Museum contexts that focus on informal science education are the primary sites where museum publics, including children and adults, encounter science outside of formal school education. Thus, they present an opportune space where the public's imagination of science can be transformed, challenged, or reinforced. While there has been ample research on how museum visitors best learn science, there has been less focus on the cultural models of science that different types of museums promulgate and how these do or do not align with cultural models of science held by museum visitors, museum staff, and practicing scientists. This study investigates prevalent narratives about the nature of science and scientists across a sample of U.S. museums. This work demonstrates how different types of museums assert their claims to scientific knowledge and produce specific cultural models of science. I hypothesized that the most prevalent 'science' narratives will exclude social science and the history of science, including any critiques of the scientific endeavor. Surveys and interviews with both museum staff and visitors were utilized to demonstrate the ways in which the lack of critical, social science narratives in these contexts reinforces a cultural domain of science that is oversimplified, romanticized, and unrealistic. To conclude, I highlight cases in which anthropological and historical approaches have been successfully utilized in museum exhibits to challenge and surprise visitor. These cases represent a means to transform the cultural models of science in museums to be more critical, realistic, and still engaging for museum visitors.