Many of us were interested to read the following in a recent
Arkansas Times article:
With three other members of the Bird Records Committee of the Arkansas Audubon Society, Neal voted to accept Dr. David Luneau’s evidence that the ivory-bill was back in Arkansas. The vote was 4-1.
Mike Mlodinow was the odd man out. Mlodinow, a researcher who like Neal and James lives in Fayetteville, was not impressed with the evidence. “I don’t like the video,” he said, referring to Luneau’s film of the bird, the feather in the cap of evidence presented to Science magazine. “You can barely tell it’s a bird.”
“For something like an ivory-billed woodpecker, you have to be pretty sure,” Mlodinow said. “If you’re wrong, it’s like crying wolf. You have to be exceptionally certain.”
Mlodinow called it “strange” that Cornell biologists interpreted every facet of the 4-second film as supportive of their interpretation that it is of an ivory-billed woodpecker. “It’s almost too good to be true.”
After I emailed Mike and asked for further comments, he graciously emailed me the following reply, dated June 17, 2006:
Dear Tom,
I have not read the Arkansas Times article,but there is at least one significant error,Joe Neal is not a member of the ABRC.The current members include Doug James,an Ornithology prof. at U. of AR in Fayetteville;Max Parker,the "curator" of bird records(the head of the ARBC);Chris Kellner,an ornithology prof. at AR State U. in Russellville,Kenny Nichols,the state's most active and productive birder from Pangburn,and then there is me. We have to state a reason in writing when we reject a record along with our vote.If you're interested I could send you a copy via "snail mail".In brief I thought that the video,despite the extensive analysis,gave rather weak proof for the existence of the Ivory-biled Woodpecker(IBW).I thought that the amount and positioning of black and white on the bird was open to interpretation;that the bird's "length" was dependent on knowing its posture more precisely than could be claimed; and that if the bird resided in the area searched, that a roost and/or nest sites would have been found during the last 2 seasons.I did not know what to make of the vocalizations.It seemed that the "double raps" might be made by other things,but it was hard for me to reconcile the "kent" calls.However,if they were really made by IBWs I think that the searchers would have located the bird(s).I did not even mention Bayes' Rule,since I regard the evidence to be weak, a priori.I did mention that if it became accepted that the IBW still lived when it actually did not,that this would ultimately involve considerable cost to birders, environmentalists, and to the scientific community,whereas rejection involved little cost-one could still claim that the bird may exist,just not that it definitely did. In the end,I think it's "possible",but unlikely,that the "Luneau" bird could have been an IBW,but that there's strong negative evidence against any residing there now;something which is implicitely admitted by the Cornell Team,as they will search mostly elsewhere next season.
Perhaps,it is already clear as to how and why the IBW came to be accepted as living,but I refer you to a novel by Allegra Goodman to help imagine the psychological pressures that may be involved,both on the side of the accepters and on the side of the deniers.The title is "Intuition".
You can use the above in any way you see fit.
Sincerely,
Mike
Personally, I think Mike deserves a lot of credit for standing as the lone voice of reason on the Arkansas Bird Records Committee.
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7 comments:
I just re-read Peacock's excellent piece in the AR times, and this time focused on the fate of Jackson viewed through my new understanding of him gleaned from Julie Zickeefoose's 1999 article which beatifies him as a TB's TB.
Now we can see that the Fitzcrow et al. team is actually "swift boating" Jackson.
In peacock's article Doug James, distinguished professor of zoology at the University of Arkansas, has been assigned to do Fitzcrow's wet work. He calls Jackson "a professional doubter" ... and laments that he had to send a graduate student "up a tree" to "disprove" Jerry's hypothesis that RCWP was being harmed by metal rings on thier nest holes.
For the love of god, who would ask such a thing, but a "professional doubter" ... as if the freaking graduate student who went up the tree wanted more than anything else to have different research question. All of James' other graduate students get important research questions, but this one, because of this doubting double doubter Jackson, he got sent up a tree to see if a bird who slams its head into long leaf pine trees would be harmed if it wacked a piece of steel alloy stuck in its nest cavity hole ... see, Jackson is always doubting, he is a PROFESSIONAL doubter, unlike the other scientists in AR who know that since the RCWP weren't harmed by the metal that noah had on the ark, that they won't be harmed by metal rings in their roost holes, besides James must have prayed on the matter so he knew the answer beforehand anyway.
Jerry Jackson, nothing but a "doubter" who insists on "proof" and is so skeptical that he sends graduate students up trees to collect data! The NERVE of this man, this naysaying, never satisfied, always nagging and doubting senile old fart ...
If that ain't swiftboating, then I ain't the carpinterio real. (just for clarity, I AM the carpinterio real).
Heyzoo christo, why do these southern "second to cornell" types do Fitzcrow's wet work? Isn't it embarassing to have these CLODS make a lauging stock of your state?
I think that Jackson needs to be given an honorary doctorate by some north eastern school so that these southern ornithologist wannabes will respect him a little.
Here is a question for the escepticos: what does Jackson mean by this quote:
"Jackson, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, acknowledged he was biased. “It’s all about me,” he said.
“I don’t want this to look like a cat fight,” Jackson said."
what does he mean "it is all about me" ...
