On 10/26/05 8:10 AM, Lars Petzke's electrons arrived as: > I would like to put out a request to any people who have dealt with > Creationists or Intelligent Design folks in their museums and have > some advice or techniques to share with the museum field. Lars - In case you didn't see it in one of the recent outpourings on this subject, below is an excerpt and link to a NY Times article on the question you're asking. Stephen Nowlin Director, Williamson Gallery Art Center College of Design http://xrl.us/stephennowlin --------------------------------------------------------- September 20, 2005 Challenged by Creationists, Museums Answer Back By CORNELIA DEAN ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution. They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply. After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry." That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds. Similar efforts are under way or planned around the country as science museums and other institutions struggle to contend with challenges to the theory of evolution that they say are growing common and sometimes aggressive. One company, called B.C. Tours "because we are biblically correct," even offers escorted visits to the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. Participants hear creationists' explanations for the exhibitions. So officials like Judy Diamond, curator of public programs at the University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln, are trying to meet such challenges head-on. Dr. Diamond is working on evolution exhibitions financed by the National Science Foundation that will go on long-term display at six museums of natural history from Minnesota to Texas. The program includes training for docents and staff members. "The goal is to understand the controversies, so that people are better able to handle them as they come up," she said. "Museums, as a field, have recognized we need to take a more proactive role in evolution education." Dr. Allmon, who directs the Paleontological Research Institution, an affiliate of Cornell University, began the training session here in September with statistics from Gallup Polls: 54 percent of Americans do not believe that human beings evolved from earlier species, and although almost half believe that Darwin has been proved right, slightly more disagree. "Just telling them they are wrong is not going to be effective," he said. Instead, he told the volunteers that when they encounter religious fundamentalists they should emphasize that science museums live by the rules of science. They seek answers in nature to questions about nature, they look for explanations that can be tested by experiment and observation in the material world, and they understand that all scientific knowledge is provisional - capable of being overturned when better answers are discovered. Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/science/20doce.html ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).