Re: When Dinosaurs Disappointed

[Philidor11@aol.com]

In a message dated 8/26/99 7:16:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Dinogeorge@aol.com writes:

<<  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.  >>

As someone pointed out in another post, remember that half the people in this 
country are below the median in intelligence.  Let me reassure you that most 
discussions of 'facts' will produce enough incorrect information to leave you 
bewildered.  The wide availability of computers and TV time to fill has 
increased the amount of half-recollected information to such an extent that 
people can be wrong but definite more often than ever before.  You know the 
feeling if you've ever started to talk about a subject and realize you're not 
sure exactly what your TV source had said on the subject.  
If you're wise, you start to hedge.  Working in a field where hedging is an 
art, I can say that proper phrasing allows you to be completely wrong and 
still demonstrate that you had predicted your error perfectly.

<<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.>>

Now, news is people yelling at each other.  The arrest of paleontologists, 
amateur or professional, is also intriguing to the public.  There are also 
Indians and public demonstrations and the dinosaur her/himself.  If only a 
Club Med had been in sight of the dig the story would not have died for years.
People make and lose millions all the time without getting much attention.
As far as accuracy is concerned, from my observations the narration follows a 
thread to parallel fiction.  The writer frequently also has assumptions he 
does not realize may have been questioned since he took a course himself.  
Problem with a field which has changed recently.  I'm surprised that every 
show does not have an advisor who approves the script before it is produced 
for accuracy.
My own peeve is why the programs I've seen always seem to be stuck at basic, 
introductory information, like no one has ever seen a program about dinos 
before.  Even multiple episode series seem to broaden the topics of the basic 
information they are presenting rather than going deeper into a more limited 
range of topics.  That leaves someone who already knows a bit about the topic 
reviewing the special effects.
When someone starts the dinosaur channel on cable that will solve the 
problem.  I suspect that we'll have a hercules/xena channel and there must 
already be a star trek channel, but I'm very patient.