summary

It seems evident that the natural history museum has reached a stage in the evolution of its relationship to society where the generally prevailing oppor- tunistic vagueness of intentions is becoming a liability which must be replaced by a well-considered, well-integrated, and well-defined philosophy concern- ing the museum’s place in the general research and educational system.

(Parr, 1959, p. 21)

The Anthropocene represents a new phase in both humankind and of the Earth, when natural forces and human forces became intertwined, so that the fate of one determines the fate of the other.

(Zalasiewicz et al., 2010, p. 2231)

An institution such as a museum has a responsibility to empower the elec- torate to make informed, scientifically literate decisions about their lives. If in 2050 we were delivering the same messages, either we’ve failed at affecting change in society and still needed to give those messages, or we just got left behind and we were no longer on the frontier of what mattered in society.

(American Alliance of Museums [AAM], 2011, pp. 50–51).

Museums, in the twenty-first century, loom larger than they ever have be- fore. They are more socially and economically vital, they seek to offer their publics more, and they arguably succeed in doing so in those countries in which they have long been established.

(Thomas, 2016, p. 7)

Relevance

At the start of this century, the Smithsonian Institution’s scholar emeritus Stephen Weil coined the phrase “making museums matter” as the title of his much-quoted book (Weil, 2002). This quickly became popular because it resonated with a growing awareness of the challenges and opportunities facing societies and environments, both locally and globally. Yet “the awkward fact remains,” he would lament, “that, for a variety of reasons,

2 A holistic ethos for nature-focused museums in the Anthropocene Emlyn Koster, Eric Dorfman, and Terry Simioti Nyambe

30 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

the museum field has never agreed—and until recently, has scarcely even sought to agree—on some standard by which the relative worthiness of its constituent member institutions might be measured” (Weil, 2006, p. 4). The museum sector had, however, begun to differentiate between those institutions still at ease with internally focused traditions, those striving for a new relevancy-driven approach, and those increasingly immersed in ex- ternal value contexts (Koster and Falk, 2007). Chronicling the reinvention of philosophies and practices across the museum sector toward more exter- nally valuable paradigms was the two-step selection of influential papers for publication by Anderson (2004, 2012).

For a museum to aspire to its most externally valuable state requires clarity on what being relevant entails in exact terms. Often used, but sel- dom defined, “relevant” means relating to the matters at hand: clearly, contextual matters require specification. In the twenty-first century, what makes a natural history museum and its kindred institutions (museums of anthropology, nature, nature and science, and the natural sciences—in this chapter, all referred to as “nature-focused museums”) maximally relevant is surely their most pivotal undertaking.

Whether the Anthropocene, which was introduced in 2000 (Crutzen, 2002), becomes formalized by the geological profession, it has become a widespread term in many other disciplines and in news editorials and headlines referring to humanity’s impacts on natural systems (Robin and Steffen, 2007; Economist, 2011; New York Times, 2011; New York Times, 2012; Carrington, 2016; Yang, 2017). As a pressing matter of ac- countability, our response in this chapter to the relevancy question is that nature- focused museums should wholeheartedly become resources to illu- minate the meaning and implications of the Anthropocene.

The resources that nature-focused museums should arguably be in mod- ern biodiversity and related contexts are analogous to museums in regions with a high-magnitude earthquake or volcanic risk acquainting their com- munities concerning hazardous phenomena and safety measures. For their part, nature-focused museums have unique expertise and resources to responsibly inform a brighter journey for humanity and nature together (Koster, 2012). Indeed, not to mobilize these attributes would be to margin- alize them on the sidelines of the challenges and opportunities that surround life, both human and non-human. Cameron and Kelly (2010) recognized that museums’ progress on the societal and environmental fronts is inevita- bly punctuated by challenging moments that Koster (2010) discussed in his review of the evolution of purpose in science centers and science museums. Encouragement to pursue this direction comes with new book and arti- cle titles such as “The Endangered Dead” (Kemp, 2015), “What Museums Are good for in the 21st Century” (Thomas, 2016), and “Museums as Catalysts for Change” (Rees, 2017).

