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I was going to stay out of the rest of this "scientific-errors" discussion,
but I can't resist doing some counterbashing on the basis of what David
Campbell just wrote:
>Perhaps Jurassic Park-bashing is so popular because we generally feel
>insulted because of the claim that these were the best of the profession.
>In addition to the stereotyping, anyone who can't figure out to run away
>when an entire herd of Gallimimus is panicking isn't very bright.
Your guess may be as good as mine, but personally I think that we feel
insulted more because Crichton/Spielberg get all of press and most of the
dough whereas we only look a bit silly, and that Jurassic Park was so close
to realism that we have the (probably justified) fear that a lot of people
will regard it as science rather than science fiction. Nobody complains
about scientific errors in "King Kong"!
Also, I'm afraid that if I suddently encountered a herd of panicking
Gallimimus, my first reaction would not be to run away (to where?) but to
do exactly what the hero did, namely let my jawbone drop to roughly the
level of my belly-button and squish my eyeballs ever-so-slightly out of
their sockets. (Though I'm not the best of the profession either - I would
feel more comfortable with stampeding slugs.)
> As previously noted, side-to-side chewing is a mammalian
>innovation.
Valid point, and one that is supported by hard (in several senses of the
word) data. The only thing I missed at that point in the movie was the
sauropod going "Mooooooh!".
>Even if they chewed properly, the sauropods would have been
>poisoned by eating eucalyptus leaves.
Do we know that of sauropod physiology, or are you just guessing?
>As for the Triceratops diet,
>Stachytarpheta (the plant grabbed in the movie) probably is toxic, but it's
>also a pantropical weed and was probably the first thing handy which didn't
>look like grass. Not that grass would be the best dino food either.
> If they wanted a reasonable source of DNA and trouble controlling
>the sex, unexpected temperature variation in the incubator would produce a
>mix in almost any modern reptile, including crocodilians.
I don't get the points. Are these errors?
> Anyone using virtual reality to align DNA needs audited. Alignment
>programs are much cheaper and probably work better.
As we were told a number of times in the movie, they spared no expense, so
the cost of the program was no concern. I'm not certain here, but I thought
alignment programs did purely linear sequence comparisons and were fraught
with many pitfalls. Can't nucleic-acid sequences affect secondary and
tertiary structures, and, if so, wouldn't alignment in virtual 3-D space at
least theoretically have some advantage?
> There shouldn't have been any need to cover the skeleton when the
>helicopter showed up-it should have had plenty of plaster on it long before
>it was fully uncovered.
I guess so, but then we wouldn't have seen the nice skeleton...
> To spit venom, Dilophosaurus should have had well-developed hollow
>fangs. A system like the Gila monster would be harder to tell one way or
>the other in a fossil.
Why fangs? African cobras are not the only animals that can spit, and their
method is the unusual one. Ask any camel, and be sure to stand straight
ahead of him when you do.
> A non-scientific detail: During the "explanation" of chaos, the
>mathematician's watch jumps ahead a few hours.
He did in fact give the good and mathematically correct explanation of
chaos theory that everybody has been asking for, but it took two hours and
the producer cut all but the beginning and end out of the movie...
>Also, the paleobotanist had
>an impressive boarding-house reach to get ice cream from the far end of the
>table.
You got them there! I guess we defenders just have to refer meekly to
"willing suspension of disbelief". Maybe it was just an unusually good ice
cream.
> Grabbing an electric fence to see if it's on is not a good idea.
>Rather, you should use the back of your hands so that a shock won't cause
>you to grab tighter.
And I thought that was exactly the "lesson" he was trying to give the
children. He KNEW the current was off!
> I haven't read the book, but I read that a human DNA sequence was
>presented as a dinosaur sequence. Seems a random set of AGTC's would do.
Seems to me a human DNA sequence would be more similar to dino ditto than a
random set would.
> The return/escape flight was pretty quick to be able to see brown
>pelicans-they stick close to shore.
I guess we have to refer to willing suspension of pelicans here...
> These are a few of the things not previously mentioned. Given that
>I've always watched it in the company of other paleontologists, all trying
>to nitpick, it's easy to add to the list.
Nitpicking can be fun, and it's our jobs as scientists to find weak points
in any argument, not least our own. But if the lists that we have seen in
this discussion (even with the valid points that have been made) would be
presented as our professional reaction to Jurassic Park, we will look more
than a bit silly and will certainly have squandered a golden opportunity to
get some mileage out of a paleontologically fascinating movie.
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
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