Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying/Quotes

"Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. I have drawn dinosaurs and hominids in the same cartoon."

—Gary Larson

"There's nothing like them in the fossil record, I'm sure...Okay, so they predate the fossil record...(not buying it herself) That'd make them a couple of billion years old...and we've just never seen one till now. Right."

—Rhonda, Tremors

"'Now, hold on,' you keep saying. 'Aren't bows and arrows primitive and harmless?' Why don't you ask the dinosaurs? Except you can't, because the cavemen bow and arrowed them to death."

—Team Fortress 2, Sniper Update Notes

"What killed the dinosaurs? THE ICE AGE!"

—Mr Freeze, Batman and Robin

"And on the third day, God created the Remington Bolt Action Rifle, so that Man could fight the dinosaurs..."

—Mean Girls

"We used to be criticised a lot when we made the remake of 1 Million BC, that man never lived in the age of the dinosaurs. [...] When you have no humans with the dinosaurs, you have no size comparison, you have no drama, so you have to take that liberty. After all, we're NOT making these pictures for Professors. They probably never go to the cinema anyway."

—Ray Harryhausen

"The truth is that the dinosaurs had been dead for over a week before the first human came along, probably in the form of Bob Dole. Yet most Americans firmly believe that humans and dinosaurs once coexisted. This misconception arose from the many absurdly inaccurate fictional depictions of caveman life, such as the TV cartoon show The Flintstones, in which the Flintstones own a pet dinosaur named Dino. But paleontologists, who can determine the age of fossils with a high degree of accuracy using a technique called 'carbon dating,' have known for many years that 'Dino' is actually another character wearing a costume. 'We think it's Barney,' the paleontologists announced recently, 'but we can't say for sure until we get another government grant.'"

—Dave Barry, Planet of the Apes

"I'm not sure of the situation on the other sections, but the dinosaur section [in this book] is completely out of date. For example, Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus are both included in the Infraorder Carnosauria!!! Even the novice dinosaur fans all know that they belong in their own distinctive families! Another major problem of this book are the illustrations. Most of them are good but some are just out of date! Just look at Spinosaurus, it's basically an Allosaurus with a sail! That is just disappointing. I can't help from thinking whether this book was truly published in 2006 as stated on the first page or not. Most of the information are wrong facts that are used at least 10 years ago. Boy, if it really was published in 2006, the author sure has some guts."

Okay, but the fossil record shows you're about twice as large as a real [velociraptor], so... And I won't even mention that all raptor species are known to be feathered. Or that all of them died out millions of years before T-rex appeared, so you don't know what they sound like. Y'know, this isn't even my field? I picked it up from the Discovery Channel. This is stuff even children know.

—Atomic Robo, Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness