Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying: Difference between revisions

[[File:alley_oop_and_Dinny_397alley oop and Dinny 397.jpg|frame|He's got a chauffeur who's a genuine dinosaur.]]

{{quote|''"'Many people (''including'' some scientists!) are confused about what is or isn't a "dinosaur". They think that [[Ptero-Soarer|flying pterodactyls]] or fin-backed ''Dimetrodon'' or seagoing plesiosaurs or woolly mammoths are dinosaurs. THEY ARE WRONG!"''|'''[http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/ Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., Phd]''', author of ''[[Dinosaurs the Most Complete Up To Date Encyclopedia]]''}}

However, many writers don't care about this. Since dinosaurs are inherently [[Rule of Cool|cool]], any story featuring them will probably have a selection of [[Stock Dinosaurs|the most popular dinosaurs]], regardless of [[Misplaced Wildlife|different habitats]] or the fact that [[Anachronism Stew|some went extinct well before others evolved]] and even those who lived in the same time period, were often located at different parts of the world. Other prehistoric creatures tend to be identified as dinosaurs even if they aren't, such as pterosaurs (closely related to dinosaurs but not true dinosaurs), marine reptiles (reptiles but not dinosaurs), Ice Age mammals such as mammoths and sabre-tooth cat (mammals that didn't come until long after the dinosuars were extinct), and ''Dimetrodon'' (more closely related to mammals than to dinosaurs, and long predates true dinosaurs).

If the dinosaur extinction is ever even mentioned, expect it to be shown as [[Kill'Em All|an instantaneous cataclysm]], despite the fact that their extinction would seem, by our standards, a drawn-out process. Even something as dramatic as a giant asteroid slamming into the Yucatan wouldn't kill off the dinosaurs instantly. Rather, it would start a chain reaction that would gradually kill them off over time. This could be due to confusion on the part of those who ''do'' research it -- forit—for example, some scientists have referred to the extinction of dinosaurs as ''geologically'' instantaneous... which means a couple of hundred thousand years--[[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|or a full twenty times longer than the entirety of recorded human history]]. Geologic time is significantly slower than most people can comfortably comprehend. The dinosaurs may also interact with monkeys, dodos, or even humans, despite the millions of years separating them. Often, cavemen will be co-existing with dinosaurs, despite the absence of any evidence that dinosaurs and humans ever lived together. ([[Most Writers Are Human|Maybe we just need humans in fiction to identify with.]])

In any case, one may begin to suspect that, in fact, [[They Just Didn't Care|the only "research" some dinosaur fiction creators did]] was... watching other dinosaur movies. Goes hand-in-hand with [[Stock Dinosaurs]], where only the popular species of dinosaurs (or "dinosaurs") show up. And with [[Prehistoric Monster]] as well, where dinosaurs are always portrayed as [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|non-cute things]] regardless how they looked in [[Real Life]]. One [[Egregious]] subtrope overlapping with [[Special Effect Failure]] is the [[Slurpasaur]].

* ''Every'' 1950s monster film with a [[Prehistoric Monster]]. Partly due to [[Science Marches On]], but other times because [[They Just Didn't Care]]. Especially when a [[Slurpasaur]] is involved.

* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai|Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi]]'', when the characters land in "Scientifically Inaccurate Prehistoric Abenobashi".

* While we're on the subject of dinosaurs being given powers and placed on trading cards, how could we leave out ''[[Dinosaur King]]''?

* ''[[Genesis Climber Mospeada]]'' subverts this trope; Stick and Ray fall into an underground cavern, where they see a mishmash of various kinds of creatures from different periods, including Dimetrodons, Apatosauri, and Tyrannosaurs. At first, Ray mentions that something "seems odd" about it, but he can't put his finger on it. Later, he realizes that the dinosaurs are a spattering of dinos from different periods, and the 'cavern' is actually a laboratory where the Inbit are trying to determine the form of life best suited to their "new" planet.

** ManyBecause fansthe [[Epilepticworld Trees|hypothesize]] thatof DBZ takesresembles placea [[Twenty22nd-century MinutesEarth, Intofans thespeculate Future|far into the future]], wherethat human scientists went the [[Jurassic Park]] route &and revived dinosaurs - which then spread to reclaim their various ecological niches alongside their modern counterparts. Notably, all dinosaurs in DBZ lack feathers, which can be thought of as a parallel to the [[Jurassic Park]] dinos, who had their genomes "filled in" with amphibian DNA, & also lacked feathers, at least in the first movie.

