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IET Member News August 2010www.theiet.org/membernews

OPINION

Humorist Danny Wallace feelsembarrassed. Hes a collector withBritains most extensive privatecollection of black and white photosof 1960s and 70s Shropshire table-tennis teams. As collectables go itsfairly mainstream, like the familyphotos, engine numbers, shells,dolls houses, art works, stamps,telephone cards or DVDs. However,some bizarre objects are gathered

just look at the number of websitesfor airline sick-bags! Many theorieshave been suggested as to whypeople collect: genetics, autism, mid-life crises.

In Renaissance Europe the fashionwas to collect curios connected withones work or travels. Eventually, thisresulted in a house full of objects acabinet of curiosities for visitors tomarvel at. Often, they were never

catalogued as their owners kneweach items story. When they died,that knowledge died too.

While some of the old cabinetshave been transformed intomuseums, others still exist in theiroriginal form. One such is UniversityCollege, Londons Grant Museum:

in nearly 200 years, only a smallpart has been catalogued and, asthe original donors have long sincepassed away without leaving detailsof their lovingly cared-for collec-tions, they probably never will be.

There are murky specimen jars fromThomas Huxleys collection. Butwhat is in them? Only he knew.Occasionally, items are identified.For example, the Grant has twozebra skeletons. One was recentlyrevealed as a quagga (a rare Africanmammal, extinct since the 19thcentury), while the other turned outto be a common-or-garden donkey.

Nowadays, any self-respectingtown or city has a modern hands-on, interactive technology museum.As well as being very expensive todevelop and run, they raisequestions about the return on such

investments and the underlyingpolitics. What, for instance, does arailway museum tell us about life asa train driver? Or, can a convertedmine realistically represent life inthose hot, cramped, dangerousconditions? An old telephone givesus an idea of what it was like to

handle, but no feel for its reliabilityor the implications of having todepend on a gossipy operator. It isalso interesting that art, science andtechnology have often come to belocated in separate institutions.

Are such museums created to

encourage nostalgia, amazement atwhat the country, and often itsmilitary services, has produced (fewtechnology museums show productsdeveloped abroad), or are theymerely competitors to theme parks?It may be that the museum format issuited only to presenting certain

types of information and limits notonly how that information can beshown to visitors, but also the feasi-bility of classifying it effectively.Perhaps, they are really still cabinetsof curiosities full of knick-knacks,resembling the fossilised versions of

their modern day equivalents.Museums need to find a role. So,

next time you visit one think aboutwhy you went and what you gainedfrom the experience. And let usknow your conclusions.

The fashion for technology

FEEDBACKSend letters to the Editor,Member News, IET, Michael Faraday House, Six Hills Way, Stevenage, Herts. SG1 2AY, UK,or by email to kparker@theiet.org, including your address. The IET reserves the right to edit letters and to use submissions in any other format.

GENDER STEREOTYPING

In answer to the first questionposed to Jane Ali (Mind the(gender) gap, Member News, Juneissue) she says, I have always beencaptivated by the wonders ofscience and nature, combined witha fascination for how things work.

This is the key. How many girlswould say that?

The efforts put into persuadinggirls to go into science andengineering are always going to belargely unsuccessful if girls do notfirst have that basic interest inscience and nature. And research

shows that gender stereotypingstarts before a child can crawl.Whilst (as a chartered engineer andpsychotherapist) I am sure that itmakes a difference whether a babyis the same sex as its mother or not,I am equally sure that most gender

stereotyping is socially determined

and can be avoided.So what is the IET doing to

ensure that children are born intoan environment where girls areexpected to be equally confident,assertive and as interested inscience as boys?

John Talbut MIETCoalville, UK

PUBLICITY STUNTThe following relates to two items(an opinion piece by Ralph Adamand a letter to the editor fromRashid Samnakay), contained in the

June issue ofMember News

, whichmake reference to professionalethics.

Over the past 18 months we havebeen bombarded with events thatresult from companies (and thepeople that ran them) acting unethi-

cally. It does not seem to matter

which service or manufacturingsector they operate in. For examplethe financial sector (represented byany number of the large banks-- take

your pick), oil (example BP), automo-tive (Toyota), electronics (exampleDell, Intel under investigation),software (Microsoft Windows IE)drug manufacturing (example

Johnson and Johnson).I regularly receive a stream of

emails from the FDA about majordrug and medical equipment recallsand the US Consumer ProductSafety Commission (CPSC) about

Consumer products that do notmeet federal regulations as theycontain lead, cadmium, kill childrenor accidentally chop their fingersoff. Upon reading these alerts itappears that most of the companies

were aware of the problems, but

continued to ship the defective

product anyway.This leads me to the conclusion,

(based on the published and unpub-lished history), that no company isethical. Maybe ethics is a goal thatcan never be fully achieved by anycompany or any person.

I believe that attempts bycompanies to set up ethics commit-tees, after they have been caughtred handed (such as BAE), is just apublicity stunt and doesnt solveanything.

Ask yourself, have you everworked for a company that is truly

ethical both in the products/services they supply to theircustomers or in how they treat theiremployees?

I think your answer will be NO!Peter Brooks MIETPalm Bay, Florida

Ralph Adam(sd324a@gmail.com)

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