Hazan, (2005) 'Weaving science webs', E-learning and Virtual Science Centers, Ed. Leo Tan Wee Hin and R. Subramaniam, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey
Chapter V. Weaving Science Webs: E-Learning and Virtual Science Centers (P.93)
Susan Hazan
Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be
enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending
toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works
out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making
science (Paul Valéry 1871-1945).
History, ethnography, art
and anthropology museums weave stories around social and cultural narratives
and lead us to compare our own narratives with those on display, and
in doing so distance ourselves from, or connect with specific threads
that bind geographically and temporally distanced cultures. While these
kinds of exhibitions serve to reaffirm our own histories and social
affiliations, these cultural mappings are not the only kinds of knowledge
that inflect the meta-narratives of society. Science museums on the
other hand, like their sister institutions, the university-based, science
faculties are concerned with the systematized knowledge of the physical
or natural world and in doing so purport to display finite knowledge,
knowledge that can be demonstrated through controlled experimentation.
This separation may be seen as artificial, as all of scientific practice
is articulated in social space and their ramifications culturally inflected.
Bruno Latour re-places science and technology into its
social context, blurring the boundaries between nature and science,
between human and thing, while dissolving the familiar dichotomy inscribed
in the rationalizing project of modernity (1993). The webs woven across
science channels, science museums and natural history museums, as well
across the Internet all work together to construct the rational and
empirical knowledge base of scientific discourse.
While scientifically determined projects tend to be seen as distilled
from anything as serendipitous as culture, this chapter will argue that
they do in fact construct a wealth of culturally invigorated narratives.
In an investigation of the social and cultural messages inscribed
in these practices and conventions, it becomes clear that these kinds
of narratives impact the ways we think about our lives and our environment
and serve to transform society no less than the c |