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Re: Alabama senator Hillary Herbert & birds with teeth



I liked it.  Dr. Bakker's remarks at the end of the program were quite  
eloquent:
 
"Bob Bakker, Paleontologist: They both were called by the beauty of the big 
 game hunt. The big game hunt in deep time, and thatâs a very special  
thing."
 
There is a transcript of the program at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/dinosaur-tran
script/
 
Mary

In a message dated 1/22/2011 6:51:10 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
tholtz@umd.edu writes:
On Sat, January 22, 2011 3:04 pm, Mar Qos Aker  wrote:
> Fellow dino-lovers:
>
> That Dinosaur Wars American  Experience was painful to watch. Its
> hodge-podging of dates and dis/dys  linear plot (and I think it's being
> courteous to say it that way) show  mere a lack of coherence.

I didn't find it so bad, although I would have  (do, actually, in class)
emphasize that dinosaurs were originally known from  England-and Europe
more generally-but were known only from fragmentary  material until
Hadrosaurus and then the western dinosaurs. And I would have  emphasized
that the "war" was over fossil mammals as well (which they did  come to now
and again, but didn't include in (for example) the species counts  between
the two.)

Also, there is a tendency of these things to be very  pro-Cope, because
(let's face it) Marsh was a jerk as a person. BUT one could  also highlight
Cope's obsessions with generating a larger total publication  record, or
(okay, this is a bit Whiggish, but...) Cope's lack of acceptance  of
natural selection (as opposed to Marsh's strong embrace of and  promotion
of it).
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