Re: When Dinosaurs Disappointed

[Randy King <randyk@ims.com>]

I believe that many others are always accurate.  TV
caters to the public, what the public knows and
understands, like baseball, will be more accurately
portraid.  Whereas the public has a great interest
in dinosaurs, the understanding is low.  I find this
problem myself.  My understanding isn't quite up to
the level of this list, most dino-literature is either 
way above my understanding or way below.  TV loses its
audience when understanding is low, so they aim low and
don't worry too much about the details.  

I don't think you're going to improve the quality of
tv coverage of paleontology.  I believe that other
sciences, especially the softer sciences, see this 
same problem, but it isn't as big since public interest
isn't as big as for dinosaurs.  Next would probably 
come space science.  There there isn't quite as much
dissention in the interpretations, there is no equivalent
to the T. rex preditor/scavenger debate.  There are fewer
sources of data, but if you look at what NASA does,
they have good public relations people who feed the 
media short and simple bits of information.  Perhaps
this suggests that paleontologists should present a
united front to the media with only data that can be
reasonably agreed on?  When the media gets different
opinions, they often take and present the one that is
most interesting to the public.  T. rex will not easily
be accepted as a scavenger because it isn't as interesting,
so the media will not present it so.

Whew, I hope I didn't ramble too much.  I have several 
friends in media, and this is the impression I get from
some of them.  Its a hot point for me.  :(

-Randy  

At 03:26 PM 8/26/1999 -0700, Larry Dunn wrote:
>--- Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:
>
>> Usual
>> gaffes are too numerous to 
>> mention, would require several pages of e-mail.
>
>Which is the point, of course.  How many "usual
>gaffes" would be tolerated in a program about, say,
>human evolution?  Or about baseball?
>
>If any, certainly not several-pages-of-e-mail worth.
>
>Why is dinosaur science intrinsically less important
>than (fill in virtually any other topic imaginable),
>so that programs that do not adequately reflect
>current thinking are nonetheless to be commended for
>simply addressing the topic *at all*?  That's not
>meant as a rhetorical question -- I'm genuinely
>curious to hear responses to this query.
>
>Imagine, if you will, a Larry Dunn with twenty horns,
>
>===
>Larry
>
>"I've been ionized, but I'm okay now."
>
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