As time continues to pass with no definitive Ivory-bill evidence, more and more people must be realizing that Bobby Harrison's theory on "Elvis" must not be correct (ie, that Elvis was a bird dispersing from the White River area, because there was no room at the White River refuge).
It seems that we may increasingly hear the "lone male" theory about Elvis--that is, he was a lone male, correctly identified, but now he has died or flown hundreds of miles away.
Under this theory, maybe Elvis produced the recorded double-knock in the Cache River area on 12/25/04. Then, maybe 50 miles away, he produced the kent-like calls recorded in the White River area the following Jan 17, 29, and 31. Then there is the matter of him double-knocking on an ARU recording on 2/5/05, somewhere in the White River area. Soon afterwards, he must have made the long trek back to the Cache River area in time to be glimpsed by Casey Taylor on 2/14/05.
To me, that seems like a lot of travel. Some additional questions that arise are:
1. Why did he produce the recorded kent-like call sequences only down in the White River area, in places where Blue Jays were seen and heard making very similar kent-like call sequences?
2. Why did he offer fleeting glimpses only up in the Cache River area, coincidentally where a population of abnormal Pileateds live[d]?
3. The Feb 5 double-knock recording was supposedly two Ivory-bills communicating with each other. Where did the second Ivory-bill go?
4. Evidently, none of the 54 recorded double-knocks included recorded kent-like calls as well. Why not?
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I still fail to understand why you think the lack of evidence released by Cornell means anything. They have been all over the map in their PR statements about what they would release, but those closest to the data have made it clear that any releases prior to May would be highly selective and made first to state and federal conservation agencies, not the popular press. So silence means nothing.
Bob Kemp, who spent three months in the Big Woods, two weeks of that as an official searcher, called me up a week or so ago and we talked at length. He said that the CLO is really, truly, not telling anyone anything. The volunteers are not even allowed to talk amongst themselves about what they have or have not seen, and are not given any information by the crew leaders about any encounters that may have happened. He told me that non-team members who report sightings to Cornell are also strongly encouraged to keep silent.
However, there have been non-Cornell sightings reported this winter by experienced birders. The most interesting one I know of is described here:
http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2006/01/29/news/local_news/1012728.txt
Please, there is no need to rehash the entire debate about sightings as being less than definitive; everyone has stated their feelings on that innumerable times already. I simply pass along that this report exists for readers who might not be aware of it yet. But note that it includes double raps, kent calls, and a sighting of a bird all within the same portion of Bayou de View and within an hour or less, and it occured less than two months ago. Refreshingly, it also contain none of that frustrating withholding of names, dates, or locations that plagues so many Ivorybill "reports." But, as always... no photograph. At least none mentioned.
Bob Kemp also told me that during his unofficial time there (that he is free to speak of) he had no firm encounters. He did, however, hear a series of eight "dead on" kent calls in Bayou de View, and on another date in the same area he saw (briefly and poorly) a large black woodpecker with a great deal of white on it fleeing rapidly through the tupelos. Both encounters happened in November of 2005, I believe. Understanding the high evidential standard for Ivorybills, and the issues with blue jay mimicry and possible abnormally-plumaged pileateds, he does not consider either of these to be anything close to a firm "Ivorybill encounter." But, neither did he have any clear observations of blue jay mimicry or abnormal pileateds during those months.
Maybe the bird was racking up "frequent flier miles" :)
Do we really know there has been no definitive Ivorybill evidence this season. I am reserving judgement until the results of this season are released whenever that will be.
"I still fail to understand why you think the lack of evidence released by Cornell means anything."
In recent weeks, Cornell has told us very clearly that they have not captured definitive Ivory-bill proof this season. More information is here , here , and here.
On the report from the Herald-Review: Many people have been excited by this report. But like Cornell's sightings, they it is of almost no value in scientific proof.
"If a claim cannot be disproven, it does not belong to the enterprise of science."
--Stephen J. Gould (1941 - 2002), from Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History (1998)
None of these sightings can be proven, and none can be disproven, so they are nearly useless. The video can't be proven or disproven either because of it's extremely poor quality.
Here are, specifically, some problems with the recent Herald-Review report.
