Comment on Make dinosaurs weirder
jonsnothere@beehaw.org 20 hours ago
This is actually doing a disservice to all the work paleontologists do in reconstructing. There was indeed a time where there was too much stretching over bones, but this is something they are now very aware of. Also keep in mind reptiles, avians and and mammals have a very different relationship between bones and body. It’s mainly mammals that tend to add a lot of bulk like that.
frezik@midwest.social 17 hours ago
Well, a plucked bird does look pretty different. Then again, fossilized feathers for dinosaurs have been found, so it’s not like we’re completely blind to that, either.
TheFogan@programming.dev 16 hours ago
Honestly I think we need to do more blame to the general popular media. AKA while the actual real science has moved so much further forward. Most people will complain and hate it if their dinosaur renditions don’t match what has been set in stone in their minds by Jurrasic Park. Hence feathers are in the minority of renditions of dinosaurs for the mainstream public.
The scientific renditions are pretty accurate. The current movies, books, toys, cartoons, etc… on the other hand are all stuck on a modified for creative and practical reproduction variant of the version that science had in the 80s.
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 13 hours ago
I agree, and think this ties into my pet peeve, if I may stroke it for a bit; The fact that science is so isolated from the outside world, that the only way the average person can access it is through pop culture interpretations. Pop culture science needs to be held to a higher standard if we won’t fund good science communicators. We’ve left it to ‘market forces’ to fill the gap, and they’ve decided the most cost-effective way of doing that is stuffing it with garbage and slapping a pretty veneer on it.
People go “yeah, but you can read the studies online”, but that ignores that 1) paywalls are a problem and 2) even if you don’t run into a paywall, you need the education to understand what you’re reading. The average american can barely read common english and is exhausted from work, expecting quality self-education to be the standard is a fool’s errand.