Oct 13, 2026 · 27 min · 11 segments
Palaeontology has changed enormously in recent decades, but many museum and theme park dinosaurs still look like they came straight out of last century. Palaeontologist James Ronan joins David…
David BoldemanHost
So someone might be sitting at home listening to this podcast or wherever on the train or wherever they might be and think, All right, guys, well, it's just a dinosaur model.
It matters because it's about accurate science communication, but it's also about public education and also about wanting to know about the latest science and how the public should know about the prehistoric world.
And what has happened is there's been a massive development within paleontology as to what paleontologists know, the fossil record, and what's coming out of the peer-reviewed research.
Paleontologists and paleoartists are putting this knowledge out into the books, which the public are reading.
And then you have documentaries like Prehistoric Planet, which did a fantastic job of showcasing what we think dinosaurs looked potentially like and how they probably might have acted.
And what a lot of these models and exhibits are doing, they're not showing any of this type of ecological storytelling.
They're not showing how dinosaurs actually acted in their environments, how they might have moved together or migrated or fed together or drank together or even slapped and or even obviously mated.
They don't put any effort into thinking about how can we add more to this exhibit to make it more engaging.
But a lot of it is also to do with the fact that there hasn't been a standard for exhibits or attractions or theme parks.
And yet you have paleontologists calling these issues out, but nobody's taking any steps to really rectify it because it's such a big issue.
So someone might be sitting at home listening to this podcast or wherever on the train or wherever they might be and think, All right, guys, well, it's just a dinosaur model.
It matters because it's about accurate science communication, but it's also about public education and also about wanting to know about the latest science and how the public should know about the prehistoric world.
And what has happened is there's been a massive development within paleontology as to what paleontologists know, the fossil record, and what's coming out of the peer-reviewed research.
Paleontologists and paleoartists are putting this knowledge out into the books, which the public are reading.
And then you have documentaries like Prehistoric Planet, which did a fantastic job of showcasing what we think dinosaurs looked potentially like and how they probably might have acted.
And what a lot of these models and exhibits are doing, they're not showing any of this type of ecological storytelling.
They're not showing how dinosaurs actually acted in their environments, how they might have moved together or migrated or fed together or drank together or even slapped and or even obviously mated.
They don't put any effort into thinking about how can we add more to this exhibit to make it more engaging.
But a lot of it is also to do with the fact that there hasn't been a standard for exhibits or attractions or theme parks.
And yet you have paleontologists calling these issues out, but nobody's taking any steps to really rectify it because it's such a big issue.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