***:: [[Jossed]]However, the worldseries of DBZactually takes place... in the 700's.'8th ItsCentury'', in an [[Alternate Universe]] that outpaces our own technological development by a millenium and change. So it's also just as likely that dinosaurs didn't die off to begin with.

** Another error is Toriyama's design of the Tyrannosaurus-first off, it has what look like horns on its head-now there MIGHT be tiny brow ridges over its eyes, but the design he used is completely off. Secondly, Tyrannosaurus had tiny arms with two fingers-he seemed to have use Allosaurus to base the arms. Thirdly, though this is a case of [[Science Marches On|science marching on]], it may have feathers. And fourth-it is much too big, Tyrannosaurus would be 12-1312–13 meters long (42-4542–45 feet) and 4 meters high (13 feet), he draws them nearly 20-3020–30 meters long and 10 meters tall.

** Not featured in the manga, in the anime though? There are the same dinosaurs...on ''Namek''.

** Its surprisingly more biologically accurate than [[Dragonball Z]]'s dinosaurs.

* [[Subverted Trope|Subversion]]: In ''[[Runaways]]'', Gert has a pet genetically engineered dinosaur named [[Arsenic and Old Lace|Old Lace]]. Everyone calls her a "Raptor" and she does look ''exactly'' like a ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' raptor (Identified as a "Velociraptor" in the film, which were very similar to the the later-discovered Utahraptor). However, as soon as Victor joins the team he points out that it is a Deinonychous, and raptors as depicted in ''Jurassic Park'' do not exist. Old Lace is still incorrectly depicted as featherless, but is nonetheless referred to by as a really-existing species with a plausible (For time-traveling, mad-scientist filled comic-books) reason for existing. Also,

* Though the prehistoric beasts in [https://web.archive.org/web/20130522074538/http://www.superdickery.com/other/255.html this Batman comic] seem to be robots of some sort, allowing for some errors, there is one completely unforgivable mistake... They misspell "dinosaur"!

* According to one [[Chick Tract]], the dinosaurs escaped the great flood by getting on the Ark with all the other animals. Unfortunately, the flood destroyed much of the plant life, and the reduced oxygen levels made them sluggish and slow. They were ultimately hunted into extinction by human hunters who considered "dragon meat" to be a delicacy.

** Bringing dinosaurs back to life from their skeletons in museums...despite the fact that dinosaur skeletons in most museums are A) Held together with wire and B) Fibreglass replicas of fossils, which are basically bone-shaped rocks, or C)Even if they're the authentic article, are bone-shaped rocks. Rock contains remarkably little genetic material (i.e., none).

*** Trace remains of dinosaur DNA have been found from some fossils. Certainly not enough to make live animals though, and in any case the only way to turn stone into flesh is magic.

* There is a Soviet cartoon called [[Mother for Little Mammoth]]. It is about the eponymous mammoth who thawed out in our age searching for his mom. He finds one, an elephant in Africa. A truly happy ending, except one of the traits by which she accepts him is the fact that, like her, he has big ears -- andears—and the mammoth is pictured with such. Now, an elephant's big ears are heat sinks -- mammothssinks—mammoths didn't need nor have them.

* The "Rite of Spring" sequence in ''[[Disney Animated Canon|Fantasia]]'' may be one of the [[Trope MakersMaker]] here. It shows off a random cross-section of prehistoric life in the space of a few minutes.

** 25 years later, the Disney Imagineers created a Primeval World diorama for the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, with many of the individual scenes apparently inspired by ''Fantasia''. This diorama, which is currently installed at Disneyland in California, is a slight improvement on the film -- thefilm—the first scene shows dimetrodons in a Coal Age forest of giant horsetails (and giant dragonflies), and then moves to a Jurassic swamp with some generic sauropods, followed by scenes featuring ''Pteranodon'', ''Triceratops'', and ''Struthiomimus'' (all Cretaceous). So far, so good; the sauropods look ridiculous and should not be munching water weeds in a swamp, but that can be put down to a combination of 1960's paleontological ignorance and artistic license. But then the final scene depicts a ''Stegosaurus'' battling some large carnosaur beside a violent lava flow. If the carnosaur is supposed to be a ''[[Tyrannosaurus Rex|T. rex]]'', as the narrator usually states, why does it have three fingers per hand, and what the heck is the stego doing in the Cretaceous? You could ignore the narrator and assume that the setting has reverted back to the Jurassic for some reason, and the stego is fighting an ''Allosaurus''... but that doesn't explain why stego has ''five'' tail spikes on its [[wikipedia:Thagomizer|thagomizer]]. Sigh.

