Re: Australian TV program about dinosaur stampede (video preview)

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

On Tue, Nov 15th, 2011 at 10:17 PM, Jay <jayp.nair@yahoo.com> wrote:

> The full episode is free (by ABC iview) to watch online - at
> http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/program/853047

I can't say I was impressed with the show. The shots of the various trackways 
around the world 
were the highlight. Some of the voiceover pronunciations were a bit 
questionable, and even more 
noticable when they immediately cut to a palaeontologist using the same words 
with different (ie. 
the usual) pronunciations. I won't say the voiceover talent was quite as 
annoying as Robin Leach - 
but it was certainly within the outskirts of Leachood. Someone like Geoffrey 
Rush would have been 
a better choice (if they could afford him).

The scientific method gets flung unceremoniously out the window when they 
attempt to fit a grand 
total of *one* foot reconstructions to the large trackways. The foot in 
question is reconstructed by 
an artist (rather than an anatomist), from a digital reconstruction of the foot 
bones, with a digital 
scan of one of the large footprints as a reference. It was as if they had made 
up their minds who 
the track maker was from the outset.

There was no mention at all of the Romilio and Salisbury paper that concluded 
the large print 
maker was more likely a large ornithopod. Although given some of the comments 
in the program, it 
would seem to predate many of the more recent discoveries from Australia (the 
partial spinosaur 
cervical, the possible tyrannosauroid pubis fragment).

http://www.uq.edu.au/dinosaurs/documents/Romilio_Salisbury_2011.pdf
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/06/16/rsbl.2011.0466
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5973/1613.abstract

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Dann Pigdon
Spatial Data Analyst               Australian Dinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia               http://home.alphalink.com.au/~dannj
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