personal groans

[Farlow@IPFW.EDU (Farlow,James)]

     Well, while we're commenting on the media, let me mention my own 
     reservations about my forthcoming Discover channel program, "Dinosaur 
     Attack", scheduled for broadcast on September 6.  The producer was 
     kind enough to send me an advance copy.  For the most part I liked it, 
     but there are a few things that were, well...not the source of my 
     greatest joy.
     
     The show is based on the Scientific American piece the late David 
     Thomas and I did about the Paluxy River sauropod-theropod "chase 
     sequence" of footprints.  That particular article was an uneasy 
     compromise between the views of the two authors.  It went farther in 
     suggesting that the theropod attacked the sauropod than I wanted to 
     go, but not as far as Dave wanted to take it.
     
     The writer/director/producer of the show did let me voice my reason 
     for skepticism about the attack interpretation of the missing theropod 
     footprint (if you don't know what this is all about, you will when you 
     watch the show), that being:  If you pick up a 2-3 ton animal and drop 
     it on the ground on one foot in very soft sediment, there should be a 
     rather remarkable footprint formed as it lands.  The print in 
     question, however, isn't unusual in any way, as far as I can see.  For 
     the record, I think that the trackway evidence strongly supports the 
     notion that the theropod was closely following the sauropod, and maybe 
     planning to attack.  I do not think, however, that it proves that an 
     attack actually took place.
     
     Even so, the producer obviously needed for the attack to have taken 
     place in order to justify the name of the program, or he was honestly 
     convinced more by Dave's opinions than by mine, and so the overall 
     thrust of the show is that the attack did occur.  Much is made over an 
     attempt to recreate the attack using computer graphics, the 
     implication being that the ability to make a behavioral interpretation 
     fit the footprints shows that the behavior in question actually 
     occurred.  In my opinion, the only thing that was tested by the 
     computer graphics was the cleverness of the programmers.
     
     The program also follows what might be called the "brilliant maverick" 
     model of science reporting.  You see this template used in something 
     like 99.9% of reporting in the popular science media, print or film or 
     whatever.  The format is:  The dull, stodgy, unimaginative scientific 
     community collectively ridiculed the astonishing ideas of brilliant 
     iconoclast Dr. X, but now new findings and approaches show that s/he 
     was ahead of her/his time, etc., etc.
     
     The show states that R.T. Bird's ideas about the theropod-sauropod 
     chase were so maligned, but aha, radical new insights from a new breed 
     of scientist shows he was right after all.
     
     Trouble is, it just ain't so.  To the best of my knowledge, nearly 
     _everybody_ agreed with R.T. from the start that the theropod was 
     probably following the sauropod!  His idea about the possible attack 
     wasn't even made public until after his death; if memory is right, I 
     was the one who first published on his scenario.  The reaction to it 
     was more mild skepticism than anything else.  It hardly fits the 
     template of the lonely genius taking on a hostile scientific 
     establishment.
     
     There are other things in the program that made me wince.  Early on it 
     is said that paleontologists all thought that dinosaurs fought face to 
     face, while the Paluxy evidence shows that this wasn't always the 
     case.  Well, there are fights and there are fights.  I imagine that 
     the producer/director got the idea about face-to-face fighting from 
     interpretations about intraspecific combat, and didn't understand that 
     predator-prey interactions are a different matter.
     
     At another point in the program, it is said that the sauropod was an 
     ectotherm, and consequently would have had to stop activity when night 
     fell.  Well, I think it likely that sauropods were not endotherms, but 
     even if they were completely ectothermic they would have had enough 
     thermal inertia not to cool much overnight.  Just ask your friendly 
     neighborhood fully grown salt-water crocodile, if you don't believe 
     me.  Ask from a distance, though....
     
     To the best of my knowledge, the producer/writer/director never talked 
     to me about the points in the two preceding paragraphs during the week 
     we shot the show, or I would have tried to correct his 
     misunderstandings.  I did emphatically state my belief that computer 
     animation is a test of nothing, but he apparently disagreed with my 
     opinion.
     
     My point is, as Tom also said, you can word your statements as 
     carefully and cautiously as you like, and still your reservations may 
     either wind up on the cutting room floor, or be de-emphasized in the 
     final program.  And you cannot correct misunderstandings that you 
     aren't asked about.
     
     Still, the final show is not too bad.  I've done a lot of these, and 
     become very thick-skinned about being misquoted, misunderstood, or 
     disregarded over the years.  It comes with the turf.  As dinosaur 
     shows go, this one isn't too bad, and it is a nice memorial to Dave 
     Thomas' ideas.
     
     
     Jim Farlow