Ignorance, Bliss, and Dinosaur Badges

It’s College Night at the Museum of Science, and the place is packed. Despite bad weather, there are easily several hundred people wandering among the exhibits, shiny dinosaur badges pinned to their chests.

“I’m here because my friends dragged me here,” Jon O’Brien, an undergraduate at Emmanuel College, says. Also, “it’s free.”

“Weirdo,” I mutter as I walk away. “Science is cool.”

I love going to museums. As a kid, I rubbed my nose against every glass-covered case, mesmerized by the life-sized animals, dinosaurs, and fossils. I tried all the interactive displays, from dizzying visual illusions to tingling tests of hot/cold tolerance. Museums were places I could feel knowledgeable when viewing a few exhibits, gaze in wonder at many others, and leave with more questions than answers.

Standing in the museum tonight, watching a baby chicken pecking its way out of its shell and into life, all the old mystery and excitement comes rushing back.

I begin with the “animal smells” exhibit (picture a long board with scent bottles the size and shape of saltshakers). Apparently, “eau de moose” is kind of musty. “Eau de beaver” smells strangely of cinnamon. “Eau de bear” smells like it’s time to move on.

Next I stand on my tiptoes, watching the live presentations offered by the museum staff. A porcupine waddles bow-legged around the stage. A Van de Graaff generator three stories tall creates lightning loud enough to deafen you from 20 yards away. Families of stuffed rats frolic inside a miniature sewer system.

Finally, I move to the human interactive exhibits. I put on a special wristband, scan my barcode, and begin testing, moving from station to station. Turns out, my skin color index is a 76. My oxygen saturation level is a 98. And my cholesterol level­—well, ignorance was bliss. Thanks, science.