Jurassic Park Errors

[N.MacLeod@xxxxxxxxx (N. MacLeod)]

Since everyone seems to be having a good time deconstructing Jurassic Park,
I might as well add my favorite error to the mix. Actually, this one comes
from Daniel Demming's new book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" where he points
out that frog DNA would be an exceedingly poor choice for use as a template
for dino cloning (even if that were possible). Frogs aren't particularly
close relatives of dinosaurs. Leaving aside the obvious choice of bird DNA
(Yes Virginia, phylogenetically-speaking birds are dinosaurs), there is a
closer link between human DNA and dino DNA than there is between that of
frogs and dinos. One suspects, that the archetypal image of "reptiles" as
"lower" vertebrates demanded that dino DNA be hybridized with the DNA of
another "lower" vertebrate. Note that this is an error of both the movie
and the book. The Darwinian revolution is far from complete.


Norm MacLeod



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Norman MacLeod
Senior Scientific Officer
N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (Internet)
N.MacLeod@uk.ac.nhm (Janet)

Address: Dept. of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,
         Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

Office Phone: 0171-938-9006
Dept. FAX:  0171-938-9277
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