Why do people still deny the fact that dinosaurs had feathers?

[BannedForViews]

Raptors are very misunderstood by most cause of jurassic park. Also it shouldnt be shocking anymore when people say "no thats not right, because this is what it looked like/happened in X movie!"

[Cosmic Janitor]

Because no one is actually taught about dinosaurs and most stop caring after they leave kindergarden. Because of that popculture hasn't caught up with the notion that some dinosaurs most likely had feathers, so most people haven't got the memo yet. Feathers also make them look kind of silly, so popculture will probably take quite a while longer to spread the "truth". Even then, I'm not aware of some major denial movment, not sure which kind of social circle you have OP, but it is certainly a special one to perceive this as an issue .

[Beazy]

Only Therapods (the two-legged predators like T-Rex, Raptors and those sorts of dinosaurs).

Thats pretty crazy. Considering I never knew dinos like that had feathers. Ive seen fossils of some with feathers, but never put two and two together. I wish we had a good Dino museum here in Dallas. We have the Perot museum, but it only has like three or four dinos.

LoL We also have the creationist museum where they say evil, money hungry, scientists planted fake dino bones to keep their careers going.

[Cosmic Janitor]

LoL We also have the creationist museum where they say evil, money hungry, scientists planted fake dino bones to keep their careers going.

Holy shit, now I'm torn if this is actually a kind of museum that is worse than a modern art one, which I thought impossible. I can't decide!

[Deleted]

Probably some people deny it because they believe a tyrannosaur rex would not look as badass when it had feathers and would look like a colorful large peacock.

[Al Gorefiend]

Ask yourself how often Dinosaurs would make interesting headlines had it not been for Jurassic Park

[Collegeguy]

There isn't denial, it's popular culture omission. Hard to make them scary with feathers in entertainment without it being comical.

[A dot Ham]

It's pretty frustrating that people deny the fact that therapod dinosaurs had feathers.

I mean we've found imprints in raptor bones that indicate they had feather-like structures protruding from their "arms". We've found fossil imprints of smaller species of raptors that were feathered.

We've even discovered a perfectly preserved dinosaur tail encased in amber that had feathers!

First, lets be honest this shouldn't be THAT difficult to comprehend. Hollywood and entertainment has tainted our view(s) on what dinosaurs look like. Jurassic Park being one of the bigger culprits of the last 25 years. I mean what they call velociraptors AREN'T actually velociraptors. In Jurassic park III they gave them a few feathers, (and not even accurate to what most experts believe them to be) and people hated the "design" so then from there it becomes a question of what do you do? Create something that is appealing to public opinion/perception or try and create something that is accurate?

In their defense it becomes easier to give the people what they want and argue it away with 1 line of dialogue about them NOT actually being dinosaurs, but monsters that resemble dinosaurs that were simply created in a lab splicing DNA of an actual dinosaur and that of something that didn't/wouldn't have feathers and having it take on those traits.

Next, I just took my son to the natural history museum in San Diego in November? December? NONE of those models have feathers. So even a museum is slow to accept, or have a burning necessity to change previously assumed traits.

Last, (and I'm not a skeptic if they had feathers... they had feathers... doesn't really effect my life or views on the universe) the very fact that science and experts are continuing to learn and discover means that facts are constantly changing. Furthermore, they have gone back on initial assumptions and have gotten a few things wrong over the years that have created false assumptions. For example Tyrannosaurus was originally thought to be a predator, recently though (maybe not SO recent) there has been evidence and speculation that it may have been a scavenger. Another example of Scientists getting it wrong would be Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus debacle. Another one that comes to mind, and I can't seem to find the info on it right now, was how the skeleton was assembled/reassembled/recreated which turn the pelvic bones upside down, completely changing how the skeleton was put together, which formed a bunch of false assumption on how it walked, and may have behaved... simply by turning a single bone upside down...

You also have the whole religion thing too...

[Deleted]

For the same reason many now believe that all dinosaurs had feathers. We have evidence that some had feathers but thats all for now. It's too early. Denying that some spieces had actual feathers though is kind of silly and I don't believe many people completely deny it.

[Endus]

It's pretty difficult to state which species had feathers and which ones did not, because species like reptiles, snakes, and turtles also decedent from dinosaurs and have no feathers. So unless a fossil is found with them, we take a best guesses off the evidence we have. I think a good percent would have them, but I don't see the evolutionary advantage to a very large reptiles having feathers.

As noted, this is backwards. Dinosaurs are a branch off from reptiles; they're not a precursor. Reptiles existed before dinosaurs did.

Some did and some didnt. They were on Earth over a very long time period.

This really gets overlooked. Tyrannosaurus Rex is closer to being a contemporary of us than he was of, say, Stegosaurus, or Apatosaurus.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...time-65556840/

[shadowmouse]

therapod dinosaurs had feathers.

Because, what the hell! That's like asking me to believe there could be a critter with a duck's beak, webbed feet, and fur.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Because, what the hell! That's like asking me to believe there could be a critter with a duck's beak, webbed feet, and fur.

Well we both know how pathetic such a creature would look like .

[Deleted]

Fluffosaur Rex?

For some reason, even if they are the ancestors of birds, humans have problem to imagine something like that.

[Symphonic]

If people do deny it, it's because it ruins their jurassic park-esque imagined world.

[Polarthief]

Let's get people to agree that the eart is more than 6000 years old and that dinausores existed before moving on to feathers.

10/10, 100/100. You win the internets.

[Deleted]

I thought birds invented feathers a few years ago?

[ComputerNerd]

Because of Jurassic park.

Serious though, isn't the whole feathers thing a recent discovery? Maybe not enough time has passed to spread the word properly.

Very much this.
It is hard to convince people to move away from the way it has been portrayed from the start.
Even the word dinosaur is derived from "terrible lizard".
You can't just say it is down to being a "recent" discovery that people aren't following, as there are many things which are denied despite strong evidence for considerably longer periods of time.

[Hotmail]

No real reason. I mean, people like to argue that dinosaurs with feathers would look goofy and wander too far out of the Jurassic Park-established pop culture, but the reality is otherwise. You can have feathers and still be scary as all hell.

[Hiricine]

They look silly with feathers.

[Deleted]

It also seems to me the movement style doesnt look natural. I believe dinosaurs moved more like Chicken and birds in general, means their head higher up in the sky with the tail on the ground.