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The museum as institution was originally conceived of as a panopticon of the objects of knowledge that had been amassed in order to construct an inventory of the world. How did it invent and glorify a science of classification, or taxonomy, that was so conducive to the emergence of stereotypes? Further, how did the hegemonic excesses of scientific orthodoxy help produce and impose racist and nationalist stereotypes that justified nineteenth-century colonialism?In contrast, by the end of the twentieth century, museums had been transformed into communication spaces; they have tended to become places where a more relativist conception of science is staged, and where truth is constructed and can be called into question. This leads us to examine and draw out the nuances of the stereotypes that have, until now, been upheld as a body of dogmatic and universal truth. In other words, because of changes in their intellectual and societal functions, museums no longer seek to provide an institutional sacralization of systematic scientific knowledge. Modern museums have been transformed into postmodern museums, which espouse a more relative systemic; they recognize the limits of even the most obvious methodologies and grasp the sciences in their interactions with society.