Re: Response to Gould?

["philidor11" <philidor11@snet.net>]

<I am already having people deride me for calling birds
"living dinosaurs."  One person just came into my
office, dropped the magazine on my desk with the page
turned to Gould's article, and then left in disgust.  Help!>

Interesting reaction, rejecting bird/dino a priori.
They might be assuming the cultural image of dinosaurs as lumbering and
extinct.  Interestingly, livelier dinosaurs are known as part of science,
but the cultural image is too useful to drop.  Or, they could be responding
to the difference in size, etc. between a hummingbird and the basic dino
models (as in movies before Jurassic Park).
Any speculations?

I once described an extended discussion from the list to a woman who works
in Payroll.  She did me the honor of agreeing with my assertions, even
enthusiastically.  Then she caught herself, looked at me, and said, 'You
know, you think you're not different from everyone else, but you are.'
Us eccentrics have to rely on affability.