Re: The Lost World errata

[jpoling@infinet.com (Jeff Poling)]

>In a message dated 95-09-26 09:35:29 EDT, jpoling@infinet.com (Jeff Poling)
>writes:
>
>>   T. rex eyesight being based on movement was Spielberg's attempt to work a
>>plot device from the book into the movie.  In the book, the hadrosaurs (at
>>the very least, maybe other dinos as well) could not see Grant and the kids
>>unless they moved.  This was explained as being the result of their DNA
>>being blended with amphibian DNA (the implication being, I guess, that
>>amphibian eyesight is based on movement).
>>
>>
>
>Since the dino DNA was blended with amphibian DNA, then what we have in
>_Jurassic Park_ are not dinosaurs but dinosaur-amphibian chimaeras. Thus,
>even though it looked like a _Tyrannosaurus rex_, it really wasn't a
>_Tyrannosaurus rex_, just a newly minted life-form genetically designed to
>resemble one. So all inferences about the behavior of real, Mesozoic
>dinosaurs deduced from the behavior of the dino-chimaeras in the Park are
>inherently flawed. Why none of the characters--particularly the
>scientists--in the books or the movie ever makes this clear must have to do
>with the commercial aspects of the project (either the fictional Jurassic
>Park project or the real Crichton-Spielberg Jurassic Park "project"). Or
>maybe the author just didn't think it through?

   Doctor Wu did.  There was a section in the book where he tried to
convince Hammond of exactly what you just outlined above.

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