Of course, no photo, and of course, a brief look, this time at 80 feet. He claimed he heard "the call and rapping of an ivory-bill." Of course, he did not observe the bird calling and rapping. And I am skeptical that a person who has never actually heard an Ivory-Bill call and rap could be certain of the ID. He said "when he hits that tree with that bill, it sounds like a .22 (caliber) - 'bang, bang' - ricocheting through the forest," Johnson said."
I've got a pretty good alternate explanation for that, it WAS a .22 he heard. Cornell has, at least once, mistaken gunshots for Ivory-Bills.
Once again, not suprisingly, he saw only one actual fieldmark, the white secondaries. As has been pointed out before, if he saw an aberrant Pileated with SOME extra white on it's wings, it would be easy to "fill in" the rest of the white with a brief look like that.
this bird had a 30-inch wingspan. As Jackson, Sibley and others have pointed out, people simpley cannot estimate size accurately enough to use that as a field mark.
this one had two white stripes up its neck To me, this leads me to believe this guy isn't much of a birder, because PILEATEDS have white stripes up their neck.
This whole thing reminds me of hearing WOLF! WOLF! WOLF! WOLF! and each time I investigate, I never actually see a wolf, and there's never any proof the wolf was there, and it's been happening for 60 years. Each time someone cries WOLF! doesn't increase my faith that the next time I investigate I'll actually see a wolf.
And the NYT times article last week:
Dr. Fitzpatrick said the goal of the search, run by his lab, was to find a roost hole or evidence of a breeding pair. "We are still waiting for the prize," he said. "We have had a handful of moments when observers have seen what they are pretty sure is the bird. We don't have the next big clue, which is a roost hole."
Gallagher: "He said they immediately would turn it over to the agencies, AR game and fish and USFWS who would deal with any dissemination"
Fitzpatrick (paraphrasing): not likely to report sightings, and release of stronger information only after coordinating with agencies
Leonard: "No confirmed sightings to report." This does not mean no confirmed sightings have occured(see above).
Bruce: she may "shout it from the rooftops" if she hears something, but she is a press spokeswoman, and from what Gallagher and Fitzpatrick said, she'll be one of the last ones to be told.
Everyone who has actually participated in the field search (paraphrasing): Cornell isn't telling anyone anything.
This is not "very clear." In fact it's about as clear as the 6-pixel "perched bird" in the Luneau video. And the closer people are to actual birds in the field, the less they seem to be willing or able to talk about the results.
On the report from the Herald-Review: Many people have been excited by this report. But like Cornell's sightings, it is of almost no value in scientific proof.
"If a claim cannot be disproven, it does not belong to the enterprise of science."
--Stephen J. Gould (1941 - 2002), from Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History (1998)
None of these sightings can be proven, and none can be disproven, so they are nearly useless. The video can't be proven or disproven either because of its extremely poor quality.
Here are, specifically, some problems with the recent Herald-Review report.
Of course, no photo, and of course, it was a brief look, this time at 80 feet. He claimed he heard "the call and rapping of an ivory-bill." Of course, he did not observe the bird calling and rapping. And I am skeptical that a person who has never actually heard an Ivory-Bill call and rap could be certain of the ID. "when he hits that tree with that bill, it sounds like a .22 (caliber) - 'bang, bang' - ricocheting through the forest," Johnson said."
I've got a pretty good alternate explanation for that, it WAS a .22 he heard. Cornell has, at least once, mistaken gunshots for Ivory-Bills.
No mention of loud wing noise. Unlike Tanner and his verified sightings, no one seems to hear the wing noise anymore. Even the ARUs apparently don't pick these up.
Once again, not surprisingly, he saw only one actual fieldmark, the white secondaries. As has been pointed out before, if he saw an aberrant Pileated with SOME extra white on its wings, it would be easy to "fill in" the rest of the white with a brief look like that.
this bird had a 30-inch wingspan. As Jackson, Sibley and others have written, people simply cannot estimate size accurately enough to use that as a field mark.
this one had two white stripes up its neck To me, this leads me to believe this guy isn't much of a birder, because PILEATEDS have white stripes up their neck.
