Connections: The Nature of Networks, Communicating Complex and Emerging Science, in Communication and Evaluation
Uzzo, S., & Siegel, E. (2010). Connections: The Nature of Networks, Communicating Complex and Emerging Science. Science Exhibitions, Communication and Evaluation. Edinburgh: MuseumsEtc.
Hands-on science centers were born in the 1960’s, a product of a confident culture of science and technology. The New York Worlds Fair in 1964 suggested that by building bigger rockets, faster computers and more powerful engines, science and technology would offer prosperity without limit. For the following two decades, science education, including the newly hatched science and technology centers, celebrated the unlimited potential of science as an explanatory paradigm and the unambiguous benefits offered through new technologies. By the 1990’s the complexity of science exploded with complex and jargon filled areas of research such as chaos, emergence, genomics, string theory, ecosystems ecology that challenged public comprehension.
Even the watershed moment at the turn of the millennium when the human genome was decoded, the biological equivalent to the moon landing, opened vistas of new complexity. When the confetti settled to the floor, we realized that decoding the human genome raised more questions than it answered, as human biology could not be captured in a sequence of base pairs, no matter how extensive or accurate. Genomics, in fact, was an early window into the complexity of interconnected systems and provided an impetus for the development of a new science of networks. So when it came time, also at the turn of the millennium, to put together a centerpiece exhibition on networks at the New York Hall of Science, it is not too surprising that the project ended up light years away from where it began.