logoalt Hacker News

kijinlast Thursday at 3:17 PM2 repliesview on HN

The people who produce dinosaur illustrations don't seem to have as much of a problem with adding all sorts of details (extravagant plumage, wacky colors/patterns, starry eyes and acrobatic postures) that are neither directly supported nor contradicted by available evidence.


Replies

griffzhowllast Thursday at 5:06 PM

They only started adding feathers after they found evidence of them being feathered, though.

Plus there's zero direct evidence for their colours so there's no option but to use guesswork in these cases.

And a lot of dinosaur reconstructions may be more for edutainment value rather than reflecting a scholarly best-guess. There's no uniform methodology across all these disciplines.

show 1 reply
RajT88last Thursday at 3:41 PM

We are not dinosaurs, so have rather less skin in the game when it comes to accuracy.