THE WARM-BLOODED DINOSAURS

Though the idea of warm-blooded dinosaurs has aroused lively professional debate and general interest, May's attempt to present the concept at the usual dinosaur-book level never overcomes its obvious problems. Such early inanities as ""Most people are sorry [that] dinosaurs are gone"" and ""Children love dinosaurs but most scientists don't"" hardly pave the way for the two ""family trees"" (traditional and revised) which contain such undefined terms as therapsids and thecodonts. And making a protagonist of Harvard's Robert T. Bakker, the theory's most extravagant proponent, both overstates his role and sticks Bjorklund with such boring scenes as a double-page, seminar-style classroom. Worse, to summarize Bakker's controversial arguments without acknowledging the objections and reservations of others constitutes a poor example of scientific inquiry. But even more to the point, why should children who are scarcely (if at all) aware that dinosaurs were cold-blooded be excited to learn that they weren't?