Re: DINO Commercialization

[dunn1@IDT.NET]

Bettyc@flyinggoat.com wrote:

> The SMITHSONIAN has the original Starship Enterprise on display in the
> National Air and Space museum.
> If you were running the Smithsonian I believe you'd tuck it into some
> back corner of the American Cultural museum with Kermit the Frog and
> Dorothy's Ruby Slippers.  The museum curators are of a different opinion
> than you-they have it as an attraction (note the word) with the SPACE
> STUFF.  Are they sanctioning warp coils and phasars?  I think not!

Can people possibly be misled by NCC-1701 in the NASM?  No, because 
we live in an age of space travel and most people recognize that we 
don't travel between solar systems on Federation cruisers.

Can people possibly be misled by Spielbergosaurs displayed in a 
museum?  Yes, because no dinosaurs are around as cultural 
references, and the animatronic/CG dinosaurs are extremely 
convincing as plausible animals.  We all know that this has in 
fact happened.

So I think your analogy is more than a little inapposite.
 
> >  Displaying the JP stuff alongside
> >  the "real" mounts legitimizes the JP stuff.
> 
> You didn't read any of the tags that said REAL, PROP, or CAST, nor any
> of the information tucked along with this on each and every item in the
> display.  

The only references like these that I observed:

1) the cast fossils were indeed marked "cast"
2) the touch me fossils mounted here and there were labeled "real"

What if they *were* all labeled as you describe?  Would this lead 
people to conclude that the props are necessarily inaccurate  -- 
especially considering how much spin Universal got concerning the 
incredible realism of the dinosaurs?

Certainly no debunking in the descriptions of the displays.  Have you 
seen *this* exhibit?

> What were you doing, just looking at the pictures?

No, but I did spend some time looking at the "Spitter" toys sold at 
the concession.
 
> > The only way to prosper is to show incorrect renderings of dinosaurs?
 
> and Mickey is a real mouse? ah come on Larry

Another inapposite analogy along the same lines of the one debunked 
above.

Larry

"Atheism: a non-prophet organization"