List of public skeptics continues to grow

For those of you keeping score, here's my list of "third-party" people who have publicly expressed skepticism regarding Cornell's Ivory-bill evidence. I'm only including people that might be considered high-profile and/or highly-credentialed.

1. David Sibley, bird book author
2. Kenn Kaufman, bird book author
3. Jerome Jackson, "world's foremost expert on the ivory-billed woodpecker"
4. Richard Prum, ornithologist, Yale University
5. Mark Robbins, ornithologist, University of Kansas
6. Gary Graves, the Smithsonian Institution's curator of birds
7. Michael Patten, ornithologist, University of Oklahoma
8. A. Nemesio, ornithologist, Brazil
9. M. Rodrigues, ornithologist, Brazil

According to the latest public information that I have, each person above thinks that the entire package falls short of proof. (Prum and Robbins are a special case--in early August, they withdrew their critical paper, and reports suggested that those two were convinced by the audio information. A Nature online article dated September 7 now says "the three sceptics say that they withdrew their PLoS manuscript too hastily.")

Remember, this list only includes people who've publicly expressed skepticism. I'm maintaining another list of highly-credentialed people who've privately expressed skepticism. There's currently an undeniable stigma attached to anyone expressing doubt; I think this stigma will wane, and I think we will then hear from more skeptics.

Here's a list of high-profile and/or highly-credentialed "third-parties" that have publicly stated that they think Cornell's evidence is convincing:

1. Pete Dunne, bird book author

Of course, the obvious observation is "Why are you limiting the list to third-parties? If you included the Cornell search team, the believer's list would be much larger." My answer is this: I think the search team is so committed to their "Ivory-bill" discovery that they can't be expected to do true objective, cold-hearted analysis of the evidence any longer. I think they've invested so much work and time into this project that expecting them to step back, take a fresh look and ask "Could this really all be a mistake?" is asking too much.