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North Carolina Citizens Are Not the Problem

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


I've complained a lot in this space about North Carolina's state legislature and governor fighting against science, and unless something drastically changes I probably will continue to do so. But a new survey makes an excellent counterpoint, and something North Carolina's citizenry should be screaming as often as possible:

We are not the problem!

In a survey of North Carolina's most visited attractions, number one was the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, including its spectacular new Nature Research Center, featuring the Daily Planet, the world's largest globe. The whole thing sits right across the street from the State Legislature, which has in recent times been disgracing itself regarding science, so just hanging around the museum doesn't necessarily help.


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Also I should say right here that I'm on the board of the Friends of the NCMNS, so you have to recognize that I love and support the museum whether it wins popularity contests or not. But popular indeed: it had 1.2 million visitors in 2012; number two attraction Biltmore, in Asheville, the Vanderbilt ubermansion that's billed as the country's largest private residence, had 1.1 visitors, and so for the first time in the nine years Carolina Publishing Associates has been making this list, Biltmore did not win: a science museum did. That's big for a state whose leadership has recently deeply commited itself to both science denialism and education bashing.

And more good news: the NCMNS is not alone. Of the top ten most-visited attractions in North Carolina, six were at least in some way related to science: Charlotte’s Discovery Place (third), the North Carolina Zoo (fourth), Marbles Kids Museum (sixth), the North Carolina Arboretum (ninth), and the Museum of Life and Sciences (tenth). Six of our top ten most visited museums or historical sites involved science.

So I'll say again, to all those considering coming here to work, to play, to live, to visit: the problem isn't the population. The people like science and education. The legislature and the governor don't. The people will be here a long time. Stick with us, folks. Science will have its way in the end.

Scott Huler was born in 1959 in Cleveland and raised in that city's eastern suburbs. He graduated from Washington University in 1981; he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa because of the breadth of his studies, and that breadth has been a signature of his writing work. He has written on everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing, from NASCAR racing to the stealth bomber, for such newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times and such magazines as ESPN, Backpacker, and Fortune. His award-winning radio work has been heard on "All Things Considered" and "Day to Day" on National Public Radio and on "Marketplace" and "Splendid Table" on American Public Media. He has been a staff writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Raleigh News & Observer and a staff reporter and producer for Nashville Public Radio. He was the founding and managing editor of the Nashville City Paper. He has taught at such colleges as Berry College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His books include Defining the Wind, about the Beaufort Scale of wind force, and No-Man's Lands, about retracing the journey of Odysseus.

His most recent book, On the Grid, was his sixth. His work has been included in such compilations as Appalachian Adventure and in such anthologies as Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont, The Appalachian Trail Reader and Speed: Stories of Survival from Behind the Wheel.

For 2014-2015 Scott is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, which is funding his work on the Lawson Trek, an effort to retrace the journey of explorer John Lawson through the Carolinas in 1700-1701.

He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, the writer June Spence, and their two sons.

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