Cornell University
Feb. 7, 2013 — Ask a college student to sketch a Tyrannosaurus rex, and he or she will probably draw an upright, tail-dragging creature with tiny arms. An 8-year-old will draw something similar. They're wrong, of course.
The terrible T. rex, an agile, dynamic predator, never went upright. In fact, T. Rex tarried horizontal. Since the 1970s, this has been the view of most dinosaur scientists and has increasingly been represented in textbooks and popular literature.
So why are students' perceptions of the T. rex stalled in the early 1900s, when the dinosaurs were depicted as upright, somewhat slow-moving tail draggers? A Cornell University research team sought answers after years of anecdotally observing students drawing the T. rex incorrectly.
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Despite decades of up-to-date dinosaur books, the imprinting of bad dinosaur anatomy at the earliest ages from unscientific sources, whether they are children's shows like "Barney and Friends," or dino-shaped chicken nuggets, is nearly impossible to overcome. This, combined with the general populace's fascination with dinosaurs, has led to what the researchers call a "cultural inertia" in which outdated science remains in the public consciousness.
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