And that's a fine standard to maintain when you're writing an academic paper.

When you are instead putting together a museum exhibition intended for the general public, and you observe over and over again that they will interpret your work as representing what the statues actually looked like, it is irresponsible to keep giving them that impression.

It's not an either/or question. They could do some of the statues with just the pure archaeological approach of only using the paints they found in the crevices, and do others in a layered approach that is more speculative but probably closer to how they actually looked. If they did that, this article would not be necessary.

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throwthrowuknow 4 days ago | parent [-]

Imagine if we refused to publish any material or exhibit recreations of dinosaurs because the only evidence we have are fossilized skeletons and a few skin texture impressions.

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philistine 4 days ago | parent [-]

You've highlighted a very cogent comparison!

Dinosaurs in the first Jurassic Park were fairly well represented considering what we knew in the late 80s. But our knowledge of dinosaurs has grown, with feathers being the most emblematic change. Yet the Jurassic Park movies steadfastly refuse to put feathers on their 3D monsters in the current movies, because viewers do not expect feathers on the T-Rex.

We might be at that point with repainted statues. Museum visitors are now starting to expect the ugly garish colours.

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pbhjpbhj 4 days ago | parent [-]

I've not seen the latest Jurassic Park movie, but I've seen a clip with velociraptor's with feathers, and maybe quetzlcoatalus too? Along with colourful skin on eg compsagnathus.

They seem to have moved on a bit, they're balancing audience expectations with latest research, I expect.

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autoexec 4 days ago | parent [-]

This guy had feathers and they made him the right size https://jurassicpark.fandom.com/wiki/Oviraptor

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philistine 3 days ago | parent [-]

They didn't revisit any of the previously featured dinosaurs. The T-Rex in the latest film looks like the best science can ascertain ... in 1990.

	▲	pbhjpbhj 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My knowledge of dinosaurs is a few decades old really - any good sources for a summary of T-rex developments in particular or dinosaurs more generally? I could imagine there's some great videos out there? I'd be keen to have scientific basis given rather than speculative artwork.