Somebody told me to fabricate myself a life when he suggested that when paleontologists cast fossils, that they're fabricating missing parts.
I chimed in saying that's horrendously misleading, because the word "fabricate" has the connotation that these fossils were created, not naturally occurring, and it implies that paleontologists are making things up. They aren't.
FYI, the reasons why fossils are cast are numerous. But the main reason is that real fossils are incredibly fragile, to the point that some fossils can disintegrate from simply being breathed on. So they're put in a plaster cast for transport, then a team of professionals spend time gathering data, preparing the fossil, performing tests, all the science-y stuff, then the findings, and the final prepared fossil, are brought to the public.
There's a reason why there's such a long stretch of time between the announcement of a discovery of a fossil, to it finally being unveiled to the public. A lot is going on in the background, and to add insult to injury, there's often not enough researchers to finish all of the work.
Now, considering the rarity of some fossils, they're often casted to create an exact resin copy to be displayed in museums, because again, real fossils are really fragile.
It's not to fabricate missing parts, like he said, it's for perfectly legitimate and practical reasons, and this misunderstanding can only come about if you aren't familiar with paleontology as a field of science, and its methods.
In other words, do research before spouting opinions. This is how misinformation is spread.
Edit: There's a lot of fun things about paleontology. Like, there's fossilized dinosaur poop (called coprolite), fossilized pigment molecules in some species of dinosaur, meaning we know the coloration of some dinosaurs, we only know for sure, the sex of one T. rex specimen, and it was a female (it's not Sue), when you aren't sure if something's a fossil, lick it, if it sticks to your tongue, it's a fossil.