This chapter reviews the evolving paradigms that surround collections; discusses the contributing factors to our sector’s past inertia; explores the

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 31

Anthropocene as an encompassing framework for the future; touches on several other related and timely opportunities for the sector; and profiles what a holistic ethos entails in order to advance an institution in the most efficient and effective manner, “to do things right” and “to do the right things,” respectively.1 Several concepts from the business realm are infused into our approach, including generative thinking:

The most important work that takes place in an organization is when people first begin to identify and discern what the important chal- lenges, problems, opportunities, and questions are… It’s the way in which the intellectual agenda of the organization is constructed… The question should be: do we have the problem right?… generative think- ing is getting to the question before the question… It’s not about nar- row technical expertise.2

Evolving collection paradigms

The impetus of collections as the primary raison d’être of museums has been predominant. In a provocative paper entitled “From Being about Something to Being for Somebody…,” we learned that “the overwhelm- ing majority of American museums and museum training programs con- tinue to operate as if… collections were still at the center of the museum’s concerns” (Anderson, 2012, p. 181). Today, numerous museum collec- tions total in the many millions and, collectively, natural history muse- ums worldwide store about three billion specimens (Wheeler et al., 2012). In this regard, it is noteworthy that science centers that may function without collections have been a source of innovation for the wider mu- seum field (Koster, 1999); specifically fit within the museum definition of, for example, the American Alliance of Museums;3 and engage with collections- based museums through, for example, the US-based Associa- tion of Science Museum Directors.4

“Collection” was the keyword in six of the eight sections comprising the worldwide code of ethics for the museum profession (International Council of Museums [ICOM], 2006). The codes for the American Alliance of Museums and the United Kingdom’s Museums Association, like other examples, present a similar picture with these statements:

• Museums make their unique contribution to the public by collecting, preserving and interpreting the things of this world. Historically, they have owned and used natural objects, living and nonliving, and all manner of human artifacts to advance knowledge and nourish the hu- man spirit. Today, the range of their special interests reflects the scope of human vision. Their missions include collecting and preserving, as well as exhibiting and educating with materials not only owned but also borrowed and fabricated for these ends.5

32 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

• Museums enable people to explore collections for inspiration, learning, and enjoyment. They are institutions that collect, safeguard and make accessible artifacts and specimens, which they hold in trust for society.6

Declarations of the natural history museum sector from over the last decade are instructive windows into its evolving consciousness and the contextual purpose of its collections:

• 2007, Paris: Representatives from natural history museums and re- search institutes issued the Buffon Declaration:7 “given that science is critical for sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems and, through it, survival of human populations on this planet, the vital contributions of these institutions are fourfold: a) They are the primary repositories of the scientific samples on which understanding of the va- riety of life is ultimately based; b) Through leading-edge research they extend knowledge of the structure and dynamics of biodiversity in the present and the past; c) Through partnerships, and through programs of training and capacity-building, they strengthen the global capability to address current and future environmental challenges; and d) They are a forum for direct engagement with civil society, which is indispen- sable for helping bring about the changes of behaviour on which our common future and the future of nature depend.”

• 2012, Washington, DC: Learning-focused representatives from mainly US natural history organizations issued the following decla- ration: “Humanity is embedded within nature and we are at a criti- cal moment in the continuity of time. Our collections are the direct scientific evidence for evolution and the ecological interdependence of all living things. The human species is actively altering the Earth’s natural processes and reducing its biodiversity. As the sentient cause of these impacts, we have the urgent responsibility to give voice to the Earth’s immense story and to secure its sustainable future” (Koster et al., 2012, pp. 22–23).

• 2015, Taipei: The ethical focus of this Declaration on Natural History Museums and Biodiversity Conservation, as noted by Dorfman (2016, p. 56), was to “give back… to the wild populations that have provided their collection objects… A major role of natural history museums is to collect and steward natural history objects, generating knowledge regarding these objects and disseminating this knowledge to the community. Natural history museums also engage the public to form deep bonds with the natural world and commit to its preservation. Increased human activities have caused catastrophic declines in biodiversity. Both ethics and logic point to a mandate to conserve vulnerable habitats and species. To achieve best practices, natural history museums take action to conserve natural habitats and populations” (ibid.).

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 33

The concluding sentences of the Taipei declaration approach the baseline concept in this chapter’s purpose—namely, that nature-focused museums illuminate the meaning and implications of the Anthropocene. With re- spect to the checklist of questions to achieve progress with conservation efforts posed by Miller and colleagues (2004), Dorfman (2016, pp. 56–57) noted:

the natural history museums sector has not yet made great strides to- wards adopting conservation action as an industry standard, despite the exceptional work undertaken by some institutions.

In her assessment of conservation, museums, and codes of ethics, de Roemer (2016, p. 249) opened with this statement: “Less a matter of differences rather than of interconnectivity, the lines of what defines the museum, what is the role of conservation and the nature and extent of their relationship, are blurred.” In concluding, she observed, “conservation and museums are interlinked; questions of which came first are, however, of less significance than the recognition of their shared purpose and values” (ibid., p. 263).