This whole thing reminds me of hearing WOLF! WOLF! WOLF! WOLF! and each time I investigate, I never actually see a wolf, and there's never any proof the wolf was there, and it's been happening for 60 years. The "steady trickle" of WOLF! reports doesn't increase my faith that the next time I investigate I'll actually see a wolf. Quite the contrary. It doesn't mean it's not possible it could happen, but it does mean "somebody better show me a wolf."
In Tom's link yesterday there were reports of
Carolina Parakeet and Passenger Pigeon, decades after the accepted extinction dates.
No one has seen an ivorybill before. Therefore no one can know what one looks like. Therefore all sightings can be discounted. Therefore no one has seen an ivorybill.
Can you say "circular reasoning?"
Did ya catch that the fellow has been birding for 60 years? Think he might have a teeny weeny bit of experience at field ID, even knowing how to identify a species he has never seen before by drawing on his experience with other birds it is likely to be confused with?
These arguments for the automatic dismissal of all sight records are tiresome and wearing thin. Why are photographs any better? They can be easily faked, so it comes down to the credibility and reliability of the observer all the same. I'm assuming you already have all these arguments typed up and at the ready for posting when smeone does produce a photograph, too. If it is too clear it's an obvious fake. If it is not clear enough it is not definitive. On and on and on. Wanna see an ivorybill photo? Go to http://billismad.tripod.com/mysearchfortheivorybilledwoodpecker/index.html for a really lousy fabrication job.
Multiple sight records by knowledgable, experienced observers, evaluated by other experienced observers. This is a standard of acceptable documentation that has been used in the ornithological community for decades. Changing the rules does not make you right.
And the closer people are to actual birds in the field, the less they seem to be willing or able to talk about the results.
Don't forget the thousands of other birders out there who are keeping their eyes open. No gag orders there. And also no photos.
No news is bad news for the Ivory-Bill. I remember after last year's announcement when people kept talking about the "withheld information" that was going to "blow the skeptics out of the water."
The odds are very high that the lack of news isn't due to a gag order, it's due to a lack of news.
Two obvious examples that can't be faked are of a photo of a bird in flight, and videos of a bird moving. These would be easy to obtain if a nest/roost is found.
Is a good image in a faked photo that possible anyway? A model/specimen (not that any faker would have access to one anyway) should be discerible. Digital images can be checked for manipulations.
Playing fast and loose with superlatives:
An extraordinary claim is non-Newtonian gravitation. It is claiming that space aliens built the Great Pyramid. It is E=mc2. It is Special Relativity. It is cold fusion. It is the Big Bang. These are all fundamental departures from the previous conceptions of nature. Some have been proven, some have not.
The rediscovery of a species feared extinct, within its historical range, and in habitat quite similar to that previously occupied, is not an extraordinary claim. It may be remarkable, surprising, newsworthy, unexpected. But it not on par with the things listed above. It is not a fundamental break in conceptualizations of biology and ecology. It, in fact, has happened many times before; we can hope it will happen many times in the future, too.
The mystique of this bird drives everyone to superlatives and extreme ideas, "skeptics" included.
Another point is that nobody from the Cornell team is going to attempt to fake a photo.
Don't forget the thousands of other birders out there who are keeping their eyes open
THOUSANDS? Maybe dozens...
In two days there I saw zero other birders. Bob Kemp said he hardly saw any other birders there who were not with Cornell during three months. And, as mentioned above, some of these people ARE reporting encounters.
No one has seen an ivorybill before. Therefore no one can know what one looks like. Therefore all sightings can be discounted. Therefore no one has seen an ivorybill.
Can you say "circular reasoning?"
Yes, I can. I also recognize when someone puts words into my mouth so they can refute what I say. I didn't say no one knows what IBWOs look like, and I didn't say all sightings can be discounted. I AM saying that brief glimpses of a bird a person has never seen before carry little scientific value. And it's true.
The reason there are no photographs, isn't because "no one will believe them." It's because no one has been able to get a good photograph in decades. And the rational explanation, once the emotion is laid aside, is that there are likely no birds to photograph.
