A tombstone is an odd sight in a museum case - and the inscription on this one makes it all the more peculiar: 'Here lies the theory of evolution RIP'.
A silhouette of Darwin is carved above the letters and a single white rose adorns the grave. Faced with this rather mawkish spectacle, in a disused bank in Portsmouth, my friends and I have an uncontrollable urge to giggle. Luckily, no one is around to hear us.
It's 3pm and the friendly receptionist tells us we're some of the first visitors of the day. In fact, it's been quiet all year at the Genesis Expo. No one seems particularly aware of its existence and visitor numbers are low, even though entrance to the museum is free.
I'd assumed that while creationism was a big deal in the US, it has made little impact in the UK. So when I heard that a creationist museum was open for business on the south coast of England, I was curious to take a look.
Genesis Expo has borrowed the clothes of the 19th-century science museum, presenting artefacts in dark wooden cases to give a reassuring whiff of authority. In this context, the tombstone to Darwin should feel alarming.
But on closer inspection, the cases are made of Sterling board, painted with brown wood stain, and evolution's grave is polystyrene, graced with a plastic rose. All this obvious artifice makes the experience somewhat hilarious and maybe that's why this odd little exhibition seems harmless.
There are plenty on oddities on offer, including Bruno, the failing, animatronic dinosaur; a 60s-style mural depicting early hunter-gatherers living with dinosaurs; and a gallon of Primeval Soup in a familiar red tin. The label informs us: 'The idea that life might arise spontaneously in the "evolutionary soup" would be a nightmare for the soup canning industry.'
So what do the public make of this museum? Looking around the empty galleries, I guess not very much. A few phone calls back this up. No one at Portsmouth City Council has heard of it. I call Geoff Coats at the city's Natural History Museum but he hasn't heard of Genesis Expo either. Nor can he remember anyone challenging him on evolution because of something they've seen in the show.
Maybe the Genesis Expo is off the radar because it's so out of step with visitor expectations. Go to any progressive science museum and you'll notice that the old mission of 'promoting the public understanding of science' has given way to dialogue - discussing ideas with the public, exploring shades of risk and uncertainty and presenting various sides of an argument.
But at Genesis Expo there is no invitation to debate: facts are presented selectively and any unknowns are neatly resolved by referring to The Maker.
It claims no link has been found between birds and reptiles, conveniently neglecting current debates about the fossils Pedopenna daohugouensis, archaeopteryx and buitreraptor.
Similarly, after noting that 'the complexity of life is beyond anything we can do', the exhibition glibly adds that 'the Bible reveals that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and all living creatures'.
So how should museums and science centres respond to places such as Genesis Expo? After my outing to Portsmouth, my instinct is to ignore them and expect them to fizzle away.
But there is another centre in the UK that I find more unsettling. This is Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxall, Bristol, a 'hands-on country experience', run by people who believe in Genesis.
A glance at the website suggests that Noah's Ark is a well-run science centre, offering the chance to encounter 80 species of living exhibits. But scroll down and you'll see that the owners take a Biblical view of creation.
When I called to ask what they can offer a group of Key Stage 2 and 3 students (children aged seven to 14), I'm told we will be treated to a wonderful animal display, covering chicks hatching and the harvesting of wool.
And on evolution? 'We're up front - but not in your face', was the reply. They tell me that man can't possibly be related to a banana... and that 'the so-called geological age of the Earth has no scientific foundation'.
Although they say they don't promote their ideas unless asked, they admit that there is literature on the walls. So while children are watching the chicks hatch, don't be surprised if they also absorb the view that the theory of evolution, the estimated age of the Earth and the Big Bang are in trouble.
Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is offering visitors the kind of joined-up experience that so many crave: everyday science with a readiness to answer the big questions about why we're here and where we came from.
A friend recently told me that he was disturbed to find that his seven-year-old daughter was receiving religious doctrine on the origins of the Earth at school. Meanwhile, her science lessons focused on the material properties of wood, metal and sponges, with no inspirational stories of evolution or the Big Bang.
Science lessons are as good a place as any for the big questions about where we came from and what life is about. And there is no better place to do this than the science centre and museum.
For many years museums have too often had their agendas set by sponsorship. In the 1980s, funding from fuel companies lead to a rash of exhibitions on public energy 'concerns'. And armed with money from the genomics industry in the 1990s, every science centre was bursting with answers to the question 'Am I unique?'
The American Museum of Natural History's Darwin exhibition will be coming from New York to London in 2009, the bicentenary of Darwin's birth.
It has been researched in collaboration with the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, but maybe we also need an entirely home-grown exhibition that joins up the dots between cosmology, evolutionary theory, genetics and theories of the mind. This cross-curricular approach doesn't readily lend itself to funding but maybe it's worth a shot.
Although I disagree with the creationist doctrine, I don't need to declare its demise on a tombstone. Creationists can have their voice in the UK but so can the evolutionary scientists.
And if museums and science centres attempt to tackle the big questions, I'm happy to leave well-informed visitors to make up their own minds about the reasons for our existence on Earth.
