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Keywords:

Misconceptions about science, scientific heritage, reflection, cognitive conflict

Abstract:

Misconceptions about science abide among pupils, students and the general public. As universities play pivotal roles in the search for knowledge and the academic heritage bears witness of this endeavour, university museums can be central in the education about science. But how does one elicit understanding of science? As misconceptions are hard to erase, they need to be made explicit through cognitive conflict. This entails bringing persons in situations where some of their understandings about science no longer hold. For instance, to accept the idea that science is no truth machine, but a strive for reliable knowledge, attention for discredited scientific ideas is as important as for generally accepted theories. Likewise, the academic heritage can elicit reflection about the relation between science and society or the processes of scientific endeavour and discovery. How does one make a visitor reflect? How does one reconcile the ambition to teach about science with the need to elicit cognitive conflict? How does one dialogue with visitors who have different worldviews? In answering these and similar questions, we may come closer to a university museum embodying the intangible heritage of curiosity and investigation ingrained in the university’s core.