Re: Jurassic Bark

From
Date
Reply-To
I agree completely with Stefan!   --Sandy

>It's rather fun and (at least sometimes) illuminating to go fault-finding
>in Jurassic Park, but maybe we should be more bashful in our
>Crichton/Spielberg-bashing. The team behind the movie have made a better
>effort to get things "right" than most makers of science-fiction movies, so
>let's grant them the right to add some details for effect as long as it's
>not too flagrant or ridiculous.
>
>Adding venom to Dilophosaurus seems no less allowable than adding color to
>its skin, which you must do to make it look alive even though we know
>nothing about its real color. And, yes, it might have been "better" to use
>birds or even humans rather than frogs for the complementary DNA, but there
>was a purpose to the frog, namely to introduce propensity for
>hermafroditism. If we can swallow the necessary but preposterous
>precondition of amber-begets-DNA-begets-dinosaur, we should be able to
>swallow that the choice of the frog was not based on phylogenetic
>proximity. And as for the proper time designation, would a more accurate
>title, like "Mesozoic Park", have made such an impact?
>
>Some of the alleged errors are no worse than the delightful little joke
>when Velociraptor stalked beneath a metal grid and the light that sieved
>through spelt out the letters ACCGGATTCC... etc. on its skin. Light doesn't
>behave that way, but we don't care just now.
>
>So let's allow the moviemakers some freedom with the details, particularly
>with regard to such cases where paleontologists don't have a full answer
>either, like the nature of Tyrannosaurus' vision, the maximum size of
>Velociraptor, etc. (I agree, though, the cow-like aspects of Brachiosaurus
>were unbecoming, and the dung heap was way-way oversized.) They have used
>science as framework and inspiration, and rather than pointing out that
>this little nut should be there instead and that little bolt was a wee bit
>smaller, we should use the limelight they have provided to bring our
>thoughts across on the whole thing. We should point out how palaeontology
>is the basis for their spectacular reconstructions, that some aspects of
>the reconstructions are well supported whereas others are more or less
>guesswork, but that every scientific interpretation needs to be tested and
>retested against new evidence, and, of course, that in order to do so we
>need to keep the science alive and evolving and wouldn't it be lovely if we
>could have some more money for field work in Mongolia?
>
>I guess, though, that Bennington's kids might prefer finding plain errors
>in the movie. No big problem, just as long as they remember that there are
>errors and ERRORS and that even well-established TRVTHS occasionally turn
>out to be errors.
>
>
>Stefan Bengtson                      _/        _/ _/_/_/    _/        _/
>Department of Palaeozoology         _/_/      _/ _/    _/  _/_/    _/_/
>Swedish Museum of Natural History  _/  _/    _/ _/    _/  _/  _/ _/ _/
>Box 50007                         _/    _/  _/ _/_/_/    _/    _/  _/
>S-104 05 Stockholm               _/      _/_/ _/   _/   _/        _/
>Sweden                          _/        _/ _/     _/ _/        _/
>
>tel. +46-8 666 42 20
>     +46-18 54 99 06 (home)
>fax  +46-8 666 41 84
>e-mail Stefan.Bengtson@nrm.se
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-
>Received: from mailserver.nhm.ac.uk by jade.ucdavis.edu (MX V4.2 VAX) with
>          SMTP; Fri, 05 Jan 1996 11:01:09 PST
>Received: (from majordom@localhost) by mailserver.nhm.ac.uk (8.7.1/8.7.1) id
>          SAA13525 for paleonet-outgoing; Fri, 5 Jan 1996 18:41:01 GMT
>Received: from mail.nrm.se (mail.nrm.se [193.10.36.5]) by mailserver.nhm.ac.uk
>          (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id SAA13520 for <paleonet@nhm.ac.uk>; Fri, 5
>          Jan 1996 18:40:59 GMT
>Received: from [193.10.36.38] (lethaia.nrm.se [193.10.36.38]) by mail.nrm.se
>          (8.6.10/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA24923 for <paleonet@nhm.ac.uk>; Fri,
>          5 Jan 1996 19:46:13 +0100