Well, I'm going out on a limb (no pun intended) that Cornell will offer; 1) a public apology for poor science, and 2) admit to "jumping the gun" within the next 3 weeks.Among people who are paying attention, sentiment has very clearly changed. My inbox is just one small indicator--the volume of "hate mail" has drastically declined, and I'm now getting many more emails that are highly critical of Cornell's science.
A population of leucistic and partially leucistic Pileateds, "group think", and a fellow that REALLY wanted aberrant Pileateds to be Ivory Bills (to go with his childhood wish of discovering a relict population of same) provided the impetus for this great Snipe hunt.
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This is amazingly bad science. The rationalization and justifications make these "objective" scientists sound like religious zealots. I'll bet you that we haven't see ALL the photos. This is some sort of magical quest.
The Luneau 2006 photo (just below the mostly leucistic Pileated) would fool darn near anyone. Did he take just one photo? I doubt it. I'm, (how do they say it at Cornell?) 99% sure that is a photo of "Elvis."
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I'm the "Piltdown" poster. As you pointed out, the connection between the two isn't that both Piltdown & IBWO were hoaxes.
Instead, the connections are that two questionable observations (PM & IBWO), when presented, were swallowed so readily by the scientific community. That, and the potential problems in the evidence were so obvious.
Both Piltdown & IBWO '04 were believed because the scientific community WANTED to believe in them. The desire to use Piltdown to affirm several subjective concepts about human evolution, Europeans and Britons completely overrode the need to ensure that Piltdown independently withstood an effort to ensure its veracity. Naturalist after naturalist of that time examined those remains. No one, though, was willing to make himself the odd man out by pointing to the incongruities in the Piltdown remains.
Keep in mind that the undoing of Piltdown didn't occur overnight. It took years of little quibbles over the remains (the "circumstantial questions," etc. that the True Believers scoff), before someone could string them together into a sound "slam-dunk" that sunk Piltdown once & for all.
"I'll bet you that we haven't see ALL the photos. "
I think you're absolutely correct. I'm sure they only posted photos of aberrant Pilleateds that clearly couldn't be mistaken for the one in the Luneau video.
The Piltdown analogy was very good.
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.--George Santayana
I think you're absolutely correct. I'm sure they only posted photos of aberrant Pilleateds that clearly couldn't be mistaken for the one in the Luneau video.
I'd be extremely surprised if there actually was THE photo that showed an aberrant Pileated that matches well for an Ivory-billed. The new Luneau photos date from before the public announcement. Considering that the 2004-2005 winter search was almost over by the time the public announcement was made, any of these damning photos would have also been obtained prior to the announcement. Even if you think Cornell's scientific work is extremely flawed, do you seriously think that they'd have a photo of a Pileated with symmetrically white secondaries and still go forward with the Ivory-billed announcement?
I can pretty much guess the response to my comment, but despite what you say, I find it just as difficult to believe, probably more difficult to believe than the continued existence of Ivory-billeds.
Among people who are paying attention, sentiment has very clearly changed. My inbox is just one small indicator--the volume of "hate mail" has drastically declined, and I'm now getting many more emails that are highly critical of Cornell's science.
An alternative hypothesis is that fewer believer-types are paying attention to this blog or that they're less motivated to send you e-mails anymore. Or maybe the skeptics are more motivated to send e-mails.
It will all come out in the wash as they say.
"An alternative hypothesis is that fewer believer-types are paying attention to this blog or that they're less motivated to send you e-mails anymore. Or maybe the skeptics are more motivated to send e-mails."
Yes, that is an alternative hypothesis, but I don't think it makes sense. For one thing, I know for a fact that some of the "hate-mailers" have personally become more skeptical recently.
And if you want to argue that skeptics are generally more motivated to send emails, you still have to explain why they seem a lot more motivated to send emails now, as opposed to a few months ago.
Many of the emails explicitly state that the sender has only recently become skeptical...
An alternative hypothesis is that fewer believer-types are paying attention to this blog or that they're less motivated to send you e-mails anymore. Or maybe the skeptics are more motivated to send e-mails.
Both may be true, but it's obvious that sentiment is turning. When the Sibley paper comes out, it will turn even more. When Cornell fails to get solid evidence this year, which is a nearly certain at this point, sentiment will turn even more skeptical.
do you seriously think that they'd have a photo of a Pileated with symmetrically white secondaries and still go forward with the Ivory-billed announcement?
I don't. But I did think they knew there were aberrant Pileateds in the area, and that they had photos of them they were suppressing, and that has proven to be true.
And of course, as I like pointing out, the white Pileated has symmetricly white secondaries. Impossible, many said. There is likely other Pileateds out there somewhere with varying degrees of white. You don't need an exact match for an IBWO to think that's what you're seeing.
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