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OPINION
The fashion for technology
Humorist Danny Wallace feels
embarrassed. He’s a collector – with
Britain’s most extensive private
collection of black and white photos
of 1960s and 70s Shropshire table-
tennis teams. As collectables go it’s
fairly mainstream, like the family
photos, engine numbers, shells,
dolls’ houses, art works, stamps,
telephone cards or DVDs. However,
some bizarre objects are gathered –
just look at the number of websites
for airline sick-bags! Many theories
have been suggested as to why
people collect: genetics, autism, mid-
life crises.
In Renaissance Europe the fashion
was to collect curios connected with
one’s work or travels. Eventually, this
resulted in a house full of objects – a
‘cabinet of curiosities’ for visitors to
marvel at. Often, they were never
catalogued as their owners knew
each item’s story. When they died,
that knowledge died too.
While some of the old cabinets
have been transformed into
museums, others still exist in their
original form. One such is University
College, London’s Grant Museum:
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GENDER STEREOTYPING
In answer to the first question
posed to Jane Ali (‘Mind the
(gender) gap’, Member News, June
issue) she says, “I have always been
captivated by the wonders of
science and nature, combined with
a fascination for how things work.”
This is the key. How many girls
would say that?
The efforts put into persuading
girls to go into science and
engineering are always going to be
largely unsuccessful if girls do not
first have that basic interest in
science and nature. And research
shows that gender stereotyping
starts before a child can crawl.
Whilst (as a chartered engineer and
psychotherapist) I am sure that it
makes a difference whether a baby
is the same sex as its mother or not,
I am equally sure that most gender
IET Member News August 2010 www.theiet.org/membernews
in nearly 200 years, only a small
part has been catalogued and, as
the original donors have long since
passed away without leaving details
of their lovingly cared-for collec-
tions, they probably never will be.
There are murky specimen jars from
Thomas Huxley’s collection. But
what is in them? Only he knew.
Occasionally, items are identified.
For example, the Grant has two
‘zebra’ skeletons. One was recently
revealed as a quagga (a rare African
mammal, extinct since the 19th
century), while the other turned out
to be a common-or-garden donkey.
Nowadays, any self-respecting
town or city has a modern hands-
on, interactive technology museum.
As well as being very expensive to
develop and run, they raise
questions about the return on such
investments and the underlying
politics. What, for instance, does a
railway museum tell us about life as
a train driver? Or, can a converted
mine realistically represent life in
those hot, cramped, dangerous
conditions? An old telephone gives
us an idea of what it was like to
stereotyping is socially determined
and can be avoided.
So what is the IET doing to
ensure that children are born into
an environment where girls are
expected to be equally confident,
assertive and as interested in
science as boys?
John Talbut MIET
Coalville, UK
PUBLICITY STUNT
The following relates to two items
(an opinion piece by Ralph Adam
and a letter to the editor from
Rashid Samnakay), contained in the
June issue of Member News, which
make reference to professional
ethics.
Over the past 18 months we have
been bombarded with events that
result from companies (and the
people that ran them) acting unethi-
more online
handle, but no feel for its reliability
or the implications of having to
depend on a gossipy operator. It is
also interesting that art, science and
technology have often come to be
located in separate institutions.
Are such museums created to
encourage nostalgia, amazement at
what the country, and often its
military services, has produced (few
technology museums show products
developed abroad), or are they
merely competitors to theme parks?
It may be that the museum format is
suited only to presenting certain
cally. It does not seem to matter
which service or manufacturing
sector they operate in. For example
the financial sector (represented by
any number of the large banks-- take
your pick), oil (example BP), automo-
tive (Toyota), electronics (example
Dell, Intel under investigation),
software (Microsoft Windows IE)
drug manufacturing (example
Johnson and Johnson).
I regularly receive a stream of
emails from the FDA about major
drug and medical equipment recalls
and the US Consumer Product
Safety Commission (CPSC) about
Consumer products that do not
meet federal regulations as they
contain lead, cadmium, kill children
or accidentally chop their fingers
off. Upon reading these alerts it
appears that most of the companies
were aware of the problems, but
www.theiet.org/
about/ethics
types of information and limits not
only how that information can be
shown to visitors, but also the feasi-
bility of classifying it effectively.
Perhaps, they are really still cabinets
of 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 about
why you went and what you gained
from the experience. And let us
know your conclusions.
Ralph Adam
(sd324a@gmail.com)
continued to ship the defective
product anyway.
This leads me to the conclusion,
(based on the published and unpub-
lished history), that no company is
ethical. Maybe ethics is a goal that
can never be fully achieved by any
company or any person.
I believe that attempts by
companies to set up ethics commit-
tees, after they have been caught
red handed (such as BAE), is just a
publicity stunt and doesn’t solve
anything.
Ask yourself, have you ever
worked for a company that is truly
ethical both in the products/
services they supply to their
customers or in how they treat their
employees?
I think your answer will be NO!
Peter Brooks MIET
Palm Bay, Florida