* Extremely evident in [[Disney Animated Canon|Disney's]] ''[[Dinosaur]]'', which had dinosaurs from the Jurassic and even the Triassic period interacting with Cretaceous-period dinosaurs. In an effort to [[Shown Their Work|show that the writers had done some research]], they included a ''Carnotaurus'' as the main predator -- toopredator—too bad Carnotaurus lived in South America, while all the other dinosaurs were North American species, and furthermore were several times bigger than in reality. There was a [[Hand Wave]] when one character was astounded that the carnotaurs had come "this far North" (which doesn't work, since North and South America was separated by a sea at the time), and the Brachiosaur character was explicitly stated to be [[Last of His Kind|the only one of her species left]].

** Not to mention the fact that the main character had been adopted by [[Anachronism Stew|lemurs]].

* [[Lovable Coward|Rex]] from ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'' is a green plastic [[Tyrannosaurus Rex]] with three fingers on each hand instead of two like in real life. Justified, since he's a ''toy'' T. rex, which is often portrayed incorrectly.

* ''[[We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story]]'' features ''Anatosaurus'', which is indeed a bona fide member of the duckbill group.<ref>[[Science Marches On|Well, at least it was when the show was made...]]</ref>. Sadly, the duckbill is shown with a long bony crest on the back of its head more reminiscent of a ''Sauralophus'' or ''Parasaurolophus'' than a smooth-headed "''Anatosaurus''"...

** The other prehistoric creatures include a pteranodon which has its (10ft10&nbsp;ft long! Ouch!) egg stolen and a stop-motion creature resembling some outlandish [[Slurpasaur]].

** Ice Age Texas also probably would not have looked anything like that scene depicted it as. The Ice Age glaciers [https://web.archive.org/web/20131029115230/http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAMERICA.html never got anywhere near that far south].

** Also, the heroes vist South America 70 million years ago (despite the fact it's 100 Million BC...) and ''Gigantosaurus'' became extinct around 90 million years ago.

* From ''[[Puma Man]]'':

* Eric Garcia's ''Anonymous Rex'' series of novels is just odd but a few things stand out. The trilogy's premise is that [[Talking Animal|talking animals]] walk among us disguised as humans, and that most of these are the few species of dinosaurs who survived the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. They exist in the present day in ''exactly'' the forms they had on the other side of the K-T Boundary (though implicitly smaller or larger as the case may be). His protagonist is a ''Velociraptor'' -- a—a ''[[Jurassic Park]]''-style nekkid velociraptor with ''external ears'' -- private—private eye. The other main characters tend to be obvious dinosaurs like tyrannosaurs and hadrosaurs. Garcia's only research (and he openly admits this) is to have read and watched ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' a lot, but there's so much [[Rule of Funny]] going on ("[[Manimal]]: the Musical!") that the lack of research actually serves to make the series funnier. (And did we mention the -- ahemthe—ahem -- [[Interspecies Romance|interspecies romances]]?)

** The movie adaptation is... less so. While in the books the dinosaurs' disguises are explicitly stated to be ''really good'' rubber suits, the movie clearly thought that idea sucked. So the dinosaurs, who did use rubber suits in the past, now use hyper futuristic hologram generators instead -- probablyinstead—probably because they dig out the old suits to use as a diversion and they're nowhere near as good as they could have been.

