#19147: — 03/19  at  10:28 AM
Sadly, an example of the heckler's veto in action. When you play to the lowest common denominator, stupidity wins every time. And this, from an institution (a museum) that is supposed to value education.

#19154: Michael Feldgarden — 03/19  at  11:07 AM
Since when did marketing directors become involved in educational decisions? Doesn't the museum have any sort of mission? When the revolution comes, we line up all the MBAs.

#19157: Chris Clarke — 03/19  at  11:12 AM
I'm afraid this is a natural result of the trend Steve Gould decried in curation about fifteen years ago, with the deprecating of the "edu-" and the promotion of the "-tainment." The uninterpreted animatronic dinosaurs that went around the country a decade ago were another symptom of this: an excuse for kids to scream, an attempt to cash in on Michael Crichton's movie, and less educational value that the Jurassic Park movies, which is saying something.

Huge high praise is due to institutions like the Page Museum in Los Angeles - a must-visit; it's where the tar pit fossils are displayed - which has one whole exhibit which can be paraphrased as "We don't have any dinosaurs here because there weren't any fucking dinosaurs in the Pleistocene, alright?" No pandering there.

#19161: — 03/19  at  11:27 AM
Hey, here in St. Louis we have the opposite problem. Our local science museum, the St. Louis Science Center, is showing an IMAX film, "Fighter Pilot," with only the thinnest connection to science. It's little more than an hour-long advertisement for Boeing and recruitment film for the U.S. military.

http://www.peaceeconomyproject.org/site/weblog.php

#19163: — 03/19  at  12:14 PM
The IMAX theater is simply a movie theater everywhere I've seen it. I liked seeing The Rolling Stones and I liked seeing Mario Andretti in Speedway but science? No.

It is the continuation of a trend -- a speaker I saw in Southhampton 15 years ago talked about this in places like the York Viking museum and the pages of Nat Geo (where artifacts are laid out as decorations -- look at a number of their pics sometime).

It's also related to the political "advice" that the Democratic Party gets from conservatives all the time, about moving to the right to pick up people. The idea is that everyone you have will stay no matter what, and you will pick up a marvelous new audience. All those people who aren't coming -- they'll flock to you -- your party or your museum -- and dance dance dance if you just ignore "them what brung ya". And you won't lose any of the "them" either. It's magic!

It's BS.

#19167: Dan S. — 03/19  at  12:49 PM
Oh, so marketing concerns are driving this nonsense? As much as I like Pharyngula's scenario, perhaps the answer lies in one little word: boycott. Could that be effective? You'd need a pretty far-reaching campaign . . .

-Dan S.

#19170: Miranda — 03/19  at  01:30 PM
At least my science musumem is showing movies tangentially related to science but they are still more "-tainment" than "edu" as another poster pointed out earlier. Why do we insist on treating the masses like idiots because of a small number who actually are? Every year, the idiot column gets larger while the rest of us are over here scratching our heads and wondering "Wha' happened?".

#19175: mallarme — 03/19  at  01:49 PM
Gah. I love Texas, but ever since I left Austin I'm increasingly persuaded that I need to live in another state. Anyway, that's not the point of my comment: a minor correction, the Fort Worth museum's theater is an Omni theater, not IMAX. The former is far better.

#19177: chris at organicmatter — 03/19  at  01:55 PM
Miranda's last two sentences created a bridge in my mind between this phenomenon and something more personal. I attended a gifted program in a tracked high school, but it always bothered me that we were treated as if we were naturally smarter than the rest of the kids in the school. Of course, by and large, we were smarter than them, but I'm not sure that the direction of causation was as clear as the school district made it out to be.

I saw a study a few years later, which verified my suspicion; it suggested that kids perform fairly reliably at the level at which they are expected to perform. In other words, the reason that we seemed smarter than the rest of the kids in my high school probably had as much to do with the fact that we were expected to be smart as it did with any real differences in intelligence.

I believe that the public at large can be held to a similar standard - if they are treated like grunts, incapable of understanding science, then they will not understand science. And if they don't understand science, they will turn to whatever alternative explanation for the unknown that they can find.

#19178: — 03/19  at  02:05 PM
"the Page Museum in Los Angeles... - which has one whole exhibit which can be paraphrased as "We don't have any dinosaurs here because there weren't any fucking dinosaurs in the Pleistocene, alright?"

It would be so Awesome if it was worded, word for word, exactly like that!

