Re: When Dinosaurs Disappointed

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 8/26/99 5:26:53 PM EST, majestic_cheese@yahoo.com writes:

<< 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.>>

One gets accustomed to gaffes in dinosaur programs--and dinosaur books, for 
that matter. Shoddy research is everywhere, and there's not a heck of a lot 
you can do about it. Be grateful that someone somewhere has invested the 
money to produce some kind of dino program at all. On the other hand, 
baseball, in this country, of course is a religion, and any errors in the 
statistics (RBI, ERA, etc., etc.) generated by that sport are viewed as 
heresy. Every beer-bellied bonehead knows his baseball statistics (to place 
bets, naturally), and announcers who don't get them right to the last decimal 
place are pilloried. So huge computers are devoted to compiling real-time 
baseball statistics for announcers to spout during those long pauses in the 
game between pitches and side changes. When dinosaurs become a religion like 
baseball, then we might actually see some accuracy in dinosaur TV shows.
 
<< 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. >>

No money in dinosaur science (usually). In this country, money = importance. 
Note how the sale of Sue's skeleton brought the media out of the woodwork. 
Didn't give a damn about Sue's scientific value, only how many millions the 
bones brought at auction. Dinosaurs are a money sink, not a money source, and 
if you want to see accuracy in dinosaur TV shows and the like, it has to be 
paid for somewhere along the line.