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Topics tagged under 1989 on Jurassic Mainframe Forum_10Topic: JD-man's Serious Dino Books/Dino-Related Reviews!
JD-man

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Search in: Dinosaur Jungles   Topics tagged under 1989 on Jurassic Mainframe EmptySubject: JD-man's Serious Dino Books/Dino-Related Reviews!    Topics tagged under 1989 on Jurassic Mainframe Icon_minitimeMon Aug 08, 2016 1:27 pm
My 28th review for this thread is a negative 1 for Wexo's Where Did Dinosaurs Come From? If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Yes" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Yes" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.

OK in the 1980s, but not in the 2000s ( www.amazon.com/review/RAVE9K9147YWQ/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 2/5

As you may remember, I grew up with Zoobooks magazine ( www.amazon.com/review/R94XM1O8E45DV/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). Wexo's Zoobooks - Dinosaurs is my favorite issue of said magazine, so I was very excited to get Wexo's Where Did Dinosaurs Come From? (henceforth DD). I originally thought that DD was going to be the sequel issue I've always wanted. Boy, was I wrong about DD! DD would've been OK in the 1980s, but not in the 2000s. Switek's DD review ( www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/where-did-dinosaurs-come-from-49918128 ) sums up most of the reasons why, but not the most important reason. In this review, I point you to Switek's DD review & add my own thoughts as well:
-The most important reason is that DD was billed as new when it actually was 20 years old: 1st, see the back cover; Then, compare it to "t-rex, prehistoric #zoobooks, #1989. #science!" ( www.flickr.com/photos/14859306@N06/5914388328 ). This explains most of the inaccuracies. However, there are several weird bits throughout DD that can't be explained by its outdatedness (E.g. See the Wexo quote).
-I'm surprised that Switek didn't say more about the paleoart given that, to quote Switek ( http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/10/a-dinosaur-reading-list-for-everyone/ ), "Everyone knows that half the fun of paleontology is imagining how prehistoric creatures looked and moved." In addition to Sibbick, DD is illustrated by Orr, Francis, & Newman. However, Sibbick's paleoart is the most noteworthy: For 1, to paraphrase Vincent ( http://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2012/12/vintage-dinosaur-art-creatures-of-long.html ), "The illustrations in [DD] show a marked improvement over those in the Norman encyclopedia from just [4] years prior. They demonstrate a stage in the evolution from Sibbick's earlier stodge-o-saurs to the altogether more active, muscular and modern-looking restorations of the '90s"; For another, it's very jarring to see Sibbick's T. rex in the style of Hallett's.
-In some ways, DD is better than the original (E.g. The main stuff is more well-organized, beginning with "some of the earliest creatures on earth" & ending with the Age of Dinosaurs). In other ways, DD is worse than the original (E.g. The sidebar stuff is more hit-&-miss).* In still other ways, they're about the same (E.g. Both refer to T. rex by different genus names).
-If you want a good alternative to DD, get Bakker's The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs: For 1, not only does Bakker's book cover much of the same background info, but also goes well beyond;** For another, Bakker's book doesn't shy away from discussing evolution, using "the dreaded e-word" multiple times.

*While the hits really hit (E.g. A comparison of sauropods' teeth & garden tools), the misses really miss (E.g. A race between a man & various theropods in which the man is winning & the theropods are scattered all over with no apparent rhyme or reason).

**To quote Switek, "The trouble is that by the time Wexo gets to the dinosaurs, relatively little time is spent on explaining how different groups of dinosaurs evolved or even when different kinds of dinosaurs lived[...]The book then abruptly ends with no concluding section tying the lessons of the book together. Likewise, the fact that the book never discusses feathered dinosaurs or that birds are living theropod dinosaurs is a major flaw." Bakker's book does the exact opposite of all that & MUCH more.

Quoting Wexo:
Quote :
For a long time, the simple plants fed themselves on chemicals that were dissolved in the water. Later, they started to make food from sunlight and chemicals, as plants do today. But they did not eat each other[...]Then one day, for reasons that are not clear, one plant did eat another plant[...]and thereby became the first animal. Eating other plants was a good way to get food. For this reason, more and more new species of "animals" came along as time passed. Some new species of animals had the first mouths, to eat plants more easily.
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