Anyone watch the Discovery channel or TLC or Animal plannet lately? Otherwise known as the Grease Monkey channel, the Housewife channel and the channel for people who can't do anything without it being X-TREME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#19179: — 03/19  at  02:10 PM
PZ:

As an historian (of religion, ironically) may I request that the name "History" also be stricken from the name of that and other such spineless Mausoleums [sic]. History is also a reality-based discipline, and while not a hard science in the sense of being falsifiable, it is a science in the older meaning of the term, as e.g. in German, wissenschaft, or Arabic, `ilm.


[OT - your comment spam filtering image fails to show up in Safari, I had to open up Firefox to post this]

#19181: Buridan — 03/19  at  02:20 PM
The religious right are masters at mobilizing their constituency. We (science advocates) are not. The business world has come to realize their tenacity and since controversies may hurt their bottom line they buckle under to the whims of these dedicated, clacking brats. The religious right operates under what they believe is a divine mandate. We don’t nor should we, but this at least puts the task in perspective. For them it’s warfare.

Moral of the story: the scientific community more generally needs to incorporate a public presence as part of its professional persona. Teaching and scholarship alone won't do it in this cultural climate. Nevertheless, I think the biological sciences are far and above any other discipline in this regard. But when you’re dealing with fanatics who cash in their religious/cultural capital at every turn, we ought to at least try to match their investment so we have something to spend when needed.

#19185: Linkmeister — 03/19  at  04:47 PM
Regarding the heckler's veto, here's a quote from MediaWeek via Jeff Jarvis:

According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.

Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints—aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS— were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)

The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns among critics of the FCC’s crackdown on indecency. “It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio,” said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists’ advocacy group....

The original is behind MediaWeeks' subscriber firewall, regrettably.

I don't think I quite realized how effective that squalling can be, if it finds a receptive agency.

#19187: JD — 03/19  at  05:15 PM
If Carol Murray and her marketing cohorts are worth a damn they'll all be preparing to show the film right now. They've got their controversy and media coverage, which will draw a crowd despite her ridiculous notion that they won't, and now the stage is set for a successful release.

Anything these ridiculous Talibangelists get all riled up about must be worth some interest.

#19198: — 03/19  at  09:56 PM
While not running a film isn't the end of the world, it does beg the question as to just how far such marketing strategies might go in an effort to keep from offending patrons by omitting the mention of scientific truths that are deemed religiously incorrect.

Frankly, I'd like to see said marketing hack fired for thinking that making money without a fuss is the main mission of her institution.

#19223: Jay Manifold — 03/20  at  08:27 AM
Barry Freed nailed it; it's the historical sciences these people can't stand (I think somebody should write a book called "The Past and Its Enemies," heh). So take the sledgehammers to the h-word, too.

I would, however, ask those of you who are (understandably) disturbed by the role marketing plays in all this to consider that affective gains precede cognitive gains; read Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility for excellent background on how science museums do (and don't) work. Get the kids' emotions hooked, and their brains will follow. Presentations that would make most of us wince may yield a bumper crop of paleontologists and planetary scientists among the next generation.

Indeed, disputes over whether a display is respectful, appropriate, etc, seem to me to ring of the "but you're not doing it right" tone characteristic of many religious disputes. And on that note of irony, I need to get out from behind my keyboard and dress for Palm Sunday services. I appreciate you all (to the point where I hope to devote Arcturus largely to the ongoing educational dispute in Kansas over the next few months). Keep up the good work!

Trackback: Outrage calibration Tracked on: Preposterous Universe (72.9.234.70) at 2005 03 20 11:15:36
Sometimes my expectations need to be re-adjusted, and other times they're right on.

#19232: — 03/20  at  12:42 PM
As one who spent his professional life "marketing" assorted products (science text books, preserved cats, live cultures, chemicals, etc.) to schools in the US and Canada, I take mild exception to the maligning of the practice. It is necessary and it serves a function. And even science museums ignore it at their peril. In its most basic form marketing is learning who are your customers (buyers, students, the faithful or whatever), understanding what they want, and providing it for them. Any organization pushing a product, whether hard goods or an intangible such as education or knowledge, will fail if it ignores its customers.

Of course institutions like museums have to decide what it is they’re "selling." If the Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History defines its customers as the religious right, then peddling creationism or ID and suppressing evolution is obviously their bag. But I’d submit that their real customers, those families who trundle their kids into the museum weekend upon weekend, include very, very few Christian fundamentalists, for whom the historical sciences are anathema (as Jay Manifold assstutely pointed out) and that paying attention to what they say is a sure path to failure.

