Talk:An Instinct for Dragons

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After watching "Quest for Dragons on the History chanel I must agree with some of david jones's theories. However I only agree on it for some cultures. It still amazes me how legends of dragons are world wide. How can big, reptilian, bones cover all this teritory? Could a skink be a shadow of his ansestors, dragons? Like so many other survivors of a world long gone, could he or another lizard have once been a "mythical" beast? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by User: (talk • contribs).
 * Legends of dragons are only world-wide if you take every monster you can think of in any mythological story and just label them as dragons despite the major differences between them. The Inuit claims are especially bzarre and dubious. I at least changed it to say that he claims that there are dragon stories there, but without seeing what he's even talking about I don't know how to look it up. I'd bet he's completely off base, as my readings of Inuit myths has nothing at all like what would typically be called a dragon. DreamGuy 06:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

You know, I think we could call "dragon", virtually any giant reptilian mythology species which is either very respected or everyone is afraid of (trust me, I'm an expert). So, this Inuit creature (if it exists, because I never heard of it) could be called dragon. But only as a grouping of creatures, like the Hydra, in this case we can call it "dragon", but if we're talking about the Hydra alone (not together with other similar monsters), we shouldn't call it "dragon". I hope I explained that well. For the rest I agree with the guy

-Dave Starkiller

It should be noted that the word "dinosaur" was not coined until 1842. Prior to 1842 the English word "dragon" used instead of "dinosaur". So, the fascination continues, but the title is now usually "dinosaur".

Short lived
I'm wondering if the cart isn't before the horse here, but in a slightly more complicated way. Rather than explain our mythologies in terms of a paleontological hypothesis that assumes the biggest thing was prevailing against the monster and we're just regressing when we pass along these stories, the question is how in the myths that we follow, what the old monster has come to symbolize and where it carries meaning. What does "slaying the dragon" mean that speaks to people? How is it that we can successfully transplant a monster from one social/economic/technological arrangement to a more modern one? How we carry over our instincts via symbols into ideologies that support (narratively legitimate) successive economic and political arrangements? Is it merely a matter of manipulation of the popular narrative by the prevailing interests? I don't think that would be logistically possible (consider, e.g., "divine right"). Unpundit (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:47, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Predator
"(...)claims that the common traits of dragons seem to be an amalgam of the principal predators of our ancestral hominids, which he names as the raptors, great cats (especially leopards) and pythons." Raptors?! they never live whith hominids! 78.29.200.22 (talk) 11:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I noticed that too. I've never read the book but he maybe using the term to express a gerneral "what ever animal wants to eat the proto-human today."  So we may want to leave it in until someone who has read the book can tell us one way or the other.
 * Raptors most certainly lived with hominids. Raptor is the formal term for large predatory birds that hunt by day, i.e. birds of prey. You are confused by a certain fictional movie which abbreviates the name of a genus of dinosaur -- Velociraptor -- to 'raptor. (To add insult to injury, the " 'raptors'" of Jurassic Park actually resemble Deinonychus, and are quite unlike velociraptors.) -- Securiger (talk) 09:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd be more interested in hearing him discuss horses as predators. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.166.170.254 (talk) 10:27, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

NPOV
Please note that articles on Wikipedia do not take sides. To claim that this author proves anything, or that his examples are real and undisputed when we know they aren't violated the WP:NPOV poliicy here. I did an edit job that gets rid of most of the worst examples. DreamGuy 06:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)