Before becoming director of educational programs at the James Randi Educational Foundation, I worked in the Department of Science and Galleries at the Saint Louis Science Center (SLSC). The SLSC is the fourth most-visited science and technology museum anywhere and twenty-fourth biggest museum of any kind in the United States. Its mission is to advance the community’s understanding of and appreciation for science. In most regards they do a great job of this. They have a world-class museum as well as robust educational and outreach programs that go a long way to elevate the standing of science here in Saint Louis, particularly to the under-served.
The big question then is this — why would an institution work so hard to promote science only to undercut their own message by offering pseudo-scientific ghost hunts that run counter to the SLSC mission?
I first became aware of the ghost hunts, which are being offered through the travel program, about a year ago. I had just attended an important meeting where the museum’s president outlined a fifteen year strategic plan. He talked at length about a section of the plan titled the Demon-Haunted World, a reference to Sagan’s important book of the same name. According to the plan, one of the key responsibilities of the museum was to defend science from the anti-scientific and pseudo-scientific whenever appropriate, even if that meant taking unpopular positions.
I was quite pleased with this new focus at the SLSC until later that day, when I flipped through the travel brochure and saw trips to local “haunted” locations to do “investigations.” Although they may borrow the terminology and prestige of legitimate science, these investigations are anything but. They employ every discredited and implausible technique seen on the popular ghost hunting infotainment shows. (Click here to read the trip background information.)
The Science Center is back at it this year with more “investigations.” I typically count ghost hunting among the more harmless of pseudo-scientific pursuits. I can usually write it off as people having a little Halloween fun and getting to play scientist for a while. I don’t condone it, but I haven’t lost much sleep over it, either. I can’t be so generous with the trips offered by the Science Center. It seems a bit more dangerous to offer activities like this through a publicly funded institution that is tasked with promoting science while promoting something that is pretending to be science.
I know that these activities are probably the work of the marketing and P.R. departments looking to get people through the door. That’s their job, and this probably works. The problem is that these people don’t understand what science is or what it does, and those who do understand don’t have enough oversight or recognize the significance of the activities being offered. I have written letters to the executive staff as well as the museum’s board to suggest just that.
The SLSC recently offered the American Museum’s Darwin exhibit with a raft of excellent supplemental programs on evolution for the community. They built the Life Science Lab, an innovative space focused on the methods and tools of science, and they are enthusiastically working with me on an event to bring James Randi there along with related workshops on real scientific investigations. They are the good guys. It's a shame and a slap in the face of the great educators working there to let all of their excellent work be tainted by childish, non-scientific searches for the things that go bump in the night.