A good photograph is clearly more valuable than a verbal report. Any scientist will tell you that. If Cornell comes out of the woods with a good video of Ivory-Bills, you're not going to hear much dispute about it. Heck, if ANYONE gets some good video, and I mean in-focus video that's recognizable as an Ivory-Bill, people, even skeptics, will believe it.
What's wearing thin to me is all these excuses for why there isn't solid evidence.
Show me a bird.
Sure (though I would make an exception for the Great Auk or Dodo).
But, it does mean that sightings/images of large woodpeckers here are more likely to be Pileated.
If the Cornell team find a roost/nest site, or locate an individal that stays visible in the same are for a while, this whole discussion will be over.
The rediscovery of a species feared extinct, within its historical range, and in habitat quite similar to that previously occupied, is not an extraordinary claim.
That is ridiculous. Extraordinary means "beyond what is ordinary." Sparling's "sighting" is the very definition of extraordinary. The only people I've heard claiming it isn't are believers engaged in debate.
Well, Bill did precede his statement with talk about cold fusion and so on. A live Ivory-bill is far more likley than any of this (or a Great Auk or Dodo.)
"Don't forget the thousands of other birders out there who are keeping their eyes open"
THOUSANDS? Maybe dozens...
There are over 100 volunteers in Cornell's search team alone this year.
If there ARE living IBWOs, there are almost certainly some outside the search area. Yes, there are THOUSANDS of birders keeping their eyes open in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana and even in places where there never were any IBWOs. There's even going to be organized searches in Texas and South Carolina. So the "not enough effort" excuse will not fly.
Show me a bird.
Here is something that might cheer Bill up:
http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2004/02/nz_storm-petrel.html
We don't need to make a comparison between the relative likelihood of the rediscovery of the New Zealand Storm-petrel and the Ivory-bill, given that it was (and is) a poorly known, pelagic species.
But note, clear photographs and no one has questioned the record.
"Heck, if ANYONE gets some good video, and I mean in-focus video that's recognizable as an Ivory-Bill, people, even skeptics, will believe it"
Oh yeah, I'm sure. The doubters have staked their personal repuations on disproving this bird's existence at least as much as Cornell has staked their repuation on proving it. Even if (when) Cornell provides the "indisputable evidence," the discussion will continue forever about "Ok well the bird is really there but we were still right about the video and the sightings and the near impossibility of it, we were right about everything. Even if it turns out there was a bird there just by pure coincidence it doesn't mean that all those things we said about groupthink and observer error and abnormal pielateds weren't perfectly correct." Ignoring that once the bird is indisutably proven, the slice of Occam's razor falls very differently and the simplest explanation for the sightings and the video becomes, plainly, they were Ivorybills. This debate will never die even when an Ivorybill is pecking on Gail Norton's nose. There will remain a few conspiracy theory holdouts convinced that it's all a fraud.
As for video from anyone but Cornell, really, the cries of fakery will be unquenchable. Contrary to what was said earlier, a bird in flight is a piece of cake to fake. And a video similar to Luneau but with just enough better resolution to show neck stripes, pale bill, etc. would be no trouble to fabricate either. So there will be no end to it...
There are over 100 volunteers in Cornell's search team alone this year
Entirely beside the point, because the original comment was about NON-Cornell birders who are not bound by confidentiality agreements.
Do you folks even read the existing comments all the way through before posting new ones?
Here are, specifically, some problems with the recent Herald-Review report.
Remember it is a newspaper article written by a reporter, not a report for the records committee. Reporters simplify and paraphrase, and often do not understand the situation they are covering in detail. Nor do their readers, usually. I find the report encouraging, given these caveats. The observer, by the way, has the same name as a member of the Illinois Records Committee; anyone know if this is the same person? I trust that he has more full details of his sighting, and will submit them for review.
The NZ Storm-Petrel story is a wonderful bit of news, indeed! Especially that there apears to be an actual population, not just a scattered bird or two.
It seem that photographic documentation happens mostly with feeder birds, shoreline birds, pelagics, waterfowl, etc. Pelagics would seem an outlier here, since all the others sit still and they almost never do. But pelagics are in the open, pelagic trips nearly always have photographers on them, and there is nothing to obstruct the view. Plus, many will come in to chum. Photo documentation of woodland birds that do not frequent yards and city parks is considerably more challenging.
