is that no credible evidence has ever been found linking the two. Instead, like the worst science coverage in the media, a factual matter, one that effects the health of young children, is reduced to a debate between ‘experts’, with the actual evidence playing no part. Both sides deserve a say and equal time in which to say it, no matter how groundless, or even dangerous, their claims may be. This, from a science museum.
The user is then invited to leave their comments on the issue, giving the (wrong) impression that individual opinion actually matters when it comes to evaluating this sort of claim. Which, as a science museum should be making clear at every opportunity, is the exact opposite of what science is: what you think you know and what is actually going on may be two very different things indeed, and the only way to find out is through the evidence.
And finally, in a more practical objection, the toilets were disgusting. Fail all round for the Science Museum.
*After reading Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science book, I think the professor could possibly have been Paul Shattock of the University of Sunderland who, at least a few years ago, seemed very keen to claim he’d found evidence of a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, but also seemed very reluctant to actually publish his research. Who possibly isn’t the sort of scientist you want to see in the Science Museum.
Yeah but never mind all that – did it have one of them static-electricity globes coz they're like SO weird – that's REAL science right there that's why Einstein's hair was like wot it was LOL.
Or something.
I didn't even see one of those. Bastards.
I haven't been to the Science Museum (though I might visit it just to see how rubbish it is – I like to torture myself, which is why I sometimes read the comments on the Daily Mail website), but your review matches other reports I've heard. I saw a lecture at a conference in the summer in which the speaker (JVP in fact, Richard) asked why science museums can't be more like art galleries – i.e. cultured places where relatively intelligent grown ups go of a weekend to have a nice time, engage with sometimes difficult concepts explained without dumbed-down language, and perhaps learn something new that they can talk about in the pub later – rather than stupid meaningless places with buttons to press that both adults and kids find boring and irrelevant. I totally agree with him. Unfortunately, most of the people from science museums in the audience (there were lots of them) totally refused to accept that this was the case. The one who did accept the point explained that it was all to do with basically getting enough government funding to stay open – they have to persuade the government that they are “making learning fun” (as if it can't be somehow fun without stupid “interactives” and pointless trivia) and therefore, in theory, helping recruit the next generation of scientists (Britain is struggling to recruit people to science, and even those who do make it to degree-level science are in the habit of defecting into banking, science journalism or, um, etymology and history). So I guess that's the answer – science museums are not designed for you and me. They are designed for some hypothetical kid who only enjoys computer games and texting his friends but is only a couple of “interactives” away from being the next James Watson. Um, without the racism.
Sometimes I just hate people, don't you?
That's exactly what I was wondering: why can't they be to science what art galleries are to art? It's good to see that most science museum staff deny that there's any sort of problem though. That said, you should definitely go to the Natural History Museum next door to the Science Museum: it's actually informative and well set out, with a minimum number of interactives, possibly because they assume that things like fossil dinosaurs and ants and, er, rocks will be interesting enough in their own right not to require something for children to bash.