Scientists & Marketing
So, Wife is a fancy scientist person who, among other things, works with several foundations that provide funding to many areas of research and she constantly complains that biomed research gets so much of the available funding. She's not alone in thinking there's too much money thrown into that. Promising research is regularly discarded because everybody wants to establish themselves as a 'leader' and years of mindnumbingly boring lab work isn't sexy.
I tell her that the biomed people have such a successful fundraising machine because sick/dying people generate both empathy and sympathy without the need for in-depth marketing strategies. Unless there's some really wonky wiring in your head that kind of stuff just reaches out and kicks you in the shins. Even if you aren't the giving type, sick people at least cause most people to think about things for a minute.
I'm not in anyway trying to say biomed research is taking advantage of sick people, but if somebody throws you an one like that you're really only taking advantage of the sick people if you don't use it to at least try to help.
Regardless, that's what paleontologists (or any non-biomed researchers) have to compete with. You've really got to be on top of your game if you're going to get up in front of a crowd and explain to them that funding your dinosaur research is not a death sentence for the sick child from the earlier presentation. It's obviously a false choice situation, but 'sick and alive' vs 'millions of years dead' is a pretty tough sell (they shouldn't make small grant applicants compete openly with each other if you ask me, but they do, but that's an entirely different issue).
Anyway, the only way you're going to walk out of there and not be seen as the Heir Apparent to The Henry Ford Eugenics Institute is if you move past the false choice mess really quick. Excitement (and tits) are always winners and guess what's exciting? Well, it ain't the 'Polar Bear Lizard'. I'm dead fucking sure of that. If it can't be 'King Lizard' (T-Rex hates sharing glory) make it the Napoleon Lizard (cause it's little, like people think Napoleon was) or the Emperor Lizard. Honestly, it makes absofuckingloutely no difference what you call it, just don't take everything we know about biology and taxonomy and mash them together. They did that with the Platypus and look what that got us. A poisonous Quack Beaver that doesn't even taste good.
Can you imagine Jurassic Park with the 'polar bear lizard' as the final boss? Or any of the worlds great natural history museums with the fucking polar bear lizard as the main attraction. Nobody is going to buy polar bear lizard merchandise and that shits crucially important for covering museum operating costs.
Look, just the other day, STEM focused classes were all over the news. Well, you know that 'S' at the beginning, that's for science. What kind of kid is going to grow up and give any shits about a field where specifics are important if you can just mash shit together as you please. If the kid is intelligent enough to know the meaning of polar, bear and lizard, that kid is also intelligent enough to realize his time of retribution has finally come and he's about to steal your lunch money about .76ms after you say polar bear lizard to him.
I guess the tradition is you get to name what you discover, OK, I'll accept that. But if you're going to call it a polar bear lizard you better make damn sure the 'artists rendering' communicates how badass a polar bear lizard would have to look. You know, posed all angry and covered in the blood of 17,000 natives with blood spurting from the paw that's in the process of regenerating. For a moment I was thinking a saddle too, but that could give the false impression that polar bear lizard gave enough fucks about anyone to let them ride on its back. So I'm going to say a helmet instead. It's a well known fact that you can't trust anyone who wears a helmet, so that should some ummmph to the overall image.
Alternatively, raffle off the naming rights and give the proceeds to some sick kid, maybe even let the kid name it. I bet it would be a better name than 'polar bear lizard'. Getting to name something is a pretty big honor you know. Sure, some dinosaur guy who has been on a peyote induced dream quest for half a decade will think it's funny. But in 3000 years this is exactly the sort of thing that historians will point to and say: 'On your timeline, you will see a sharp decline in education, Human lifespans, and other important indicators of a declining society. What we now call 'The Naming' and the resultant devastation that event caused is why we now execute those who fail to take the science of marketing and brand attribute building seriously'.