I don't need cheering up, actually, abou the existence of the bird. "Officially" I recognize that every single piece of evidence falls short of 100% reliability, and were this a murder trial I'd proably regretably vote to acquit, knowing I had probably just freed a murderer. But it's not a murder trial. I acknowledge that the Luneau video is not definitive, Tom and I agree on this. However, where we disagree is that Tom thinks it shows a normal pileated, and I think it rules out a normal pileated. The reasoning for both points of view is spelled out earlier in great detail and need not be rehashed. On balance, the preponderance of the multiple pieces of individually inconclusive evidence leaves me at a personal level rather well convinced that there is an IBWO in Arkansas, as recently as December of 2005. I've covered all this elsewhere, too.
Where I am concerned is whether there is actually a population, or just a sad relict. The difficulty of obtaining large numbers of sightings, better sightings, photographs, roost or nest hole evidence, etc. disturbs me because of the worries that this might be indicative that there are very few birds, and all males, or even only one. This would put Elvis alongside Martha as a sorrowful footnote in the annals of extinction, not the renewed hope we initially thought he represented. In that case, this whole debate only boils down to the trivial issue of whether a dozen people should or should not be counting an IBWO on their life list; the species would be dead, all the same.
Remember it is a newspaper article written by a reporter, not a report for the records committee.
The pattern after a new "sighting" tends to be a flurry of excitement followed by disappointment. It never quite pans out.
The claim that "you skeptics will never believe no matter what" is an excuse and it isn't true. I already "believed" once. It IS possible to prove the bird exists, but only if it DOES exist.
If somebody actually does find some birds, and gets really good looks, verified by other really good looks by experts, backed up with good photos, it will be proven. Of course, even good looks seem to be virtually impossible to get, let alone photos.
Do you folks even read the existing comments all the way through before posting new ones? Since I wrote the original comment, the answer would be, "Yes." I was talking about all the people looking for the Ivory-Bill, as part of the official search, and not.
Show me a bird.
As for extraordinary claims, I deliberately listed items from astronomy and physics, as these are the people who coined the expression that heads this blog. If you are going to quote Sagan, stay to the sense he intended.
Extraordinary claims in biology: Darwinian evolution. Intelligent design. PRIONS (infectious agents devoid of genetic material). Stratigraphic coincidence of human and dinosaur footprints. Higher cognitive abilities in parrots. The germ theory of disease. Some have been proven, some not. All represent a dramatic shift in concepts of the natural world.
Once again, a supposedly extinct species still persisting within its historical range and in seemingly suitable habitat: not in the same league.
How many times must it be said: Photographically documenting rare woodland birds that do not come to feeders, if you have not found a nest, is not easy and it takes time, persistence, patience and no small measure of luck.
Another thing I don't understand:
Why is everyone else here unwilling to identify themselves and take ownership of the opinions they express?
Bill, the Ivory-bill rediscovery claim may not seem extraordinary to you, but here's how Pete Dunne, vice president of the New Jersey Audubon Society, was quoted last summer in the New York Times:
"If someone had said to me, what was more likely, the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker or the Second Coming, unhesitantly I would have gone to the latter."
Regarding the perceived difficulty in finding roost holes and getting clear photographs: for some reason, over the last 60+ years this has become vastly more difficult than it ever was in Florida, Louisiana and Cuba when Ivory-bill populations were tiny (in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s).
My point is, actually, using the context of the "extraordinary claims" quote, to try to step back from the mystique and legendary quality of this and see it in context, with no romance. It's a bird, believed by many to be extinct, reported to still exist. Nothing more. Nothing earth-shattering. Nothing revolutionary.
Dunne has found the evidence satisfactory, hasn't he?
I do not quite understand the statements that sightings cannot be falsified and are therefore unscientific. Perhap, in the most rigorous definition of "falsify" to a 100% certainty, this is true. But this is not the standard in science. Statistically, hypotheses are rejected probabilistically. And the accept/reject threshhold is arbitrary. A t-test never rejects the null hypothesis to 100% certainty either, but is considered scientifically valid.
