Dinosaur Man (was Re: Dinosaur = extinct animal)

[Larry Dunn <majestic_cheese@yahoo.com>]

--- Andrew Gray <aj.gray@mail.com> wrote:

> Although I too have never heard it said that humans
> evolved from dinosaurs,
> I do recall once seeing an exhibit at the London
> Natural History Museum,
> which speculated that the theropod dinosaurs would
> have evolved into a
> super-intelligent, fully upright, human-like state
> if they had not been
> wiped out. The exhibit included a model of what a
> 'dinosaur man' might look
> like, with brown mottled skin and a face like a that
> of a coelurosaurian
> dinosaur but the shape of a modern man.

In the two volume companion to the Los Angeles Museum
of Natural History's travelling exhibit of dinosaur
art, DINOSAURS PAST AND PRESENT (ed.s Czerkas and
Olson, University of Washington Press, 1987), Dale
Russell's chapter, "Models and Paintings of North
American Dinosaurs" (Volume I, page 114) includes
photos and text describing Ron Seguin's lifesize
sculptures of a _Stenonychosaurus_ (_Saurornithoides_)
and a "dinosauroid," a creature posited as a
hypothetical extension of the trend in certain
dinosaurs like _S._ to develop larger brain capacity,
resulting in a very "human" dinosaur.  

The dinosauroid stands erect like a human and is
tailless, with large eyes and hands developed for
better manipulation of objects.

Carl Sagan had specifically discussed this and it led
to a rash of intelligent-dinosaur popular fiction.

It's interesting to read about the impressions that
Seguin's lifesize "dinosauroid" left with viewers. 
Some children embraced it or held its hand.  

I wish that my son had not stepped on my scanner.  I
would put one of the photos online.

Who knows what sentient dinosaurs would have been
like, but they couldn't have been much worse than we
are.  

Maybe they would even have honored contracts.

===
Larry

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