In reading about Piltdown Man here, I do see some parallels to the current Ivory-bill situation.
...However, the genius of the forgery is generally regarded as being that it offered the experts of the day exactly what they wanted: convincing evidence that human evolution was brain-led. It is argued that because it gave them what they wanted, the experts taken in by the Piltdown forgery were prepared to ignore all of the rules that are normally applied to evidence.I don't think anyone is accusing Cornell of forging any evidence, but it seems likely that experts in both cases were fooled in large part because they wanted to be convinced.
Posts
3 comments:
In comments on yesterday's post there was fear expressed that more blurry videos may be on the way. This is not likely. Because the evidence is almost certainly being produced by wishful thinking, and not an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, its production follows patterns of a psychological phenomenon, rather than more familiar patterns of wildlife discovery. Here are three trends in the production of evidence that have held true so far and we can anticipate they will continue...
1) Sightings are most frequent when expectations are highest. When you expect a bird behind every tree stump, you see one behind every tree stump. Expectations were highest at first, so sightings were most frequent at first. Certain realities have by now set permanently into the minds of the search team, and we won't see the original frequency or detail in sightings repeated again.
2) Evidence is produced in the order in which it was most desired. First visual confirmations were needed...they came effortlessly. Then a digital image was needed. That was tougher, but it was produced. Then audio was needed. Tougher still, but it finally materializes. Something like a purported eggshell will show up next, not more video. We've got video already, so video isn't needed as much as a feather.
3) The best evidence of any type materializes first. The best visual sighting was the first, followed by the second. No visual sighting have surpassed those two. The best digital image is the first (and only) produced. The best audios are the first produced. They remain the best.
These trends will continue because the evidence is being fabricated by the power of imagination... and its ability to willfully impose patterns or meaning onto random occurrences in nature. As certain realities sink in, the imagination is being restrained, and the power behind the production of evidence is being sapped. The production of evidence will continue to decline.
There is not one speck of actual science, but a whole lot of psychobable and conjecture in the above comment, yet you accuse the Cornell team of weak science?
The first comment is an interesting theory, and I'm not necessarily disputing it. But I'm unsure if that's how everything unfolded. For example, other than Gallagher and Harrison's sighting (which happened during their second day of searching according to the book), the original Cornell search team didn't have a sighting during the first month of looking. Granted, you could say the flurry of sightings that happened after that occurred because once one person claimed a sighting, everyone else was "primed". But it wasn't like the whole team went in there with high expectations and immediately began reporting sightings. Interestingly, the video came shortly after the flurry of sightings. Was this because Luneau was more actively looking at his videotapes or because he actually saw a suspicious looking bird?
Interestingly, the first fulltime search crew (which had very few members of the original search crew) did NOT report any sightings at first. I believe the only sighting to come out of that effort was the Feb 14, 2005 sighting. Why was there not a similar flurry of sightings at first? Did this team not have high expectations? Were they just better observers than the first team? Was the "white-on-the-trailing-edge-of-the-wings-bird (species unknown)" bird just not present anymore?
Also, did the audio "finally materialize" because it was tougher to get than a video of a Pileated that happened to consistently show white trailing edges or because their wasn't a serious effort in deploying ARUs until later in the project?
Post a Comment