An excerpt:
I have really tried, but I can't see how the evidence published in Science for the persistence of the IBW is anywhere near that normally required by top journals. If the paper had been published in Biological Conservation or some similar, international but lower profile journal, as 'Evidence for the persistence of IBW', I would not have a problem with that. But I'm absolutely astounded that it got past the editors and peer-review and into Science - the quality of the evidence is not in that top league.
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4 comments:
The carpinterio jumps flyways but nothing ever changes in this gruesome story ... Fitzcrow hasn't come up for air.
Limey twitcher types are still astounded that the authors of "IvoryBill persists in AR" describe their own evidence as "bigfoot" but are clawing the eyes out of good professor Jackson over double knockie things, and "wing twisting hypothesises" and "failure to reject the null hypothosis that the video is a better fit for IBWO (or something equally obtuse)"
The press slumber away, the new fed secretary is on the board of TNC, and former perigrine fund board alum (see cade, see the mews at cornell, see Fitzcrow at Goldman Sachs - but watch their science on windfarms ... ) and "we" skepticos are left linking to a blog in the UK who is "wondering what is going on".
It is lonely being a skeptico.
Tell Mr. Astounded to read the archives we've been astounded for some time now ...
Has this person lived in a cave for the past 2 years?
Give the guy a break. I feel the same way every time I visit Bird Forum dot Net.
They will drive you crazy there. They all sound like Harrison, Luneau, Gallagher, and Sparling. Also Mike Collins.
They make innane comments like "...keep up the searching. We will only find them if someone keeps searching.."
BTW, the Jimmy Hoffa poster mimicked it just right. What a laugh.
Alas Carpinterio, methinks cave dwelling is not nescessary to not know about the IBWO debacle. As I type, the great CLO continues their hypnosis of the willing by launching the "Grail Bird" movie (no, while I admit that I am just returning from a rapid toxification program on the european continent I am not making this up!). Apparently they had a "documentary" made by the same guy who made "Pumping Iron".
They are invitng the rich folks to enjoy, get this, a presentation on the search for the IBWO by none other than Fitzcrow, while the film is billed as a film about the rediscovery of the Grail Bird.
Now methinks that none of the skeptico were interviewed, and that the puff piece soon to be debuted in our-fair-city Cambridge, MA will further confuse even the enviro-glitterati in that august village.
I'll furter guess that they will deny that this is a puff piece. They'll be hurt and maybe even angry that anyone would suggest that they would do anything like oversell this.
So, I'd have to guess that while, yeeees, any self-respecting ornithologist and north american birder should have seen through the Science piece of poo-poo (Look, it is a black-white-black blob that can only be explained by an IBWO!), the rebuttal to Sibley et al.(wingbeats ill-measures and photo-montages included), the rebuttal to Jackson (Wahhhhh, Tim did not delay the publication of his book to make, gasp, MONEY), and the empty-handed season #2, I must give the UK dude some slack. The spin has been, and continues to be, disorienting - even on this side of the pond.
Besides, I'm sure there is some research that Hagis dulls the brain.
Now, I have't seen the film - I've been invited, but I"m not sure my house-arrest ankle bracelet will let me get that far. So that gives me the right to further speculate wildly. I'll say that "Grail Bird: The Movie" continues to distort the facts, and continues to raise $$ for CLO.
But, here is the opportunity Skepticos. This film tour may be worth making a film of itself....and you know where I am going with this....it'll be just like "Spinal Tap". Fitzcrow will tour the county, at smaller and smaller venues, gigs will get cancelled, Birdchick will play the role of the Yoko-character who makes them break up, they'll get trapped in their Ghillie Suits on stage, the take will get lower and lower, there may be a scene at Graceland.
This, methinks, is the move known as jumping the shark.
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