You get an interesting -- and somewhat depressing -- insight into human nature at one particular exhibit at the marvelous new California Academy of Sciences.
The exhibit, which happens to be a favorite of Ada's, is called 'Watch Your Step!' It's presented in the form of an interactive game, played on a floor set between two walls, both of which have boards explaining how it works.
Essentially, you are invited to collect a variety of projected 'bugs' that appear on the floor. You do that by using your foot to shift food that also appears periodically on the floor into several traps. When the food is in the traps, a few bugs will skitter in and the display screen goes 'bing!' and shows you a big, beautiful image of what you have collected.
So what do most people do when they arrive at the exhibit? They stamp on the bugs.
This is in a museum dedicated to celebrating the natural world. Its message is overwhelmingly about promoting conservation. Interest in, respect and concern for the wellbeing of all living things is its essence. Who then, you might wonder, would go in there thinking it would feature a game that invites you to kill insects?
But that's what I'd say at least 50% of people encountering the exhibit appear to assume. And I've seen plenty, since Ada loves this game and always wants to stay for hours. The fact that at least half the people who join her want to kill the bugs -- and play the game wrong, darn it! -- is hugely frustrating to her.
While waiting, I've wondered about the exhibit. Is it brilliant in its openness -- in allowing people to go in stamping, if that's their first inclination, but then making them realize that it's really about research, and thereby having them confront the reality of their unreflected murderous intent towards small creatures?
For those who (finally) read the explanatory boards (or who meet Ada, loudly telling them they're playing the game wrong), maybe that does happen. But I've seen as many come in, have fun jumping on a few projected bugs, quickly grow bored and leave.
Does that make this a failed exhibit? I suppose that depends on whether you think museums should change you or whether you think it's fair for them to assume that you are, on arrival, simpatico, at least to some degree, with their mission.
But the stakes here are high. A great deal of the Academy is dedicated to conveying the notion that the plants and animals inhabiting our planet are under threat -- most notably from us. Perhaps we just can't afford to let anyone leave the place thinking that stamping on bugs is ever a good idea.