Nuts And Bolts On A Pedestal

Edward Tenner (“Pantheons of Nuts and Bolts,” Winter 1989) gleefully informs us that the great museums of technology all over the Free World have been conquered by his ilk, the social historians, who are busy throwing out the inventions to make room for exhibits of the pseudoissues they think the public should consider more important. Exhibits on social issues are far less interesting to the actual attendees of technology museums than the real machinery. The machinery made the world prosperous, while the social exhibits are just boring propaganda that won’t improve the world at all. There is probably no way to correct this situation. Getting institutional power is a profession, and professionals will beat amateurs every time.

Every so often an industrialist gets the good idea of commemorating the technology on which his success is based. Unless he is ashamed of his accomplishments, he needs to be careful to avoid his museum’s getting into the hands of the social historians, the public-policy community, the museum community, or the educationists.

Professor John McCarthy
Department of Computer Science
Stanford University
Stanford, Calif.