Of course most museums are public institutions that derive part of their funding from government and taxes. That gives the public, meaning anyone with an axe to grind, a voice in the operation and in some locales that may mean hewing to the IDC line. That’s what we see when the IDC crowd tries to hijack the public school science curriculum. Museums are a bit different, however, in that their users are usually paying customers who voluntarily enter their doors. My own guess is that Carol Murray and many of her colleagues elsewhere have simply never profiled their customer base and are thus flying blind as to their views, opinions and what they want.

Of course, most organizations, public and private with the exception of outfits like the ACLU, avoid controversy like the plague. It’s thought to damage one’s image or "sales." But I would submit that museums in general should confront controversy and engage it. Only in confronting controversy and bringing it to the fore can we hope to learn and grow. I would suggest that the Ft. Worth museum or other museums should undertake to mount an exhibit on evolution, how it’s received throughout the developed world, and profile why a minority religious view can give voice to a close-minded view of things. I can envision an exhibit that would trace the history of origins ideas, the evolution of evolution, and the evolution of the anti-intellectual effort to "destroy" it. I would love to see an exhibit debunking the major arguments of the IDC crowd (one might even take Wells’ "Icons of Evolution" as a theme and go through it issue by issue as to how his arguments fall of their own weight). And the exhibit should emphasize the point that the modern synthesis has nothing to say about God, religion and belief, that those are up the individual, and perfectly compatible with evolution. Enough of a rant. Have a nice Sunday. Now it's off to join in the March Madness!

#19234: Timothy Burke — 03/20  at  01:26 PM
When I saw this story, I thought, "PZ Myers is going to be all over this one".

And rightfully so, rightfully so. For some reason it got my blood boiling, got past my deflector screens. I just wanted to send a nastygram to Carole Murray.

At some point, you have to be committed to the integrity of your own enterprise, and be willing to go down in flames if necessary. There's no Museum of Science in Fort Worth now, so wouldn't it be better to defend the integrity of the subject to which the museum is devoted even if that bothers the "customers", even if it leads the eventual demise of the museum itself? It's dead anyway as it stands: it killed itself and now squats as a zombie in the urban landscape of Fort Worth. Keanus gives away too much here: when it comes to public institutions, a consumerist paradigm is not the right one. This doesn't mean a public institution has to be overtly elitist, either, but you don't compromise on the foundational substance of what you do.

Trackback: sci-ligion Tracked on: fluid when shaken, stirred or otherwise disturbed (72.9.234.70) at 2005 03 20 13:44:53
i don't object to a film about mother teresa just because i don't believe in god. cience is about the continuing creation, development and refinement of our ideas about how our world works (you can be as empiricial or existential about this as you c...

Trackback: sci-ligion Tracked on: fluid when shaken, stirred or otherwise disturbed (72.9.234.70) at 2005 03 20 13:46:22
i don't object to a film about mother teresa just because i don't believe in god. science is about the continuing creation, development and refinement of our ideas about how our world works (you can be as empiricial or existential about this as yo...

#19263: WolverineTom — 03/20  at  07:04 PM
A few people out of the 137 are responsible for this. I guess Carol Murray didn't feel the need to survey more people before the decision was made.

#19274: Ben — 03/20  at  11:00 PM
As much as I like Pharyngula's scenario, perhaps the answer lies in one little word: boycott. Could that be effective? You'd need a pretty far-reaching campaign . . .

I'd have to start going to IMAX screenings before I could start boycotting them.

#19365: — 03/21  at  09:04 PM
Keanus, if it is true that 'most organizations' avoid controversy, how do you explain the Brooklyn Museum of Art?

It might be interesting to travel back in time and find out how the posters here reacted to Ofili's presentation.

Anyhow, nothing new here. In the late '70s I took my kids to the Field Museum of Natural History and was startled to see Pyramid Power kits for sale in the gift shop.

The gift shop is not an exhibit, true, but that's not the kind of distinction people make.

Nobody but me seemed to find it odd.

#19523: — 03/23  at  12:20 PM

...I took my kids to the Field Museum of Natural History and was startled to see Pyramid Power kits for sale in the gift shop.

The Field Museum in Chicago? Yeah, it's not that surprising, though the type of thing pisses me off.

I was there just a few months ago, and in the gift shop I saw them selling little toy/figurine dinosaurs, which also included (within the packaging) a figurine caveman - the shop was 10 feet away from their "Lucy" T. rex exhibit!

I'm just nitpicking, but this is obviously not scientifically accurate; a science museum (especially) shouldn't sell crap that is so historically (more importantly - misleadingly) inaccurate.

"Mommy, is the mean dinosaur punishing the bad caveman for his evil and sinful life?"

What, is the Field Museum now being funded by the Fundies?