Illegal wildlife trade, itself a massive and harrowing global issue, has been poignantly reviewed by the United Nations (2014), and is a developing focus of ICOM's Committee for Museums and Collections of Natural His- tory (ICOM NATHIST Wildlife Trafficking Working group, 2016). How collections are most appropriately integrated into exhibitions also demands diligent consideration. This applies most acutely to human remains, around which intercultural respect with multilingual presentations is imperative, as is the need to construct narratives surrounding identity, partnering authen- tically with indigenous peoples on the conservation, interpretation, and display of their heritage (Alberti et al., 2008; Torsen and Anderson, 2010; Dorfman, 2016). For instance, the National Taiwan Museum collaborated with the island’s indigenous Atayal and Paiwan tribes to revitalize and cele- brate traditional weaving and glass techniques, both re-creating traditional motifs and carrying the art forward with modern interpretations (Li, 2014). In New Zealand, the Whanganui Regional Museum worked closely with local Māori communities to research, restore, and interpret the region’s treasures in a groundbreaking exploration of material culture and intangi- ble heritage (Horwood and Wilson, 2008).

Overcoming inertia

The persistent traditional separation in museums between a collections and research priority and a secondary educational function began to be tackled a quarter century ago in a widely-circulated benchmark publication (AAM, 1992). While the dichotomy has diminished, differential funding often con- tinues to be an issue in terms of connections with academia, salary scales, and operating funds.

34 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

Another fundamental, but clearly related question, is why museums have been hesitant to shift the time frame of their missions from a virtually sole focus on the past. We contend that adding the present-into-the-future time frame to the familiar past-until-the-present time frame reflects new influ- ences on the community-building potential of museums (AAM, 2001) and escalating anxieties over humanity’s environmental impacts (Koster, 2010). With contexts of social responsibility more common than environmental responsibility, this trend had some early prescient moments but has acceler- ated since the 1990s as the following highlights make clear:

• Quoting John Dana from the early 1900s, “Learn what aid the com- munity needs [and] fit the museum to those needs” (Peniston, 1999, p. 16). As Koster (2016, p. 235) noted, the use of needs rather than wants was a visionary new kind of calling on the museum’s sense of its external responsibilities.

• The “introverted focus has engendered the belief that artifactual collec- tions are the ‘reason for being’ for museums, rather than a tool through which we gain and disseminate knowledge” (Duckworth, 1993, p. 15).

• “Almost all of the great natural history museums emerged in late 19th-century cities under the lengthening shadow of the Victorian paradigm of ascending progress… The urgency of the vulnerability of natural and cultural systems have transformed the nature of our interests in them… What is the outcome and use of our research and interpretative programs?… Most visitors have little or no tangible con- tact or comprehension of the ecosystem they live in and depend on” (Sullivan, 1992, pp. 41–43).

• Quoting Harold Skramstad, “Increasingly, the mission statement of a museum, its essential statement of value-added, is going to have to con- tain not only a concise and clear statement of what the museum does, but a sense of the value that this outcome has in the larger work of the community in which it serves. If there is nothing unique and special about its work and the value of this work in solving a problem in peo- ples’ lives, then so what? What’s the point?” (Weil, 1997, pp. 13–14).

• “Now is the time for the next great agenda of museum development. This agenda needs to take as its mission nothing less than to engage actively in the design and delivery of experiences that have the power to inspire and change the way people see the world and the possibility of their own lives… This will not be an easy task. It will require change in focus, organ- ization, staffing, and funding for museums” (Skramstad, 1999, p. 125).

• “To be sure, museums remain showcases for collections and reposito- ries for scholarship, but they have also become pits of popular debate… They are no longer places where people look on in awe but where they learn and argue.”8

• “In an era where budgets are tight… Museums provide a necessary service to scientists and the public by housing specimens in a long-term

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 35

stable environment, providing specimens and data for research, educa- tion and public outreach, and working to develop new technologies to track speciation, biodiversity, and environmental change, just to name a few” (Watters and Siler, 2014, p. 21).

• In reviewing Rader and Cain (2014), Johnson writes: “the book ends in 2005, with both natural history museums and science centers seen as trusted, articulate voices grappling with new and evolving challenges. Science literacy has been vastly complicated by a growing antiscience movement. The urgent issues of preserving biodiversity, mitigating cli- mate change, and promoting cultural diversity are driving some mu- seums to take on additional roles such as conservation, advocacy, and inclusion” (2015, p. 618).

