RE: when dinos ruled

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Sherry Michael
>
> While paleontology is a very generous science compared to many, we can do
> more. Instead of bitching about how innacurate these shows are, spread
> *good* information however you can. Donate a good dinosaur book to school
> library. Speak to the public as much as possible. Open up the
> doors a little
> bit.
>
> -Sherry
> (off soapbox)

Me, hopping on...

By my observation, paleontologists in general and dinosaur paleontologists
in particular are exceptional in getting to the public, speaking at
everything from local rock clubs to universities to big museums.  My
colleagues who work on petrology and hydrology and such do not seem to have
the opportunity for such presentations.

What galls me is that we DO give as much good data to the documentaries as
we can!!  When you see thirty seconds of a "talking head" on a show, that is
distilled from a much longer interview, sometimes hours long.  On top of
that, plenty of faxes and fedexs are exchanged to provide accurate
photographs, drawings, diagrams, etc.

Then, via the magic that is filmmaking, this gets chopped up into the same
hash that is always presented...  Professional actors are hired to narrate,
who somehow go about mispronouncing our names (Cathy "Forrester"?) and the
names of our favorite critters.  (Yeah, okay, I would imagine that
documentary narration is a LOW priority for most actors, and they probably
did it in just a take or two, but they could try).  Instead of seeking to
educate, the emphasis is on entertainment, and those who do seek to be
educated by these shows can be misled (as witnessed by email on the list
earlier this week).

Yes, by all means, make the shows entertaining.  Yes, try and bring the
public up to date with some of the latest discoveries.  I personally had no
problem with the *concept* of the show: it was a great idea.  The problems I
(and from their postings, others) on the list have with the show was the
*execution*: it didn't have to sacrifice accuracy for entertainment.

No documentary will every be perfect, and all of them "cheat" to a certain
degree to produce something interesting to watch.  However, there are
documentaries on other topics on PBS or TLC or Discovery or Animal Planet
which are both fun and accurate.  Let's hope that future dinosaur
documentaries will try to achieve this goal.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.inform.umd.edu/SCHOLAR/programs/elt.html
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796