Sarah Angliss is a sound artist and exhibit maker. She's grateful to the curators, scientists, parents and other friends who offered their opinions during the writing of this piece
A silhouette of Darwin is carved above the letters and a single white rose adorns the grave. Faced with this rather mawkish spectacle, in a disused bank in Portsmouth, my friends and I have an uncontrollable urge to giggle. Luckily, no one is around to hear us.
It's 3pm and the friendly receptionist tells us we're some of the first visitors of the day. In fact, it's been quiet all year at the Genesis Expo. No one seems particularly aware of its existence and visitor numbers are low, even though entrance to the museum is free.
I'd assumed that while creationism was a big deal in the US, it has made little impact in the UK. So when I heard that a creationist museum was open for business on the south coast of England, I was curious to take a look.
Genesis Expo has borrowed the clothes of the 19th-century science museum, presenting artefacts in dark wooden cases to give a reassuring whiff of authority. In this context, the tombstone to Darwin should feel alarming.
But on closer inspection, the cases are made of Sterling board, painted with brown wood stain, and evolution's grave is polystyrene, graced with a plastic rose. All this obvious artifice makes the experience somewhat hilarious and maybe that's why this odd little exhibition seems harmless.
There are plenty on oddities on offer, including Bruno, the failing, animatronic dinosaur; a 60s-style mural depicting early hunter-gatherers living with dinosaurs; and a gallon of Primeval Soup in a familiar red tin. The label informs us: 'The idea that life might arise spontaneously in the "evolutionary soup" would be a nightmare for the soup canning industry.'
So what do the public make of this museum? Looking around the empty galleries, I guess not very much. A few phone calls back this up. No one at Portsmouth City Council has heard of it. I call Geoff Coats at the city's Natural History Museum but he hasn't heard of Genesis Expo either. Nor can he remember anyone challenging him on evolution because of something they've seen in the show.
Maybe the Genesis Expo is off the radar because it's so out of step with visitor expectations. Go to any progressive science museum and you'll notice that the old mission of 'promoting the public understanding of science' has given way to dialogue - discussing ideas with the public, exploring shades of risk and uncertainty and presenting various sides of an argument.
But at Genesis Expo there is no invitation to debate: facts are presented selectively and any unknowns are neatly resolved by referring to The Maker.
It claims no link has been found between birds and reptiles, conveniently neglecting current debates about the fossils Pedopenna daohugouensis, archaeopteryx and buitreraptor.
Similarly, after noting that 'the complexity of life is beyond anything we can do', the exhibition glibly adds that 'the Bible reveals that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and all living creatures'.
So how should museums and science centres respond to places such as Genesis Expo? After my outing to Portsmouth, my instinct is to ignore them and expect them to fizzle away.
But there is another centre in the UK that I find more unsettling. This is Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxall, Bristol, a 'hands-on country experience', run by people who believe in Genesis.
A glance at the website suggests that Noah's Ark is a well-run science centre, offering the chance to encounter 80 species of living exhibits. But scroll down and you'll see that the owners take a Biblical view of creation.
When I called to ask what they can offer a group of Key Stage 2 and 3 students (children aged seven to 14), I'm told we will be treated to a wonderful animal display, covering chicks hatching and the harvesting of wool.
And on evolution? 'We're up front - but not in your face', was the reply. They tell me that man can't possibly be related to a banana... and that 'the so-called geological age of the Earth has no scientific foundation'.
Although they say they don't promote their ideas unless asked, they admit that there is literature on the walls. So while children are watching the chicks hatch, don't be surprised if they also absorb the view that the theory of evolution, the estimated age of the Earth and the Big Bang are in trouble.
Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is offering visitors the kind of joined-up experience that so many crave: everyday science with a readiness to answer the big questions about why we're here and where we came from.
A friend recently told me that he was disturbed to find that his seven-year-old daughter was receiving religious doctrine on the origins of the Earth at school. Meanwhile, her science lessons focused on the material properties of wood, metal and sponges, with no inspirational stories of evolution or the Big Bang.
Science lessons are as good a place as any for the big questions about where we came from and what life is about. And there is no better place to do this than the science centre and museum.
For many years museums have too often had their agendas set by sponsorship. In the 1980s, funding from fuel companies lead to a rash of exhibitions on public energy 'concerns'. And armed with money from the genomics industry in the 1990s, every science centre was bursting with answers to the question 'Am I unique?'
The American Museum of Natural History's Darwin exhibition will be coming from New York to London in 2009, the bicentenary of Darwin's birth.
It has been researched in collaboration with the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, but maybe we also need an entirely home-grown exhibition that joins up the dots between cosmology, evolutionary theory, genetics and theories of the mind. This cross-curricular approach doesn't readily lend itself to funding but maybe it's worth a shot.
Although I disagree with the creationist doctrine, I don't need to declare its demise on a tombstone. Creationists can have their voice in the UK but so can the evolutionary scientists.
And if museums and science centres attempt to tackle the big questions, I'm happy to leave well-informed visitors to make up their own minds about the reasons for our existence on Earth.
Sarah Angliss is a sound artist and exhibit maker. She's grateful to the curators, scientists, parents and other friends who offered their opinions during the writing of this piece
