“The visitor to the Museum of Jurassic Technology continually finds himself shimmering between wondering-at (the marvels of nature) and wondering-whether (any of this could possibly be true). And it’s that very shimmer, the capacity for such delicious confusion, Wilson sometimes seems to suggest, that may constitute the most blessedly wonderful thing about being human.”
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Inhaling the Spore: Field trip to a museum of (un)natural history
I wonder if this essay could have been written today, in the age of Google and instantly verifiable facts. Much of it follows the author as he digs through archives and makes phone calls to verify which of the museum’s exhibits — a human horn, a mind-controlling fungus — are indeed real. Today, you could walk through the Museum of Jurassic Technology with iPhone in hand and satisfy that itch to know with a few swipes of a finger. But you would not experience that delicious confusion.