* The ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' novel actually doesn't commit this crime ''too'' much, as it tries to generally depict accepted theories on dinosaur behavior -- therebehavior—there's a very good reason why [[Michael Crichton]] was a respected science fiction author -- andauthor—and explains everything in a way that actually makes a lot of sense logically. The mix-and-match assembly of species from different periods is attributed to the fact that the geneticists who ''made'' the dinosaurs [[They Just Didn't Care|just didn't care]], and John Hammond, the guy in charge, was just relying on the [[Rule of Cool]]. The name of the park was chosen to appeal to investors, and to customers (had it opened for business), and not with any regard for accuracy. The whole "can't see you if you don't move" is actually attributed to ''all'' the dinos, not just the ''T. Rex'', as they had to fill in genetic gaps with the DNA of similar modern day reptiles and amphibians, many of which actually ''do'' have motion-based vision. The ''Velociraptor''s, though, are a lot closer in dimension, even in the books, to really large ''Deinonychus''es.

** Alten wouldn't be the only one to greatly exaggerate Megalodon's size (the most realistic estimates place it at 50-6050–60 feet long at maximum, Alten goes above and beyond 80-9080–90 feet) and place it in the Dinosaurs era. It seems these two traits go hand in hand when attempting to write fiction for these things (yeah, because a shark as large as most whales isn't interesting enough, they need to [[Everything's Better with Dinosaurs|insert Dinosaurs]]).

* The back cover of the [[Doctor Who Novelisations|novelisation]] of ''[[Doctor Who]] and the Silurians'' boasts that the story contains "a 40 ft. high ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', the biggest, most savage mammal which ever trod the earth!" No ''T. rex'' fossil ever found has been that big; the largest one is 40 feet ''long'' from nose to tail. And then there's that other bit -- whilebit—while most of us aren't experts on the subject, we could probably tell you that T. rex was not a mammal.

* ''[[Destination Truth]]'', the 'flying dinosaur' episode. Lets see, they identify the creature from the descriptions as a pterodactyl, yet never, not ONCE say its a flying ''reptile'', not a flying dinosaur. The closest thing to a flying 'dinosaur' are the first birds, NOT the pterosaurs, which are a completely separate <s>species</s> taxon.

** The book, yes; the TV series, not so much. The show was designed to cash in on the success of ''Jurassic Park'', hence the abundance of velociraptors (a dinosaur unknown in Doyle's day).

* Let's not forget about ''[[BC]]'', perhaps one of the most [[Egregious]] examples of a newspaper comic that has both dinosaurs and humans. Incidentally, though the creator was a self-proclaimed Christian fundamentalist, the scientific shortcomings seem to be less because of his beliefs and more for [[Anachronism Stew]] [[Played for Laughs]].<ref>The strip was started about two decades before he even had his conversion anyway.</ref>.

* Prior editions of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons]]'' handle the various species of dinosaur better than it does [[Sadly Mythtaken|mythology]], even pointing out the differences between the ''Velociraptor'' and the ''Deinonychus''. They still list ''Pteranodon'' and ''Elasmosaurus'' under the same catchall of "dinosaurs", though; in the Fourth Edition, however, they are [[Call a Rabbit a Smeerp|renamed Behemoths]]. Not to mention still allowing the Quetzalcoatlus and Elasmosaurus to swallow humans whole (note: not only could they probably never do that without disloding their entire lower beak, but this would roughly double the weight of a flying creature, and thus landlocked them).

* There is this very obscure, very low-quality board game sold in Hungary that goes by the name ''Küzdelem a dinoszauruszok földjén'' (Battle in the Realm of the Dinosaurs). Has only a handful of pictures, all of which contain horrible depictions of [[Stock Dinosaurs]] -- one—one ''Brachiosaurus'' with a backwards knee, and one with shorter forelegs than back legs, standing as erect as a human; toothed, bat-winged ''Pteranodon''s with the bat fingers sprouting from the ''back'' of the wings; and gigantic, scaly ''Velociraptor''s with ''Therizinosaurus''-like claws. In short, it is the board game equivalent of "Chinasaurs" (see lower).

* The ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131017034908/http://www.dinosaurcollector.150m.com/playskool.htm DinoRiders]'' franchise had dinosaurs from virtually everywhere, plus the obligatory pterosaurs and Dimetrodon. A spinoff line of prehistoric mammals provided another example of this trope, with an entelodont (giant pig-thing) alongside a giant ground sloth, saber-toothed cat, and wooly mammoth. Then again, this is a series that concerns the [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|exploits of aliens waging war on prehistoric Earth]] with the help -- voluntaryhelp—voluntary in the case of the good guys, not so much in the case of the bad guys -- ofguys—of the animals. [[Rule of Cool]] heals many a wound.

