I understand, but this is still coming off as “being the general after the battle”. I.e. judging the mistakes done by scientists while the available knowledge was more limited. The shift towards portraying dinosaurs with feathers was triggered by, well, discovering dinosaur fossils with feathers. We made a discovery and corrected accordingly.
Of course we should be aware of the limits of studying and reconstructing prehistorical species in general, I’d say most popular dino media downplays or ignores the difficulties and doubts in the endavour, presenting the conclusions as a given rather than as an educated guess, without showing the “behind the scenes”. But the image of “scary, giant lizards” in popular perception has IMO been on the decline since Walking with Dinosaurs from 1999 - of course, the exaggerated Jurassic Park and its increasingly trashy sequels and similar media have had more of a broad cultural presence, but that’s not much to do with paleontology and serious paleo-art.
Of course we should be aware of the limits of studying and reconstructing prehistorical species in general
Exactly, and that is to say, that is the entire purpose of the text I mentioned. It’s just an exploration on how fossil records leave so little evidence to make truly educated guesses in reconstructions, and the introduction of new evidence changes our perspective so dramatically.
So yes, the models update to try to be more accurate, but it’s effectively like saying we went from 10% certain to 12% certain. There are still too many unknowables. And should additional evidence come to light at some point in the future, we must assume the possibility that the current depictions will eventually seem just as comically wrong.
I understand, but this is still coming off as “being the general after the battle”. I.e. judging the mistakes done by scientists while the available knowledge was more limited. The shift towards portraying dinosaurs with feathers was triggered by, well, discovering dinosaur fossils with feathers. We made a discovery and corrected accordingly.
Of course we should be aware of the limits of studying and reconstructing prehistorical species in general, I’d say most popular dino media downplays or ignores the difficulties and doubts in the endavour, presenting the conclusions as a given rather than as an educated guess, without showing the “behind the scenes”. But the image of “scary, giant lizards” in popular perception has IMO been on the decline since Walking with Dinosaurs from 1999 - of course, the exaggerated Jurassic Park and its increasingly trashy sequels and similar media have had more of a broad cultural presence, but that’s not much to do with paleontology and serious paleo-art.
Exactly, and that is to say, that is the entire purpose of the text I mentioned. It’s just an exploration on how fossil records leave so little evidence to make truly educated guesses in reconstructions, and the introduction of new evidence changes our perspective so dramatically.
So yes, the models update to try to be more accurate, but it’s effectively like saying we went from 10% certain to 12% certain. There are still too many unknowables. And should additional evidence come to light at some point in the future, we must assume the possibility that the current depictions will eventually seem just as comically wrong.