Escepticos anonymi, Escepticos nomini, Escepticos who are lurking right under fitzcrows nose ... there is a moment at which you must fall on your swords and talk to Peacock ... she understands this story better than anyone else, and she is a pro - she will not rat out a confidential source.
If you can't do it for the glory ... do it for Jerry Jackson.
Email
Leslie Newell Peacock
leslie@arktimes.com
Also check out the book review page for Jerry Jackson's book about the search for the ivory bill
People knock him for not being "spiritual enough" ... a quality that I really like to see in a top tier scientist, however M Collins, aka "fishcrow", calls him a hero.
Which is he?
A hero that has kept the hope that IBWO persit alive while others doubted?
Or
A "professional doubter" who simply thrives on "sound bites" and needs to get his opinion's fact checked by peers, before he goes questioning the "proof" that IBWO persist in AR?
I agree with THE CARPINTERIO, don't let them "FITZBOAT" Jerry Jackson ... it only proves that the man is objective by noting that he is both the True Beliver's Beliver, AND the Skeptic's Skeptic.
Doesn't Jerry say "Its all about me" (sing it to the tune of I Gotta Be Me)in re: to the tone of the Conell Auk rebuttal? I thought he was saying that the rebuttal is not at all about the data and inferences in his paper, rather Cornell rebuts Jackson's personality and general wothiness to stay alive.
That what methinks thinked.
Dear Ms. Peacock:
I do think it would be nice for a journalist to interview Dr. Jackson and do an investigative piece on how an honest broker like jackson came to be the target of a fitzboat attack.
Congratulations to Mike Mlodinow for his courageous and lonely stand against the Ivory-billed Woodpecker hoaxsters! The "me too" vote by the majority of the Arkansas Rare Bird Records Committee to accept the bogus Ivorybill report has had no detectable influence on the opinions of knowledgeable birders, but it reflects poorly on the competence and independence of the Committee.
The Ivorybill hoax is in a tailspin with no hope of recovery. The truckload of alleged proof dumped on skeptics has been completely discredited. If any believers remain among the birding elite at this point, I don't know who they are. While nearly all scientists and bureaucrats remain afraid to admit publicly that the emperor has no clothes, a growing number are in the halfway house, posting anonymously on this blog. I predict that the Ivorybill "rediscovery" ultimately will become such an embarrassment to those involved that they will deny responsibility and blame each other. It may then become fashionable for undercover skeptics to take credit for their anonymous posts to solidify their credentials as early deniers.
Unfortunately, schoolchildren who have to write a report on the Great Pecker currently come up short, as the search engines return about 100 webpages touting the "rediscovery" for every page expressing skepticism, with the latter buried deep in the results. See, for example, a comparative graph of the top 100 results in Google and Yahoo for Ivory-billed Woodpecker: Comparative Search Results
It's a different story, however, when one searches for Ivory-billed Woodpecker hoax, as my Peckergate page comes up first in Yahoo and third in Google. Reflecting the lack of intelligence of current search algorithms, Cornell webpages are in first and second place in Google: Comparative Search Results
When one searches for Ivory-billed Woodpecker skeptic, Google doesn't know who's buried in Grant's tomb. This blog, Ivory-bill Skeptic, comes in second and third in Yahoo, but only about 60th in Google:
Comparative Search Results
Sales of Ivory-billed Woodpecker books have slowed, but I see an opportunity for yet another book: The Rise and Fall of the Arkansas Ivory-billed Woodpecker Hoax.
John Wall
New York
WorldTwitch.com - Finding Rare Birds Around the World
Check out the reference that mlodinow sends, clearly he is sending a message, here is a passage from the book "Intuition":
The truth shamed him; it was so simple: he could not bear to jettison work that had taken so much time. The hours, the thousands of hours he'd spent, sickened him. How could he confess to that? The scientific method was precise and calibrated. A scientist was, by definition, impassive. He cut his losses and moved on to something else; he was exhausted, perhaps, but never defiant with exhaustion. A scientist did not allow emotion to govern his experiments.
And yet Cliff had been emotional and unrealistic about his work. He had behaved unprofessionally, taking his long shot again, and yet again. How could he explain that? There was only one reasonable explanation: he was not a scientist. This was what Mendelssohn and Glass were driving at.
...
Mlodinow can't come out and say that Fitzcrow isn't a scientist or he will seem like a partisan and draw the same Fitzboating that Jackson is drawing ... from his friend and neighbor, James ... but there it is ... why the literary reference to Tom? Because Mlodinow feels the way scientists all over the world feel.
Fitzcrow has gone off the reservation and is taking the entire scientific establishment down with him.
When scientists start sending literary references to skeptical bloggers ... how much longer can Fitzcrow keep rocking back in Aurthur Allen's chair?
Thank you John Wall for exposing the ivory-billed hoaxsters. If you write the "Rise and Fall..." book I'll buy it, or better yet why not continue to update your Peckergate page?
The Nelson ivory-billed home and blog are the first and second results for a Google search of "ivory-billed skeptic". The problem is that "woodpecker" doesn't appear in the blog title, so use of this seemingly relevant keyword confounds the search.
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