The evolution of conscience in nature-focused museums has helped set the stage for their agenda of relevance in the Anthropocene. However, since the future cannot be collected per se, the question arises as to how nature- focused museums can meaningfully illuminate the Anthropocene in a future-oriented time frame. A starting point is a rigorous reflection on museum practice with a view to engaging audiences in current scientific debates, an example being the research partnership between the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the University of Pittsburgh (Steiner and Crowley, 2013). The recent Welcome to the Anthropocene temporary ex- hibition at the Deutsches Museum used this approach: “in keeping with [our] tradition… displays of historic and contemporary objects from the fields of science and industry bring the topic to life, while installations en- courage active participation from the visitors’ (Möllers et al., 2015, p. 6). At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, a discussion series entitled “Anthropocene: Life in the Age of Humans,” including top- ics such as “Imagining the Human Future: Ethics for the Anthropocene” and “Evolution and the Anthropocene: Science, Religion, and the Human Future,”9 is en route to becoming a planned new exhibition. “This provoc- ative exhibit will focus on the Anthropocene, the slice of Earth’s history during which people have become a major geological force… Alongside the typical displays of Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, there will be a new section that forces visitors to consider the species that is currently dominat- ing the planet… We want to help people imagine their role in the world, which is maybe more important than many of them realize.”10

Into the Anthropocene

While the geological debate continues surrounding the pros and cons of different dates for the Anthropocene, with some expressing the view that “the formalization should not be rushed” (Ellis et al., 2016), its value as a catalyz- ing force for new approaches at nature-focused museums and across society has emerged in the form of ominous alarms (Janes, 2009; Purdy, 2015).

36 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

The Anthropocene represents the best available frame of reference for engaging society in planet Earth’s best possible future (Koster, 2016). It prompts us to illuminate the past, present, and future of the human jour- ney in an ecological framework with natural systems. Especially welcome, therefore, is the 2017 conference theme of ICOM’s Committee for Museums and Collections of Natural History, which is “The Anthropocene: Natural History Museums in the Age of Humanity.”11

The Anthropocene draws attention to the array of human-caused, gen- erally intensifying, changes in each of the outer concentric shells of the Earth System: all are also affected by pollution. Here are their recent key dimensions:

• Atmosphere—decreasing ozone, increasing carbon dioxide, climate warming, and weather extremes

• Hydrosphere—ocean current changes, summertime Arctic Sea ice loss, snow cover and glacier ice reduction, sea level rise, coral bleaching, and river flow regime changes

• Biosphere—ecosystem disruptions, reduced biodiversity, invasive species, extirpations, extinctions, and trafficking

• Pedosphere—paving over of soil, deforestation, farmland loss, and tundra melting

• Lithosphere—nuclear waste disposal, hydraulic fracturing, dewatering, and geological hazards in increasingly populous areas

Due to the high news volume regarding average weather trends, climate im- plications, and coastal inundation, the evidently changing dynamics between the atmosphere and the hydrosphere tend to dominate public attention, but the others are no less important to grasp, try to mitigate, and present to museum audiences. Here’s an example: ahead of Elizabeth Kolbert’s (2014) book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, the New York Times (2012, p. 5) published a pictorial tally of life under threat based on an eval- uation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on the ability of 52,025 species to survive. The most confident data was for birds, with 99 percent of known species assessed and 13 percent, or 1,253, threatened; for mammals, with 85 percent assessed and 25 percent, or 1,138, threatened; and amphibians, with 70 percent assessed, and 41 percent, or 1,017, threat- ened. For reptiles with 29 percent of species assessed, 772 were listed as threatened, and for fishes, 2,028, or 23 percent, were listed as threatened. An accompanying article by Pearson (2012, p. 5) emphasized that vibrant ecosystems are essential for human survival. Although the above data are distressing, the overall picture worsens considerably when the analysis of Tedesco et al. (2014) is included: they estimated the proportions of species in several understudied taxonomic groups that went extinct before they were described as between 15 and 59 percent. In his keynote address to an ICOM congress almost three decades ago, cultural critic Neil Postman12

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 37

opined that “a good museum will always direct attention to what is difficult and painful to contemplate” (Postman, 1989, p. 40).

The interdependence of virtually all the Earth’s shells is behind the ad- ditional, and instructively encompassing, terms “ecosphere,” which refers to all areas occupied by life, and “technosphere,” which denotes the realm of human technological activity. In their overview of the history of life, Williams et al. (2015) summarized several “fundamental stages”: a mi- crobial stage starting 3.5 billion years ago, a metazoan phase beginning 650 million years ago, and a modern biosphere dominated by Homo sa- piens, including human-directed evolution of other species and increasing interaction between the biosphere and the technosphere. Summing up, they remarked that in:

an intertwined biosphere and technosphere… [the] anthropogenic influence would be responsible for a lasting change in the Earth System, initiating a new trajectory for the biosphere that could last over geolog- ical timescales.

