Re: In (premature) defense of the USNM

[John Conway <john_conway@mac.com>]

On Wednesday, May 8, 2002, at 09:22  AM, philidor11 wrote:

> The refusal to consider a hypothesis because it is too speculative 
> might in
> this case be considered the same as contradicting the hypothesis.  The
> opposing point is that unless the artist does something directly 
> against the
> sort-of feathers hypothesis, such as putting stripes on the skin, then 
> the
> issue may still be considered open.
> Take another example:  an artist reconstructing a face from a skull
> discovered by the police completes the project except for the hair.  If 
> the
> artist does not put on hair, is the artist asserting the individual was
> bald?  I'd say no, that the artist might be concerned about lessening 
> the
> chance of a good identification if the hair were incorrect.

What? I think that the artist is more likely to give them "average" 
hair. Medium length, with a nondescript style.

Let's consider a police artist doing a drawing of a wanted criminal from 
a description. If for some reason their hair was not known, do you think 
that the artist is likely to draw them bald? I don't think so. People 
would assume that because a bald (or shaved) head is unusual amongst 
humans, that it was a known distinguishing feature.

> In a post some time ago, the writer quoted a friend complaining about a 
> dino
> reconstruction that used simple old-fashioned green skin.  I remember
> thinking that this was a good way to express neutrality about the whole
> issue of integumentary structures.

The problem with this argument is that people only see drab grey and 
green dinosaurs, they will assume dinosaurs were all conservative in 
this regard. This is almost certainly not true.

Because people process visual information very quickly, and are likely 
to see dozens or even hundreds of pictures of dinosaurs, palaeoartists 
should aim to get the balance right, not just show what was strictly 
speaking most likely for individual animals. So, although drab colouring 
is probably the statistically most likely for individual animals, it 
becomes much more likely that some animals will be brightly coloured if 
we look at larger groups.

We must assume that people are going to see many pictures of dinosaurs, 
therefore we should show some as being brightly coloured. This will give 
the right "impression" of the group as a whole.

One other issue palaeoartists must consider is "countering" the decades 
of drab green and grey dinosaur art. Many people have only a vague 
notion of the advances in dinosaur palaeontology made in recent years, 
and a great many own books that are very out of date. If modern 
restorations tend toward the brightly coloured, it might go some way to 
redressing the balance.

Also, people are going to want read more about animals that LOOK 
interesting. Brightly coloured dinosaurs could be seen as a sort of 
"advertising" for palaeontology. A way of catching peoples attention.

I think the above arguments work for other integumentary structures as 
well.

If we paint and draw strictly according to statistical likelihood, then 
maybe 2/3rds of our pictures of theropods should show them sleeping, 
because that is probably how they spent 2/3rds of their time. ;-)


John Conway, Palaeoartist

"All art is quite useless." - Oscar Wilde

Protosite: http://homepage.mac.com/john_conway/
Systematic ramblings: http://homepage.mac.com/john_conway/phylogenic/