Science is a priority . . . blah blah . . . knowledge-based economy . . blah blah . . . world-class science infrastructure . . . blah blah blah!

Maybe there were just too many science centres built. Perhaps they could instead just have large halls, all about the same size, and rotate exibitions between them, thus giving people a reason to come back each rotation... Or less, but bigger, and more specialised centres.

I have visited both Ayrshire's Big Idea, and Bristol's @Bristol (twice to @Bristol), and found both to be very interesting indeed (and I'm not exactly a young'un any more).

Some science centres seem to fare better than others - for example the National Space Centre in Leicester is also a very interesting visit, but seems to do better than others such as the Big Idea.

Supporting these centres from taxpayers money is an idea which definitely has merit - so long as it doesn't affect the support available to museum sites etc.

Profit is such a mealy-mouthed term. It can refer only to "money", in which case these science centres are in fact not profitable. Or it could refer to "increased value", where the value is increased knowledge. Unfortunately, that's not accounted for in the current system.

So science programs will continue to be unfunded, while stock traders, who add absolutely no value to anything, take home millions.

This is supposed to influence young'uns to study science?

I say: study accounting, finance and/or law. In our current society, science is being reduced to the same level as janitorial services, except being a janitor pays better.

Of course, science underpins a lot of economic development. It's a pity that those underpinnings only see the shit that flows downhill rather than reasonable amounts of what society considers its only reward: cash.