(Williams et al., 2015, p. 18)

On an uplifting note, the Anthropocene also provides a transdiscipli- nary framework for science literacy at all ages and stages of learning. The drawback of so-called Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)—that surged in popularity over the last decade is that it empha- sizes separate traditional disciplines while excluding others that are also fundamental (for example, art, the humanities, medicine), rather than in- novative pedagogies toward realizing an encompassing purpose. This acro- nym would, therefore, be more powerfully used in the manner of the North Carolina Science, Technology, and Mathematics Education Center, which is “Strategies That Engage Minds.”13 In a similar vein, David Skorton, sec- retary of the Smithsonian, recently remarked:

The traditional scientific method has been wonderfully successful. Modern life is indebted to it. However, the method has proven less successful on its own in solving some of society’s more complex and seemingly intractable problems, such as poverty, hunger, lack of educa- tion, social justice, access to health care and in economic equality— all problems that require close listening, emotional distancing, weigh- ing of arguments and counter arguments—and direct participation of those affected by the issues… one of the most effective ways is to do so through the arts and humanities… It has been said that science helps us understand what we can do; the arts and humanities—our culture and values—help us decide what to do. Studying the arts and humanities develops critical-thinking skills and nimble habits of mind, provides historical and cultural perspectives and fosters the ability to analyze, synthesize and communicate… In my new role as secretary of

38 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

the Smithsonian, I am learning quickly the leading role museums and other cultural institutions can play in our communities, the country and the world, and how they can affect and stimulate discourse and action.

(AAM, 2016, pp. 40–42)

On the matter of the natural and human sciences, Van Praët (2015, pp. 8–9) observed that these two fields “should now come together again to address the current societal issues of humankind’s relationship with nature and our complex relationship with the living world.” As much as the Anthropocene concept helps museums to integrate prehistorical, historical, contemporary, and forward-oriented contexts, the Big History concept creates a long view— actually, a very long view all the way back to the Big Bang—of natural and human history as one continuous story.14 This approach has been advanced by historian David Christian15 and promoted by philanthropist Bill gates.16 It deserves inclusion in nature-focused museums because society has great conceptual difficulty with the expanses of geological and astronomical time frames. Big History also fosters society’s grasp of anthropology’s increas- ingly detailed apprehension of the prehuman to human evolutionary tran- sition,17 and of the transformative overview experience of planet Earth by astronauts (Beaver, 2016).

Condensing the almost 14 billion years since the Big Bang into one calen- dar year has the Solar System forming in early September, and condensing the 4.6 billion years of Earth’s history has all human history squeezed into the last minute before midnight on December 31. The Big History approach helps greatly to link the more familiar—human history and very recent prehistory—with the widely unfamiliar, and in many quarters the unbe- lieved or rejected, course of Earth and pre-Earth history. From the stand- point of nature-focused museums, Big History helps to bring all of nature and humanity into one holistic perspective: clearly, all feasible progress in this regard is vital.

There are several other big-picture concepts that arguably need to infuse thinking and action in nature-focused museums:

• The Sustainable Development goals of the United Nations18 represent a bold cooperative approach to realizing progress with regard to the world’s largest societal and environmental challenges. Each goal, as agreed upon in 2015, has aspirational targets to be achieved by 2030. Entitled “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,”19 the noble intentions of cooperating countries are fo- cused on five areas: people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. The second summary statement reads: “We are determined to protect the planet from degradation, including through sustainable consump- tion and production, sustainably managing its natural resources and taking urgent action on climate change, so that it can support the needs

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 39

of the present and future generations.” UNESCO’s 2016 World Science Day for Peace and Development20 called upon science museums and science centers to align their efforts with the United Nation’s Sustain- able Development goals (UN SDgS), while the 2017 Science Centre World Summit to be hosted by Japan’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation has a “Connecting the World for a Sustainable Future” theme.21

• The Triple Bottom Line approach22 was introduced in 1994 by the founder of a British consultancy firm called SustainAbility. Advocating that sustainable decisions need balanced attention to three bottom lines—people (referring to social responsibility), planet (referring to environmental responsibility), and profit (referring to feasibility and growth)—the concept has proven difficult to quantify. It does, how- ever, offer an important reminder that organizations should take a long-term perspective to consider the future consequences of decisions. Nature-focused museums could decide to seek support from corpora- tions that subscribe to this approach preferentially.

• Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim and Mauborgne, 2015) describes an ap- proach contrary to conventional profit motives. It advances the notion of “uncontested market space,” of which the Cirque de Soleil23 is often cited as a prime example. Formed in 1984 in Quebec, the group inno- vatively reinvented the traditional attributes of a circus, with artistic performers replacing trained animals. Its success, along with this year’s news that two circuses are ending their 146-year run24 and that a ma- rine park is ending its orca performances,25 comports with the belief “in a better future for all living things” by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums,26 and which envisions “a world where all people respect, value, and conserve wildlife and wild places.” How nature-focused museums can best leverage the refreshing principles of a blue ocean strategy is an evocative question for our field.

• Concerned that “civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span,” the Long Now Foundation27 was established in 1996 “to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution; [it] hopes to provide a counterpoint to today’s accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common… in the framework of the next 10,000 years.”

Related opportunities

Koster (1999) discussed several emerging facets of science and natural history museums, including new approaches to engaging audiences in the research process and collections, through exhibitions and dialogues, and through applications of child development psychology. Almost twenty years later, the following statement seems more pertinent than ever to both science and nature museums: “There is a growing recognition that [they]

40 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

do not need to have all the answers on a given subject in order to present an illuminating experience to the public… It seems eminently preferable to open minds by offering partial insights than it is to fill minds with an au- thoritative account—or to fail entirely to address a subject’ (ibid., 289). He concluded: “The challenge facing the museum field, both in science centers and elsewhere, is to create compelling experiences on subjects of impor- tance in ways that increasingly attract society to view museums as engaging resources for lifelong learning” (ibid., 294).

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, there are new areas such as the four introduced below that beckon the attention of nature-focused museums:

• More than ever, children must be our audience focus in prekindergar- ten, school, and family settings—onsite, offsite, outdoors, and online. That the traits of scientific inquiry are baked into our mental DNA from evolutionary survival needs was emphasized by gopnik et al. (1999). Today there are annual conferences of the Children and Na- ture Network28 and the Natural Learning Initiative,29 and the focus of Sampson (2015), a science communication specialist, is the art and science of falling in love with nature.

• Connecting adults to nature, outside, is another worthy focus of our institutions and a movement spurred by several new books. A journal- ist has explored how nature makes us happier, healthier, and more cre- ative (Williams, 2017) and, striking a similar note, Selhub and Logan (2012) are naturopathic doctors who reviewed the science of nature’s influence on our health, happiness, and vitality.

• Citizen science is a surging movement that is likely the best route for society at large to directly engage in the challenges and opportunities of the Anthropocene. In 1990, a Canadian physicist envisioned: “The task of the future is to build knowledge and understanding among and between citizens and scientists, so that the distinction between the two groups vanishes—so that both become citizen scientists, potentially able to solve our problems together” (Franklin, 1990, p. 268). Today, the movement is professionally supported by numerous websites,30 television documentaries,31 and several associations that hold annual or biannual conferences; the newest book on the subject (Cooper, 2016) was reviewed by the Washington Post.32

• Evolutionary medicine raises the specter of a new, more informed, type of doctor-patient relationship to elucidate the personal relevance of human evolution. “Evolutionary medicine poses a fundamentally new kind of question about disease. Instead of only asking how bodies work and why some people get sick, evolutionary medicine also asks why natural selection has left all of us with traits that make us vulnerable to disease. Why do we have wisdom teeth, narrow coronary arteries, a narrow birth canal, and a food passage that crosses the windpipe?

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 41

Evolution explains why we have traits that leave us vulnerable to dis- ease, as well as why so many other aspects of the body work so well. For instance, the usual question about back pain is why it afflicts some individuals. Evolutionary medicine also asks why back problems have been a problem for all hominid species since they first walked on two legs.”33 Furthermore, it sheds light on interdisciplinary collabora- tions across all aspects of health care for humans, animals, and the environment.34

Toward a holistic ethos

Building upon Korn’s (2013) advocacy for holistic intentionality, the core conclusion of this chapter is that the maximized relevance of a nature- focused museum is enabled by its holistic ethos. That is, the museum’s traditional collections-based code of ethics is insufficient as the needed compass for nature-focused museums in the Anthropocene. going forward, not only is the salience of collections undiminished but in fact, they are of ascending significance given the substantial loss of prehuman biodiversity and the substantial ongoing human interference with natural systems. In the nature-focused museum of the future, all parts of the institution need their contributing voice to be heard in a completely integrated and holistic manner.

