What may begin as honest error, however, has a way of evolving through almost imperceptible steps from self-delusion to fraud. The line between foolishness and fraud is thin.And on page 211:
...But most of the scientists and inventors we met started out like Joe Newman, believing that they had made a great discovery overlooked by everyone else. While it never pays to underestimate the human capacity for self-deception, they must at some point begin to realize that things are not behaving as they had supposed.Unfortunately, I think Cornell is now headed directly down the road to fraud.
Like all those who have gone down this road before them, they will have reached a fork. In one direction lies the admission that they may have been mistaken. The more publicly and forcefully they have pressed their claim, the more difficult it will be to take that road. In the other direction is denial. Experiments may be repeated over and over in an attempt to make it come out "right," or elaborate explanations will be concocted as to why contrary evidence cannot be trusted. Endless reasons may be found to postpone critical experiments that might settle the issue. The further scientists travel down that road, the less likely it becomes that they will ever turn back. Every appearance on national television, every new investor, every bit of celebrity and wealth that comes their way makes turning back less likely. This is the road to fraud.
Why do I say that? For now, here are just a few specific reasons:
1. Cornell's rejection of Sibley's so-called "wing-twisting hypothesis" is nothing short of astonishing.
A Pileated's wing-twisting is not a "hypothesis"; it is an indisputable fact. This fact is borne out by clear photographic proof right in Sibley's paper (see the manybirds.com Pileated); yet another good example is on the Stokes Birding Blog here.
In the face of the clear photographic proof of Pileated wing-twisting, Cornell's continued defense of their stiff-winged "model" birds is preposterous.
2. As I mentioned here recently, Cornell is currently using a bogus "wingbeat frequency" argument; what's more, they must know that their claim is bogus. I don't see how anyone can actually see anywhere near 38 wingbeats in the Luneau video, regardless of the amount of "Ivory-bill Kool-Aid" consumed.
3. Cornell's illustration of the Luneau bird's position (see below) is completely and utterly absurd. Cornell's illustration is in the middle (from Figure 2 of Sibley's rebuttal paper).
I fail to see how any knowledgeable person could still defend that drawing, given the clear portrayal in Sibley's paper of the bird's actual position and movements.
4. Cornell's proposal and defense of the "six-pixel bird" is ludicrous. In their response to Sibley's paper, they now actually claim that this "bird" is "leaning away" from the trunk!! (the bold font is mine):
Contrary to the interpretation of Sibley et al.(2), the black and white object apparent in the Luneau video 26 s before the bird flies is consistent in size (35 to 45 cm), shape (vertically elongate, leaning away from the trunk), and pattern (black with white central patch) with a perched ivory-billed woodpecker...
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11 comments:
Tom, Believers, Skeptics:
The Carpinterio's head is spinning.
This is a story about how one man rose from beyond the mothballed esoteric collections of arcane avian minutia and tapped into the weath and power associated with an eliete social movement and having constructed a crystal palace in a place called "sapsucker woods" where bottled bird song could be bought, and citizens praised as scientists for "caring" and priorites set for endless lists shared by endless partners is so called "flight" ... this man thought that he alone decided what science meant.
Because any visit to a grave yard will remind you that people are forgotten unless they have something to their credit that trancends all of history and DEFINES history itself. Forgotten, except for the one singular thing, once all the lists and logos are faded ... "Fitzpatrick et al." discovered the Lord God Bird (Lord what a bird) in the catherdral of southern old growth in Wal Mart's home state.
Tom, Belivers, Skeptics, you can post these kinds of "facts" all you want - the sulking sibley can try to pull back the curtain with his "illustrations" (but is he a real scientist?), but I fear that it is no longer a story.
Just some disagreement between two well respected ornithologists who disagree about some "facts" ... the media have looked and the media have decided that there is no story here.
Turn out the lights in the swamp when the last searcher leaves. The legacy has been changed to "might have seen". There will be no charges of "fraud" no wrong doing.
James Gorman is in bed with visions of sap suckers dancing in his head.
I'm reading events about the same way Tom is and I fear the application of the "self-delusion to fraud" transition is frighteningly accurate. I guess that's why I'm disheartened by an awful lot of clowning around in recent posts. There are a couple of obvious causes for the clowning... Sometimes it seems the only possible response to Cornell's defensive posture is to either laugh or cry... And what else are we to do, now that, as others have suggested, we've "shot all the fish in the barrel"?
Of course some would say only clowns are reading this stuff... But I have reason to believe that's not true. I happen to believe we're watching a process that is both important to understand, and very sad.
Whether you're a birder, ornithologist, conservationist, or all purpose nature lover, this story is a lot less rosy this year than it was last year, and will almost surely be even less rosy in the years to come. "self-delusion to fraud" is not a happy prospect for something we all initially embraced as a dream come true.
So while ya'll clowns are laughin', please consider laughing just a little less loudly in the presence of silent mourners.
p.d., Ann Arbor, MI
Are you going to mourn or demand some accountablity.
Fitz et al are putting their own reputaitons above the integrity of a science based apporoach to conservation.
Which do you love more - the man in the palace of bottled birdsong or the idea that there is some ultimate "reality" behind the arguments that conservationists have been making since Aldo Leopold wrote his polemic "Round River" ...
Fitzpatrick et al have merged area 51 with A Sand County - and the latter will forever be taken less seriously.
To quote dr. Suess in the LORAX ... unless.
Don't mourn, demand they admit that Sibley is right ... we made a mistake.
This is America - you can say "I made a mistake" i'm sorry.
Indeed even a believer sees that Cornell has hewn to the new American standard of sound-bite and 4 second attention spans.