As to sightings -- they are quite clearly subject to both falsification and verification. It is done all the time. A sighting is a hypothesis, that "I saw a bird of species X." This is a falsifiable hypothesis. A sighting is falsified by analysing the report and finding clear inconsistencies that substantially lower its probability of being correct. Or it may be falsified by determining that the observer has insufficient experience or credibility to reliably make such an observation, hence the probability of error is high a priori.
On the other side, sightings are verified by repetition. Two observers side-by-side are less likely to be in error than a single observer. Two separate sightings are less likely to both be in error than is a single sighting. Sightings are of course also verified by photographs, specimens, and other supplemental evidence; but for the sake of this argument I am assuming none of the above are available.
The application of these principles to the Arkansas IBWO sightings has been discussed at great length already here and elsewhere. I merely wish to make the point that is it incorrect to say that sightings are not scientifically valid because they are not falsifiable. All data are observer-dependent and subject to error, falsification, and subjective interpretation. And many forms of data are evaluated probabilistically, not in a boolean manner. Sightings are not unique in this regard.
Sorry if this sounds pedantic, but sometimes it is helpful to explicitly spell out the obvious.
I heard the David Johnson of that Herald-Review sighting is the same David Johnson who sits on the Illinois Ornithological Records Review Committee. Not infallible, but pretty dang reliable.
"Contrary to what was said earlier, a bird in flight is a piece of cake to fake."
Seriously? You think it would be easy to fake a close range video of an Ivory-Bill flying by? How about a video/film like the one Cornell got in the 30's? I think it would be virtually impossible to fake a video of birds at a nest, or even good, focused video of a nearby bird feeding. I think it would be possible to create something that looked like an Ivory-Bill at first, but I think the fakery would be apparent at closer inspection, at least to experts. Each frame would have to be flawless.
No, I am not confused at all. A scientific hypothesis is falsifiable. This definition is not applied simply to the statistical null hypothesis, but to all scientific hypotheses. Science deals with best explanations of best available data. It does not deal with absolute truth and absolute falsehoods. "Best" is nearly always a matter of interpretation and judgement to some extent. Ergo, all falsifications are probabilistic, not only the statistical ones. Statistics allows the assignment of a number to this probability. Not all data analysis allows for this quantitatively. Judgement and estimation are always a major player in scientific interpretation. The claim that sightings are not data, or are not scientific, is simply not supportable. An observer can misjudge a bird's color. An observer can misread a thermometer An observer can incorrectly calibrate a pH meter. These blunders can all be difficult to detect or correct after the fact. Susceptibility to unknown sources of error does not make something non-scientific; indeed it is a near universal feature of all data.
"None of these sightings can be proven, and none can be disproven, so they are nearly useless."
"And unfortunately, ID isn't science. It cannot be falsified, and can never be tested"
Given that studies of live birds in the field are one of the foundation pillars for the science of Ornithology, these statements are patently ridiculous. Most of what we know about the distribution, abundance, and life histories of birds, including the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, has been learned from obervations by careful observers. Unscientific? Poppycock.
I am not confusing anything. Popper and Platt are standard subject matter for anyone who has an advanced degree in science. This is not a matter of some people not understanding how science is conducted or what a hypothesis is. It is a matter of judgement and interpretation about this single questions:
"My point remains that the hypothesis that the IBWO is extinct IS FALSIFIABLE but HAS NOT BEEN because alternative explanations HAVE NOT BEEN REJECTED."
Others interpret the same data to show that the hpothesis HAS been rejected. This is not a matter of bad science, it is a matter of differing interpretations. Because someone disagrees with your conclusion does not mean that they do not understand what science is or how it is conducted.
And we arrive back where we started.
Just to clarify one thing:
The David Johnson cited in the Decatur Herald-Review newspaper article is not the same David Johnson that sits on the IORC. I specifically asked the IORC David Johnson about this, and, as you can imagine, I was not the only person to ask him that question. It's not him in the article, it's another David Johnson.
I think its a shame that the best some people can do to defend this record is talk about faking photographs. Sounds like desperation to me.
No one questions the New Zealand Storm-petrel and other redisoveries/new species, that are well documented.
The evidence so far is not good enough.
The evidence so far is not good enough.
Thus spake the Lord
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