* And then, there's Topps' insane ''[[Dinosaurs Attack!]]!'' trading card series. It's probably a lot easier just to say this: any question as to whether or not they were pointedly invoking the [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons]] trope were gone the minute it turned out that the (all carnivorous and [[Kill All Humans|homicidal]] regardless of species) dinosaurs were sent by ''[http://www.bobheffner.com/dinosaursattack/front46.htm Dinosaur Satan]''. In addition, this is one ''incredibly'' violent series of cards -- rivalingcards—rivaling even Topps' own "Mars Attacks" in terms of [[Nightmare Fuel|sheer mayhem]]. [http://www.bobheffner.com/dinosaursattack/front8.htm The whole set] [http://www.bobheffner.com/dinosaursattack/front36.htm generally appears] [http://www.bobheffner.com/dinosaursattack/front31.htm to be] [http://www.bobheffner.com/dinosaursattack/sfront4.htm aiming for] [[Refuge in Audacity]] writ large.

* In general, most toys would fall under the ''"[[Did Not Do the Research]]" trope and would be more accurately conveyed in the term "Prehistoric long dead things in colorful poses," but that would not please many parents.

* The Playmobil dinosaur line [[Shown Their Work|largely averts this]]: the ''Pteranodon'' has a toothless beak, most of the theropods have non-pronated hands, the spinosaurid is larger than the tyrannosaurid, etc. The only real caveat is the [[Raptor Attack|lack of feathers on the deinonychosaur]].<ref> And the nostrils atop the brachiosaur's head, but that one's a bit more technical.</ref>

* There's a set of models called "Prehistoric Digs". The advertising copy for them in the catalog says, "Discover a hidden 3D dinosaur skeleton! Then assemble the scattered bones to reveal your very own 10" museum quality reproduction of a 70 million year old 3D dinosaur skeleton. Specify T-Rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, or Mammoth."

** It's getting better--orbetter—or worse?--with the introduction of the Archaeology skill in game. Animal and vegetable fossils are an entire subset of the skill, and include a rare pet and mount that are both magically reanimated fossilized raptors, implying that Azeroth's raptors have been around for a very long time. (Probably long enough to evolve off their feathers, pick up the carnotaur-esque horns, and gain the sentience the game keeps pointing out.) There's even a nod to feathery raptors with the Feathered Raptor Arm item, though it's promptly [[Lampshaded]] in the item's own description as just-as-likely belonging to one of Azeroth's hojillion other magical abominations. Also mentioned are the possibility of still-living giant trilobites, and while the entry on the nautilus shell ''says'' all the shelled squids in the world are extinct, {{spoiler|there's two very large examples hanging out in Vashj'ir.}}

* The ''[[Tekken]]'' character Alex is a predatory dinosaur living alongside humans the 20th Century. However, he was genetically engineered from fossils by scientists, partially averting this trope as Alex is more Genetic Abomination than Dinosaur.

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] and more or less (anachronism aside) averted in the [http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=996 guest comic] by AaronSen Diaz. And then it is deliberately double subverted...

* ''[[Xkcdxkcd]]'' has ''[[Jurassic Park]]''-style Velociraptors, which the author found traumatizing upon seeing said film.

** [https://web.archive.org/web/20120508163636/http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2011/04/science_meets_mokele-mbembe.php This] April Fools' joke on Tetrapod Zoology sets out to "prove" that old-school dinosaurs are correct after all, and contains a number of jabs at some infamous fringe groups.

** Dimetro is kind of an oddball here. Dimetrodonts are most definitely not dinosaurs. They are pelycosaurs, the ancestors of the therapsids, who were in turn the ancestors of mammals (in short, Dimetro is a closer relative of the Secret Scouts than he is to any of the Dinosaucers). However, given Dimetro's appearance, it's very possible that the producers had Dimetrodon confused with Spinosaurus. Old illustrations of Spinosaurus basically show an animal that could easily be confused for a bipedal Dimetrodon (the only good specimen of Spinosaurus was destroyed during World War two -- reallytwo—really). Indeed, Dimetro's head resembles the head Spinosaurs were drawn with in the 1980's, long before Spinosaurus' relative Baryonyx was discovered and turned out to have a head that does not look like that of any other large theropod at all. Take a look at [http://www.flickr.com/photos/babbletrish/5561152515/in/photostream/ this old illustration] from the time (there's even a direct comparison to Dimetrodon) for an example.