Those who point to Cornell as the most egregious example have probably missed the whole cultural shift that has enabled such behaviors. If you say something loud enough and often enough, it becomes good enough to pass as truth. Money to conduct IBWO research comes from making these
"stretchy" claims. Lobbyists buy politicians in exactly the same way. I happen to think most of the money is not lining pockets.
And we all tend to think that being flown to the Big Thicket is some kind of highly treasured junket. Yet I can't really believe anyone would go out there searching for the bird and spending hours in a cold swamp
without a strong belief there is a bird out there. It's easy to criticize the public relations game Cornell is playing but please
spend a few weeks inside a major corporation to see true waste, true lies, and a flow of money to
the unworthy and unjust that truly puts the venial sins of Cornell in
a relative light. We expect the Ivy Tower to be above and beyond
the corruption of modern business and politics so we do hold them to a higher standard. We want to
pluck the ivy away from their hallowed windows and expose the brown smudge of selfish egoism.
They have climbed to this exalted place and now from on high
with condescending glance spew ridiculous and haughty pronouncements of 6-pixel birds and stiff-winged models.
I'm probably less surprised and perhaps older than most of the correspondents here. It would be better if they just stomped their foot and said.. the bird is out there we saw it, we're trying to prove it. OK back to my corporate tower with no strands of ivy.
Paul Sutera
disheartened by an awful lot of clowning around in recent posts
Good point but I think the clowning helps people deal with the tragedy of the situation - like operating room humor - and is also a product of the absurd situation where a blurry video is the basis for the major conservation story of the last half century. As birders and conservationists it is important we be able to laugh at ourselves. I can assure you that thanks to CLO etc. the people outside those communities are now laughing at us.
Ouch. Ok, before you fellows put the last nail in the coffin, let's get some reason involved.
The people that analyse the video, the people that have seen fleeting gimpses of the IBWO are all adults. Adult professions don't surround themselves with syncophants and "yes-men" and go off to war with no reason!
Adults don't do the same thing over and over and expect different results. That's insanity! Adults change the course and redirect the troops as conditions in the field dictate. They bring in new people after a time for a fresh look at the problem.
And I submit to you that Cornell et al are adults.
The entire world of birding agreed to invade Arkansas with a massive program of recovery and redemption. Just because Cornell hasn't re-found IBWO in the woods of Arkansas. Who's to say it wasn't there?
Their effort will last for the remainder of Dr. Fitzpatricks term. Relax, sit back. Let the professionals do their work. They know better than you.
Signed,
The True Believer
Now you fellows have done it!
By all your questioning and Skepticism you are giving our enemies abroad and our friends in London amunition to badmouth American Ornithology.
I hope you all are happy???!!!!
Signed,
The True Believer
Dear True Believer,
Blindly accepting Cornell's conclusions and actions because they are "adults" and they "know better" is ludicrous. The current US government is also composed of "adults" and yet many people question their motives, actions, and conclusions. Being an adult does not mean that you are automatically wise and have only noble intentions. History (and common sense) has taught us this if nothing else.
That said, I do not believe Cornell went into this with fraudulent intent. They sincerely believed they had an IBWO to find and save because they had no one on the "inside" who disagreed with their conclusion about the video. By the time the outside world (and its skeptics) knew about the video, the search, and the millions of dollars pledged to save the IBWO, everything was already in place. The last thing Cornell wanted was dissidents. I know, I tried to warn them of the problems of the video, and they didn't want to listen.
The problem now lies with the fact that, as time passes, there is less and less evidence that there was indeed an IBWO there from the start. Only undocumented sight records remain. And there have always been undocumented sight records of IBWOs, so what makes these so special? The fact that they are by "Cornell"... and nothing more. Well, as Tom has astutely pointed out, Groupthink can really skew people's perceptions of what they think they see.
I bet that if any of the 7-15 sight records of IBWO in Arkansas had been over 30 sec or closer than 100 yards, or of a bird perched... they each would have been changed to PIWO. Clearly, if the top ornithologists/birders of Cornell can repeatedly look at the Luneau video and still see an IBWO (or at least say they do publicly), the hired help can can certainly make the same mistakes in the field, where there is no documentation to review later (Remember, other than Gallagher, not one of the sight records was made by a Cornell staff scientist, all were made by short-term hires of unknown skill!).
So now the real crux: Can Cornell back down without losing face? Will they try? Now that they have this money to search for IBWOs, I figure this is the time to search every last likely hiding place in the SE USA for the bird in one last hurrah. The technology available would make this a remarkably thorough search given the money and manpower available. If this search actually brings one (or more) to light, then Cornell has achieved their goal. If not, well, we can finally put this poor bird to rest.
For the IBWO to remain a will-o-the-wisp after this point in our history will forever connect it to UFOs, Bigfoot, Nessie, etc. Already it has such a reputation (look at the strangeness of some of the people who have claimed to see it!). This is why the ornithological community should and will only buy a sighting if it can be supported by objective evidence. Anything less is unacceptable.
If Cornell really "knows better," they will come to this conclusion themselves. But if they insist squandering their money only on the Big Woods search... I'm afraid I must question their scientific integrity.
I hate to say it, but I think "The True Believer" may be on to something here.
How do we know that Arkansas didn't get advance word of the Cornell/Birder invasion and move all the IBWO across the border to another state, say Missouri?
There is no fraud here only mans' stubborn reluctance to admit he's fallible.
How could Roger Tory Peterson, et. al., find two remaining Ivory Billed Woodpeckers in the remaining 80,000 acres of the Singer Tract in the mid 1940's in a day and a half and the Cornell team produce, in essence, unconvincing evidence in two years.
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