Re: Jurassic Park Errors

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Dear Colleagues:

I think Jurassic Park is simply a wonderful movie, and I would never
consider participating in its deconstruction.  I read the book at field
camp.   I saw the movie more than once on the big screen, and I bought a
videotape as soon as one was available.  I think the principal weakness of
the film was not with frog DNA or backward microscopes or even with its
unrealistic presentation of seismic imaging but rather with the way it
portrays scientists and their work.  Since the original inquiry to PaleoNet
was for ideas that could lead to discussion among younger students, let me
suggest that conveying to these students who scientists are and the ways in
which they work is quite an important topic for discussion.

Present in Jurassic Park are all the principal stereotypes that have
haunted science from the beginning:  the bungling hero who probably
couldn't plug in a desk lamp on his own (where is Fred McMurry when we
really need him?); the oblivious and amorphous chaps in white coats
cranking out monsters because it can be done with no thought to the trouble
they might be causing (shades of Dr. Frankenstein);  the mad scientists
(one benign and one--the computer bloke--inherently evil); and, yes, the
practical, khaki-clad, great-white-hunter type--a real-world kind of
guy--who, in Jungle Jim fashion, sees the problem but is powerless to stop
what others view as progress.

I know a few paleobotanists. None is also a skilled veterinarian tooled up
to snuff out heartburn among Triceratops.  I know a few mathematicians.
None is quite as obnoxious or as single-minded as Jeff Goldblum's
chaosologist.  (The flick would have been better if he had been the one in
the outhouse.)  I know a few bungling scientists.  None wears his clutzhood
as a badge of honor.  I hope the younger students who discuss the
scientific shortcomings of Jurassic Park can come away from their
experience with an understanding that in the world of the 1990s scientists
are just people, and lots of people are scientists.  After all, every last
one of us has at least one, real scientist living right in our own
neighborhood!

Best wishes,

Roger

--

Roger L. Kaesler
Paleontological Institute
The University of Kansas
121 Lindley Hall
Lawrence, Kansas 66045-2911
(913) 864-3338 = telephone
(913) 864-5276 = FAX

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