* But in the darkest depths lurks ''[[Dino Squad]]''. It's the tale of a pair of (nekkid) ''Velociraptors'' who hide from the (instantaneous [[Kill'Em All]] style) extinction in a cave. And they live in that cave for well over sixty million years. (Yeah...) Finally, they emerge into the modern world with [[New Powers as the Plot Demands|psychic powers]], including the convenient ability to pass as humans. The bad 'raptor becomes a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] who wishes to use [[Applied Phlebotinum|some kind of chemical]] to "return the animals of the world to the creatures they once were: DINOSAURS!" The good 'raptor poses as a teacher, and in this position, she is able to mentor the ragtag bunch of teenagers who are affected by the bad 'raptor's chemicals, allowing them to [[Animorphism|transform into the usual dinosaur suspects]]. For his first experiment, the bad 'raptor uses the stuff to "[[Evolutionary Levels|revert]]" a shark into what everyone on the show insists on calling a "Mutated [[wikipedia:File:MEG1.jpg|Megalodon]]" -- except—except that it's a [[wikipedia:File:Tylosaurus proriger12DB.jpg|Tylosaur]], an ocean-going lizard. If you know that neither of these animals are dinosaurs, that neither lizards nor sharks have anything to do with the dinosaur family tree at all and are both far, far older families of animals, and that -- youthat—you know -- ''[[You Fail Biology Forever|sharks aren't frikkin' lizards]]'', give yourself a round of applause. You're smarter than [[They Just Didn't Care|the people paid to write this]].

* The ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron|Jimmy Neutron]]'' series was guilty of this in several episodes. One, in particular, had Cindy giving a presentation on a raptor-like dinosaur, using a model skeleton as a visual aide... and she refers to it as a plesiosaurus, which, to make matters worse, wasn't even a dinosaur. Somewhat subverted when Jimmy calls her out on it, but he manages to uphold the trope by claiming that the dinosaur was in fact a ''Megalosaurus'', which it looked absolutely nothing like. Then of course there's "200 million years ago" = "the late Cretaceous era" ... and all of the issues THAT brings up.

* Played painfully straight in the ''[[Stanley]]'' TV movie ''Stanley's Dinosaur Round-Up''. After jumping into the [[Great Big Book of Everything]], Stanley encounters a herd of ''Brachiosaurus'', which soon run off, scared by a three-fingered kangaroo-stance ''[[Tyrannosaurus Rex]]'' that appears to be bigger than the brachiosaurids. Brachiosaurids did ''not'' travel in large herds (they would have stripped large areas of their foliage too quickly), [[Anachronism Stew|they went extinct about 70 million years before tyrannosaurids evolved]],<ref> Primitive tyrannosauroids did live along ''Brachiosaurus'', but they were essentially harmless to anything larger than a lamb.</ref> they couldn't run ''nearly'' as fast as they did in the show, tyrannosaurs held their bodies horizontal to the ground, had ''two'' fingers per hand and were considerably smaller than ''Brachiosaurus''. Keep in mind that ''Stanley'' is usually intended to be '''''[[Critical Research Failure|educational]]'''''.

{{quote|'''Phineas''': Hey ''[[Tyrannosaurus Rex|T. rex]]'', aren't you a little young to be hanging around in the Carboniferous?<br />

** Brachiosaurids with long, diplodocid-like tails (yeah, [https://web.archive.org/web/20160309111038/http://www.neurobiologie.fu-berlin.de/brachio.gif have fun with that]).

** ''Giganotosaurus'' <ref> The show calls it "Gigantosaurus", but that's an invalid sauropod.</ref> as the largest theropod (''Spinosaurus'' was known to be larger for some time then).

