Late in the summer of 1993, Robert Hall, Chairman of the Department of Geology, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) thought it would be a good idea to invite a couple of dinosaur workers to campus to capitalize on the frenzy of enthusiasm for dinosaurs that the movie, Jurassic Park, had generated. However, what originally was to have been a couple of guest lectures quickly evolved into a three-day affair that was probably the first scientific conference–certainly the first paleontologic conference–for the general public, raising important issues about public involvement in science.