Re: Another View (Was Review of AMNH Lost World Exhibit)

[dunn1@IDT.NET]

MKIRKALDY@aol.com weighed in (or waded in):

> dunn1@IDT.NET wrote on 8-10-97:
> >>Take it from someone who has actually seen the exhibit. 
> 
> And jamolnar@juno.com wrote on 8-10-97:
> >Others who have seen it disagree with your interpretation.  
> 
> Well, I have seen it too (and mine was the Other View), and I assume quite a
> few others have viewed the exhibit.  

And, as you've already conceded, your experience was totally 
atypical.  As to Holtz's and Russell's failure to recoil, my concern 
is not for the paleontologists who came to see the movie props for a 
hoot and the mounts for interest, but for the multitude of non-pros 
who go to museums to be informed.

> I enjoyed 
> what I saw of the dinosaurs,
> glanced briefly at the clips to see who was in them, and did not act on
> whatever subliminal message was there to go out and buy a new Mercedes-Benz.

No need to when the limo is outside waiting!

>  Children were
> not being tortured.

Children can be misled without being tortured.  Is it ok then?
 
> The purists might be surprised if they looked at who was on the board of
> trustees and board of directors for their favorite museums. 

If I'm a "purist" this statement is sadly mistaken.  I'd probably 
know a great many of them.  Futter used to practice at my Firm. But  
I don't care about the board.  

> If dinosaur science should be a right not a privilege, no profiting
> whatsoever from it,

Now where on earth did *that* notion come from?  This is an 
aside, but let's understand that there's nothing that says that you 
can't profit from a right.  Because we have a right to free speech, 
for instance, does not mean we can compell any publication to publish 
our writings for free (except the Federal Register, but that's 
another story!).

>  every scientist works for free, no admission charges
> allowed, then why weren't there cries of outrage when Greg Paul actually
> _advertised_ his paintings as _for sale_?  Why doesn't he just give them
> away?  Why did Dinogeorge advertise his faithful long-time companion dinosaur
> as _for sale_? 

Oh my God.   I didn't understand the nature of George's 
relationship with the Synclair Brontosaurus.  I no longer want it.

> Why did he not give it to his local museum?  Why was 
> Dr. John
> Horner at the Atlanta Parisian department store, signing his new book?
>  Answer:  Maybe they need to earn a living like the rest of the non-paleo
> world.

Most puzzling.  Who has denied that anyone can make a profit from 
people's interest in dinosaurs?  Or are you saying that the *only* 
way they can make a living is to put the JP dilophosaur in their 
exhibits?

(What's been interesting about this thread has been the tendency 
to reply to statements that weren't made.)

Larry

I'm not interested in how dinosaurs lived
I'm just glad they're dead

Jack Horner as quoted by Dan Quayle