** [[No Pronunciation Guide|Blatant mispronunciations of multiple names]], such as ''Sinornithoides'',<ref> Actually sine-OR-nih-THOY-deez, suh-NOR-nith-oyds in the show</ref>, ''Sinosauropteryx''<ref> Actually SINE-oh-saw-ROP-tur-icks, SINE-oh-SOP-tur-icks in the show</ref> and ''Carcharodontosaurus''.<ref> Actually kar-KAR-oh-don-toh-SAW-rus, KAR-cher-oh-don-toh-SAW-rus in the show</ref>.

*** This, in turn, leads to the possibility that man [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters|may have contributed directly to the extinction of several dinosaur kinds]]. The point is, they side neither with the "Eons and Ages" crowd nor with how ''[[The Flintstones]]'' depict it.

* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20100208100808/http://www.thepaleodiet.com/nutritional_tools/recipes.shtml "Paleolithic" Diet], which claims to be the healthiest diet due to supposedly being based on what our ancestors ate during the bloody ''ice ages''. The problems inherent within this claim are numerous:

** The plan makes the false assumption that modern humans are genetically identical to their stone-age ancestors, ignoring modern evolutionary theory. The prevelance of lactose tolerance among African, European, and West- and South-Asian adults; lactose tolerance is only useful if you've domesticated the cow--currentlycow—currently [https://web.archive.org/web/20110707075011/http://archaeology.about.com/od/dterms/a/domestication.htm believed] to have happened around 7000 BC--andBC—and herd them in a big way (which East Asians as a rule did not do, preferring to use them as beasts of burden).<ref>Most mammalian species lose the ability to produce lactase--the enzyme that allows one to digest lactose--as adults; the retention of the ability to produce lactase after weaning is only useful to that weird creature that continues to drink milk later on. The branches of the species that didn't--East Asians and the native peoples of Oceania and the New World--retain the older, more normal feature, lactose intolerance.</ref>

** From the linked website, every single recipe involves some sort of minute preperation (spices, minced vegetables, olive oil). that would have resulted in the death ofIf anya paleolithic human if they'd tried to dedicate their free time to acquiring itall all.those ingredients, they'd die of starvation or predation first.

*** ''Olive oil?!'' The stuff that takes great expertise to extract from farmed plantplants? How on earth is that paleolithic?

*** Look at all those vegetables. The recipes depend on having a steady variety of plant and fruit products (and their variety of nutrients) which far exceeds the range available to any prehistoric human. Besides, not to mention the fact that many fruits and vegetables we eat today are only viable as meals because extensive farming resultedallowed inus theirto growingproduce toversions five times their original size.

*** Somewhere around a quarter of those recipes involove tomatoes, which until their domestication were native only to ''South America''.

* Sometimes paleontologists make other paleontologists cry. One of the biggest debates between paleontologists recently was Jack Horner versus practically the rest of paleontology over whether or not ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (and all other large theropods) were predators or scavengers. Horner was on the scavenger side, and uses arguments such as: The size of the animals is more conducive to scavenging (scare smaller animals from kills); their legs were designed for walking instead of running, and being so large any form of moving fast would endanger them by off-balancing their bodies; they can only use their mouths for attacking, which is dangerous; For ''T. rex'' specifically, the large olfactory lobe of the brain (meaning excellent smell) and the small size of the forelimbs (which prevented ''T. rex'' from holding prey with them), and the thick armor-piercing teeth and bone-crushing jaws (for breaking apart bones to get the marrow inside). The rest of paleontology<ref> Especially Robert T. Bakker, which led to what was actually [[wikipedia:Robert T. Bakker#Fictional portrayal|quite a funny exchange.]]</ref> counters with:

** As prey size increases, generally so does predator size. Every prey species has at least one predator that can take it down. Even if a prey species grows too large to be commonly predated, their offspring are targeted instead. (For a modern analogy: while an elephant may be (mostly) immune to lion attacks, their calves are not.)

*** To put it another way, Horner wanted to challenge the general assumptions using the clout he gathered with ''Maiasaura'' and other discoveries, force other scientists to re-evaluate their positions on T-Rex and get better evidence for its nature rather than just running with assumption. In short, actual constructive [[Troll|Trolling]]ing.

** They also resort to ''ad homeniem'' [http://theropoddatabase.blogspot.com/2012/01/almost-famous-im-misquoted-in-feduccias.html arguments]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140717011909/http://dml.cmnh.org/2012Jan/msg00030.html A lot.]

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