[Taxacom] Kiwis create the world's biggest fishing lure!

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Jim,
     That is a great way to put it.  As for how Freud would view this
(as insecurity and/or egomania gone amuck), who knows.  In any case,
technology has left such doings in the dust of inefficiency (and failure
to keep with the times).  If one wants to study the physiology of a dead
sperm whale or any other macro-organism, a good computer-scan (1) would
be far faster and cheaper, (2) can be easily made available to far more
people over the internet, and (3) who needs more plastics and their
byproducts in the environment.        
       Not that computer scanning a sperm whale would be easy, even in
sections, but I would more readily put money towards that than
"plasticizing" a single whale specimen.  If we can put whole-body
scanners into airports all over the world, surely some government or
university could build a bigger model that could scan larger mammals
than us.  Plasticization seems pretty outmoded in the digital age.       
      It also seems like the kind of thing one would expect to see in a
freak show at a circus.  Lots of people might be willing to pay good
money to see it, but fools and their money are soon parted, however much
such fools might get some thrill out of it.  Some people also still get
a thrill out of watching animals getting tortured in bullfights, but
even that holdover from Roman times is losing popularity in countries
where it still exists.  There's clearly a big difference between an
inefficient spectacle and a specimen with some scientific value.
Anyway, sperm whales don't need that kind of study----they just need
humans to leave them alone, and let them live and do their thing out in
the depths of the ocean.  The only thing a plastic sperm whale would
probably lure is bored humans too easily suckered out of their money for
yet another freak show.  There's one born every minute.
             ----------Ken   
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Jim Croft wrote:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18619-giant-squid-get-radical-plastic-surgery.html