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What About Dinosaurs?
| Article
# : |
18464 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1990 |
2,050 Words |
| Author
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Wm. Lee Stokes
Wm. Lee Stokes is professor of geology emeritus at the
University of Utah. |
The great Age of Dinosaurs ended about 65 million years ago with no one around to describe or explain it. But in the last century and a half, long-buried remains have come to light, and a second man-made age of dinosaurs now prevails. Without deliberately trying we have accorded them a uniquely high position, not only in serious science but also in public esteem. As soon as their skeletons were first cleaned, patched, and securely set on their feet, they vanquished all foes in the public eye. They soon replaced Egyptian mummies and classic statues as chief attractions in museums everywhere. Any natural history museum worth the name simply must have a dinosaur. Almost all modern natural history museums are being built around dinosaurs, and older institutions, such as the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, have updated their displays to give dinosaurs highest billing.
Like rare works of art, there never were and never will be enough originals to go around. As interest grew and demand increased, new quarries were discovered and old ones enlarged. When original material proved to be insufficient, museum curators went to work with plaster and plastics to create replicas that can't be distinguished from the real thing. Still not enough! Dinosaurs became big business when companies were organized to produce and sell lifelike, computer-operated, high-tech replicas that move, bellow, and roll their eyes.
Children spark the dinosaur boom
It is children who carry on and renew the dinosaur craze. Dinosaurs combine the real and unreal, the known and the unknown, the fearsome
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