There are large amounts of this whole thing that give many of us a 'bad feeling'. Cornell is being WAY too secretive, combative, and generally not adhering to the rules of modern science. Their absolute refusal to acknowledge inconsistencies is troubling.I think it's no accident that Cornell answered surprisingly few questions at last summer's AOU meeting (four videos are here).
At the end of his presentation, Ken Rosenberg said he was hoping he wouldn't have time for questions; under direct questioning, he ended up revealing some very interesting abnormal Pileated information. Russ Charif and Ron Rohrbaugh evidently didn't take any questions after their presentations.
After his plenary, in my opinion, John Fitzpatrick also appeared a bit too eager to leave the stage without taking questions (watch the end of his plenary video and see if you agree). (After his presentation, you can hear him say to someone "Well, now, it's pretty late, want to not have questions?".)
"Birding is Not a Crime" reported that at last week's Field Museum Ivory-bill gala, there was also no question-and-answer session.
I previously wrote about Cornell's excessive secrecy here.
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