Should all writers who assume that prehistoric insect life was larger than a man, be taken out and shot?

Answer 1

Uuuummmm - Hows about NO?? That would be just alittle harsh dont you think??

Answer 2

No. They're just writing stories. I mean, how many writers actually stick to pure physics anyway--at least in a fictional sense. I'm a big Edgar Rice Burroughs fan and in his Barsoom series he often fights giant insects. I know that is silly and scientifically unsound, but I just love it. I'm a science fiction writer myself and, although I try to stick to the "science" part of it, I do veer from the truth occasionally. The current novel I'm working on has 9 foot creatures that are basically giant insects. I do explain that they are not actually insects, but they do have the exoskeletons like insects. I needed something really frigthening and deadly. I based them on the mantis. My creatures are not prehistoric, but the same principal would apply to your question. If authors stuck with true physics in their stories, who would read them?

Answer 3

If you had told someone before the first dinosaur bones were found, that once upon a time there lived creatures bigger than a house with necks longer than a tree trunk, birds bigger than the largest cloud, fish bigger than the largest ship, what type of institution do you think you ( as the story teller) might have ended up in?
Don't mess with the imagination? Someone thought the world was flat once - you don't know what the next discovery will be!

Answer 4

I think the most appropriate fate is apparent........

We must splice and clone the DNA of an elephant with a mosquito or however it is actually scientifically possible to create the biggest Insect known to man..... and then throw these crazies in a giant cage with them....

see if they mention large insect again.......

Answer 5

Centipedes and millipedes got up to 5 ft long according to fossils found. Dragon flies had a wing span of up to 2.5 feet long. Can you imagine being chased by a five foot centipede? It would be a short race.

Answer 6

That makes sense to me. Even during the Carboniferous during which the insects got as big as they ever did, none got as big as a person.

Still, if it is fiction, and the author has a plausible explanation, I'd give them a reprieve.

Answer 7

I think anyone that condones killing of any human, should be taken out and shot in both knees.

Answer 8

You permit a flight of imagination a temporal flexibility and a descent through time, but deny it any pretence of spatial distortion? It is a curious measure to take to prose.

Answer 9

Sans bullets.

Rather, with insectia.

...thus, a continuance of a curious measure, meted and doled.

Answer 10

Yes.