Dumbing down science to appeal to the audience. by AURaptor

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Dumbing down science to appeal to the audience.

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POSTED BY: AURAPTOR
UPDATED: Sunday, September 4, 2011 18:13
SHORT URL: http://bit.ly/o8ldgL
VIEWED: 2537
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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:13 PM

America loves a winner!

Dinosaur Revolution - on Discovery Science.

Yet another look at the world of dinosaurs, full of neat-o cgi critters, all painted up in magnificent colors and patterns, and not just the same, tired old drab grey/green skin of what most think of when picturing these big lizards.

Fine. Love seeing this stuff.

But what I'm not keen of is the extra, the patently embellished social and behavioral antics of these amazing animals. Like what? Like a young Allosaur, playfully tossing around a small skull, and carrying on much like a puppy would, with a ball.

The young precocious dinosaur finds itself up against a very large and unplayful sauropod, which quickly gets annoyed w/ the little carnivore. A swish of the sauropods tail breaks the jaw of the younger animal, with near lethal results. A while later, the allosaur's mother ambles along, to find her offspring hurt, broken jaw and all, and decides to... walk of, leaving the injured baby to die.

The basis of this little story starts w/ a grain of truth. A allosaur jaw bone was found. Interestingly, the jaw had been broken, and healed, indicating the animal survived, at least for months, if not years, after sustaining such a major injury.

( Did the animal fend for itself ? Or was it able to stay alive so long because it fed off the efforts of others in its 'pack' ? )

Speculation is one thing, and is important to help us piece together many of the mysteries, filling in the gaps .. but this show goes absurdly over board. It's almost Disney-esque in how it treats the 'characters' , the animals in the show. Which is quite a shame... on the one hand, there's bits and pieces of really cool science, and factual evidence. Then... it gets smothered with sappy sweet story telling. The only thing missing is a clever sound track, and s catchy song, like Hakuna Matata.

This is just one example. Then there's the History Channel's idiotic 'Ancient Aliens' show, which paints everything and anything odd looking in the ancient world as PROOF that we've been visited by aliens. Not that there's any actual proof offered, but only wild speculation. And never any serious time spent looking into alternative answers.... it's all aliens. Has to be. No way could there be any other explanation.

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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