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more dinosaur books
- To: dinosaur
- Subject: more dinosaur books
- From: rowe (Mickey Rowe)
- Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 15:22:56 -0500
I've e-mailed Jennifer some of the past discussion of books from this
list's NCR incarnation. I figured that while I was on the subject I
might throw in some info about two other books which I've recently
acquired and which I don't think have been discussed here at all.
The first is sort of aimed at children, but it's much better than
anything in print when I was a child. I haven't looked through it
carefully, but I'm fairly impressed with what I've seen of it. The
book is _The Ultimate Dinosaur Book_, (David Lambert, (c) 1993, Dorling
Kindersley, London, ISBN 1-56458-304-X). You may have seen volumes
such as _The Ultimate Tyrannosaurus Rex_, _The Ultimate Tricerotops_
etc. This book looks like those, but it has the all-inclusive flavor
of the recently advertised Dinosaur Encyclopedia put out by the
Dinosaur Society. The "Ultimate" books have been written in
association with The Natural History Museum of London.
I say that the book is aimed at children because it relies more on
pictures than words, but the subject material is not at all
oversimplified. I think that an adult wanting to learn the basics of
dinosaur biology would do well with this book. And the pictures are
spectacular. In many cases scale models are made of the dinosaurs
being depicted, and in some cases the inferred internal structures of
the animals have been rendered in this fashion as well. I'm
particularly impressed with the Brachiosaur model on pages 94-95; I
can't really do the picture justice, but basially it shows many of the
muscles, bones, digestive organs, reproductive organs etc. as they
might fit inside the body of the beast. In many other places,
"cutaway" paintings are overlain on photos of mounted skeletons. The
descriptions of each of the animals also contains a timeline and
geographic information indicating when and where the animals lived.
The other book is _Dinosaurs Rediscovered_, by Don Lessem (co-author
with John Horner of the _The Complete Tyrannosaurus Rex_ (not to be
confused with _The Ultimate Tyrannosaurus Rex_ :-)). The book was
published in 1992 by Touchstone, New York, ISBN: 0-671-79715-8 for the
paperback, or 0-671-73491-1 for the hardcover. I haven't had a chance
to read it yet either, and my description must be less full since it
has fewer pictures :-) However, the book goes into much greater
depths--it's clearly aimed at an older (or at least more dinosaur gung
ho) audience. I think the best sort of advertisement I can give for
the book is a couple of excerpts that give a feel for the writing (at
least the writing I've had time to read :-) I think you'll agree that
it has an insider's flavor, and shows how human personalities enrich
and/or interfere with scientific research.
On pages 149-150, Lessem talks about Robert T. Bakker:
Robert Bakker, more than any other scientist, is
responsible for popularizing the notion of dinosaurs as swift,
hot-blooded animals. Bakker attempts to answer the
as-yet-unanswerable questions the public asks about dinosaurs:
How did they act, look, and live? For two decades he's done so
in a highly entertaining and plausible manner--casting himself
and a few other researchers as heretics tilting against an Ivy
League establishment orthodoxy. Bakker's views have shaped
public perceptions of dinosaurs and dinosaur science. And those
views are themselves shaped by one of the most contentious
careers in modern science.
Few scientists support Bakker's methods or
conclusions. Yet some evolutionary biologists and
paleontologists agree with Stahmer's assessment of
"Dr. Bob", Stephen Jay Gould among them. The more
charitable dinosaur workers acknowledge Bakker's unique
talents for spinning off fresh ideas and thus stimulating
research and engaging deep and widespread public interest in
dinosaurs. However, few, if any , of his colleagues applaud
Bakker's efforts unreservedly. And to some he is an
irresponsible media hound, a slapdash researcher.
----
on page 89, Lessem is talking about the discovery of _Protoavis_:
The discovery of _Protoavis_ is not the first occasion on
which, as Chatterjee's admirers would point out, he's made
spectacular discoveries. Nor the first occasion, as his
detractors would point out, when he's derived a dramatic,
unorthodox, and perhaps wrongheaded conclusion.
---
The discussion of _Protoavis_ is fairly long; on pg. 99 Lessem
continues:
The criticism of Chatterjee's radical but unpublished
conclusions about _Protoavis_ has taken on an unusually acid
personal tone. University of California/Berkeley professor Kevin
Padian boldly criticized Chatterjee's approach in print. Padian
is a well-trained cladist himself. He is also a man of strongly
voiced opinions. He included _Protoavis_ in a paper on
misrepresentations of paleontological science, concluding: "Few
people have seen the material, though those that have are largely
skeptical that it represents a single animal, and it is difficult
to confirm his interpretation that any of the material comes from
a bird." These were unusually bold charges about a colleague ,
and a work not yet published.
Larry Martin jumped to Chatterjee's defense, calling
Padian's criticism a regrettable instance of "personalizing
a debate and ignoring the evidence that conflicts with his
position."
--- end excerpts
Mickey Rowe (rowe@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu)