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Re: what pisses off paleontologists

Hi Tom
Not so sure about that.
Although highly interested in palaeontology since I'm 6 (and I'am 57 now), I think laypeople like me appreciate the new view that you, palaeontologists, have given to your science. I guess Jurassic Park has helped in the process, but new researches are taken more seriously, people now are (quite fully) convinced that birds are dinosaurs, and they are really interested (for what I know) in phylogenetics, when, a few decades ago, it was said that man came from fish.. which is not wrong, in a way. Discovery of Anomalocaris, for example, has changed the view we had of the cambrian explosion. Tiktaalik has changed the way we looked at early tetrapods. 
I know of noone who asks which is the big one or the fast one.
We just await for new discoveries and descriptions because we know science is walking slowly. 
My two euro-pence
Best regards
Jean-Michel

Le 02/12/2015 13:26, Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. a écrit :

You forgot a biggie: the public's inability to appreciate or accept uncertainty and 
ambiguity. Such as "how fast did this dinosaur
run?" "Which were larger, males or females?" and all sorts of other things that 
they want to know (and we do, too), but which we
currently can't resolve.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu         Phone: 301-405-4084
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Office: Geology 4106, 8000 Regents Dr., College Park MD 20742
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Phone: 301-405-6965
Fax: 301-314-9661

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
Office: Centreville 1216, 4243 Valley Dr., College Park MD 20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                         Department of Geology
                         Building 237, Room 1117
                         8000 Regents Drive
                         University of Maryland
                         College Park, MD 20742-4211 USA


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] On Behalf Of 
Daniel Bensen
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2015 7:17 AM
To: DINOSAUR Mailing List
Subject: what pisses off paleontologists

Hey all,
I'm putting together a couple of essays for the general public about dinosaurs 
and paleontology, and I want to make sure I got my
facts straight.

This essay is about things that anger professional paleontologists. So far I've 
got (1)crackpot taxonomic theories (2)the public's

inability

to accept feathered dinosaurs and (3)fossil theft. Have I missed anything?

Now's your chance to vent!

Dan