--- Begin Message ---
In a message dated 98-05-24 20:59:20 EDT, larrydunn@hotmail.com writes:
<< From: Danvarner <Danvarner@aol.com>
> Next week: Tips on the Robert Bakker Method for Acting on
Television
>Documentaries using the fingers, eye-squints, and eccentric syntax.
The guy makes me cringe too, which leads me to query the pros: how is
his published work? I mean the real technical writing, not TDH (which
I've read). Is it respected? Does it generally make sense?>>
Leave Bakker alone; let him make some money doing commercials or whatever.
Without Bakker, there wouldn't be nearly the interest in dinosaurs, both
academic and popular, that there is today. He's made his mark on dinosaur
paleontology, which is considerably more than most people on the present
dinosaur list have done. His papers could be condensed, but otherwise they're
no stranger than a lot of stuff Nopcsa wrote (e.g.), and he's definitely not
afraid of expressing views contrary to those accepted by the dino-paleo
establishment.
<< He seems to have such an agenda to make dinosaurs smarter than Steven
Hawking and faster than cheetahs that I can't help but reflexively doubt
everything he says. For example, on a television program he recently
portrayed Coelophysis as the pack-hunting terror of the Triassic, while
I've assumed all along that the big predatory thecodonts would've been
perfectly happy to eat Coelophysis with some fava beans and a nice
Chianti. >>
Heaven knows whether Bakker believes any of the things he says about
dinosaurs, but I would defy anyone to >disprove< most of his assertions. Maybe
dinosaurs >were< as smart as he says; what makes you think they weren't? Have
you observed dinosaur behavior that would contradict Bakker's assertions?
By the way, the big predatory thecodonts were probably too slow to catch a
_Coelophysis_, much as they might have wanted to.
--- End Message ---