In mainline dictionaries, ethos is defined as the characteristic spirit of a culture or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations, the un- derlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society. Ethics is defined as a branch of philosophy dealing with what is morally right or wrong, a system of moral principles, and an area of study that explores ideas concerning good and bad behavior. A code of ethics for museums—as set forth by the American Alliance of Museums and the Inter- national Council of Museums, with added emphasis by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences on the needed duality of environmental and societal contexts—would be a single document describing museums’ com- mitment to putting the interests of society and the environment ahead of the interests of the institution or any individual; as a cornerstone document, it sets forth standards for professional practice and accountability.

Along these lines, the approach to an encompassing code of ethics taken by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences35 (the institution for which the first author is the director) is offered as an example. Its outlook is rooted in the State’s motto from 1893—Esse quam videri, “To be, rather than to seem”: in modern parlance and from an ethical perspective, these words match the idiom of “walking the walk.” This stance is reinforced by North Carolina itself as an instructive crossroads of nature (Earnhardt, 2013). Stretching from Cape Hatteras, where the gulf Stream swings north- eastward toward Europe, to the almost seven-thousand-foot-high Mount Mitchell along the Appalachian drainage divide, North Carolina ranges

42 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

from subtropical to subalpine with habitats including many unique features in global biodiversity terms. Although a state museum, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences’ research, collections, and education horizons are necessarily national and global in scope. In 2014, post- expansion, the institution adopted “To illuminate the interdependence of nature and hu- manity” as its mission statement and “What do we know?” “How do we know?” “What is happening now?” and ‘How can the public participate?” as its propelling questions. Spurred by a sense that a museum’s mission statement should feel like the institution’s beating heart, the museum’s ap- proach to its 2016 Code of Ethics was mindful of the above-noted 2007 and 2012 nature-focused museum declarations in Paris and Washington, DC, as well as emerging trends in the museum field captured by such conversational phrases as “Safe places for difficult ideas,” “From nice to necessary,” and “From indifference to indispensability.” This institution views the geological past as the key to the present and the future; regards whole Earth thinking as a mindset to help narrow the gap between humanity and nature in the reality of one biosphere; and embraces the Anthropocene as its best con- ceptual framework for long-range approaches. The museum expresses its public value as advancing the forefront of knowledge regarding the dynamic world of nature in statements addressing, among others: the need to make data collection and scientific research accessible to schools and the public; the goal of providing experiences for all ages and backgrounds to be im- mersed in nature; the objective of enabling quality family time in engaging and meaningful ways; the desire to eliminate accessibility barriers to those with disabilities; and the wish to engage the public in global sustainability issues. The Code of Ethics then lays out the contributing responsibilities of each governing body and each organizational section with these statements:

• Through the Director’s Office, the institution’s entire team, functioning holistically and attentive to local, regional, national and global needs, ex- emplifies the greater potential of nature and science museums by expand- ing resources for the institution, demonstrating its unique public value, and helping to advance the field as a whole through sharing of best practices.

• The Resource Administration team oversees the resource needs of the institution, staff, and visitors by managing its portfolio of business services, including human resources, budgets and grants, information technology, and facility and security services in close cooperation with state government, universities, and other partners.

• The Research and Collections team increases knowledge and insight into the natural world by collecting, preserving, and documenting specimens and objects, conducting original research, making data and results available and accessible to the broader scientific community and the public, and inviting society’s participation in collections and research opportunities.

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 43

• The Living Collections team enhances awareness and understanding of the animal world by maintaining, displaying, and interpreting a healthy living collection; promoting conservation; enhancing the vis- itor experience through integrated approaches to exhibitions, onsite, and offsite programs; and advancing the fields of animal husbandry and wildlife veterinary medicine.

• The Exhibits and Digital Media team propels the institution’s collec- tions, research, and programs to the forefront of public knowledge and enjoyment by developing and maintaining an engaging array of interpretive experiences and media that address the learning styles of a diverse public and the changing knowledge regarding natural and cultural environments.

• The School and Lifelong Education team engages all ages and back- grounds by creating and delivering a menu of engaging and inspirational learning experiences onsite, offsite, online, and outdoors to assist with the understanding and appreciation among students, teachers, and the public of the natural sciences, the natural world, and humanity’s rela- tionship to it.

• The Community Engagement team maximizes the institution’s positive external impacts by understanding, attracting, welcoming, involving, engaging, and re-engaging traditional and nontraditional audiences via a scheduled menu of topical programs and events, excellent and inclusive visitor service, and effective marketing and communications strategies.

• The Regional Network team connects communities statewide with the natural world by developing and maintaining programs, services, part- nerships, and learning areas geared to the needs of each region and providing administrative oversight and program optimization for the state’s science museums grant program.

