| Why are people today so interested in dinosaurs? This is a question frequently asked by the public. Oddly enough, it does have an answer. Since the last writing of Dinosaurs in Maryland (1973) there has been a real increase in public interest as well as scientific interest in dinosaurs, what Robert Bakker has called a "dinosaur renaissance." Bakker, along with many other scientists, has begun to take a new, serious look at dinosaurs. Prior to this "renaissance," dinosaurs had become, at least as far as the general public was concerned, the property of young children, who like them because they were big, mean, and had long, funny names their parents couldn't pronounce. To a large extent, young children still are the group most often thought of when dinosaurs are mentioned. But interest in dinosaurs by older folks has become a lot more fashionable of late because paleontologists have revised their view of dinosaurs from slow-moving, stupid, beasts to active, intelligent, extremely successful animals.
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