• The Development team, integrating the institution and its supporting Friends organization, manages and grows contributed revenues by link- ing the internal array of supportable activities with external sources of government, corporate, foundation, and individual support, in turn, building member and donor loyalty and the institution’s capacity to advance its mission.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, since 2015 a division of the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources,36 has re- cently completed its decadal reaccreditation by the American Alliance of Museums. A gratifying outcome is that the alliance’s report concludes: “the museum has forthrightly evolved its interpretative philosophy and strategy to address bigger stories about humans as an inseparable element in the ecosystem of all life, and therefore to be concerned about matters of con- servation and sustainability.”

44 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

Conclusions

As Koster (2016, p. 237) pointed out:

In hindsight, the first mission of Apollo and introduction of the Anthropocene should have bracketed a period of profound introspection, reflection and inspiration across the nature and science museum sector. This was a powerful opportunity to manifest the founding raison d’être of the museum from The Muses in greek mythology… For nature and science museums, the odyssey of their evolution since Apollo’s transform- ative photographs of Planet Earth to today’s serious calling to be resources for societal and environmental needs in the Anthropocene has become a journey in which the ‘right conduct’ [as in the core definition of ethics] has become unequivocally clear.

Having advocated in 2007 that “the search for greater relevance should never cease” (Koster and Schubel, p. 119), Koster in 2010 (p. 90) empha- sized that three facets of institutional culture should be in place:

The first concerns mission and vision—is there a clear and firm commit- ment to be of value to the societal and environmental problems we face? The second concerns leadership—is there a preparedness to be an activist? The third concerns strategy—is there a relentless pursuit to be more ex- ternally useful and to nurture new perspectives in funding stakeholders.

In the Anthropocene, nature-focused museums should not only aspire to- ward our sector’s most valuable contributions to date in direct response to the intertwined needs of societies and environments but also become an exemplar of what relevance means to the entire museum profession.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge their respective, and in many cases over- lapping, networks of international colleagues with whom their ideas have germinated and who have cumulatively informed elements in many of the background concepts in this chapter. We are also grateful for the editorial comments on a draft of this chapter by Joanne DiCosimo, former Director of the Canadian Museum of Nature; Lucy Laffitte, a board member of the Inter- national Big History Association; and Jason Cryan and LuAnne Pendergraft of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, respectively, its chiefs of Research and Collections and of Community Engagement.

Notes 1 https://johnfrederickabueva.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/doing-the-right-things-

vs-doing-things-right-ethics-blog-3/. 2 http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4735.html.

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 45

3 www.aam-us.org/about-museums. 4 www.asmd.org/Home/SitePage/3#. 5 www.aam-us.org/resources/ethics-standards-and-best-practices/code-of-ethics. 6 www.museumsassociation.org/ethics/code-of-ethics. 7 www.bfn.de/fileadmin/ABS/documents/BuffonDeclarationFinal%5B1%5D.pdf. 8 www.economist.com/news/special-report/21591707-museums-world-over-

are-doing-amazingly-well-says-fiammetta-rocco-can-they-keep. 9 www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/your-guide-all-things-anthropocene-

180960599/. 10 www.nature.com/news/anthropocene-the-human-age-1.17085. 11 https://icomnathist.wordpress.com/conference-2017/. 12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman. 13 www.ncsmt.org/about/smt-center/. 14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History. 15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Christian_(historian); www.ted.com/talks/

david_christian_big_history. 16 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-

for-a-history-class.html?_r=0; https://www.bighistoryproject.com/home. 17 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/magazine/neanderthals-were-people-

too.html?_r=0. 18 http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/. 19 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld. 20 http://www.un.org/en/events/scienceday/. 21 https://scws2017.org/. 22 http://www.economist.com/node/14301663. 23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirque_du_Soleil. 24 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/14/us/ringling-bros-and-barnum-bailey-

circus-closing-may.html?_r=0. 25 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4098292/SeaWorld-San-Diego-ending-

killer-whale-show.html. 26 https://www.aza.org/. 27 http://longnow.org/about/. 28 https://www.childrenandnature.org/about/nature-deficit-disorder/. 29 https://naturalearning.org/about-us. 30 https://scistarter.com/. 31 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvjDp93eiSo. 32 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/have-a-scientific-passion-become-

a-citizen-scientist/2017/01/27/647e8a22-dcc9-11e6-918c-99ede3c8cafa_story. html?utm_term=.50581f068e40.

33 http://www.randolphnesse.com/whatisevolutionarymedicine. 34 http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/about.php. 35 http://naturalsciences.or. 36 https://www.ncdcr.gov/.

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