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21 comments:
Oh man, the fellow's statistics professor is pulling his hair out!
This is another form of the parenting problem. What are the odds after having 4 boys in a row that the next child is a girl. Very high, right? Wrong!!!
Cyberthrush has fallen into the Skeptic trap. The odds that people would go out into the field and misidentify a PIWO as an IBWO is astronomical high. It fact it's a certainty! The IBWO is extinct.
The fact that it happens over and over again reflects the foolishness of Humans, as the alien would say. Not the odds!
Forgive me these thoughts Atheist Lord -
How many looney tunes are out there?
Are these the people CLO depends upon to spread the gospel of true belief?
Is CLO itself dominated by these true believers?
Holy Moly Batman.
The odds that stringers and dudes will misidentify PIWO, having been told by the pre-eminent ornithologist (Fitzcrow) in the world that IBWO do exist, is very very very good.
So good in fact that it will surely be repeated over and over and over again.
Cyberthrush has not studied the history of Cold Fusion, UFOs or Bigfoot. All of which reflect the same groupthink and mistakes as Tom has repeatedly pointed out exists in this IBWO debacle.
As a History teacher, I never thought I would ever get to use this!
"Those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
(I want to think this blog for making an old man happy)
"It is possible for someone, even someone competent, to see a Pileated Woodpecker briefly and mistake it for an Ivory-bill. A second individual might repeat the mistake, possibly even a third. But as you get to the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th person the likelihood of the same error being committed by different people on different days from different places/angles becomes increasingly small (and there are many more sightings claims for the Big Woods than the original 7 used for publication). Even taking excitement, human foibles, and so-called 'groupthink' into account, vanishingly small. Thus, my persistent emphasis on the 'sightings' evidence over the video and audio evidence."
-----------
How many people have misidentified other species of similar-looking birds, at different angles from different places? It happens all the time. "Billions and billions" of times. So, I wouldn't say the possibility is vanishingly small. It's a normally occuring thing. The only difference between the IBWO and these other species is that for all these other species, someone eventually gets a good look at it.
Anyway, nobody is making the case that an aberrant PIWO is the cause of all this mess. That's just a straw man (who is still standing, as far as I can tell).
Skepics! Hold on there. There seems to be a dearth of good news for my side lately. I have been doing some research and I now know why!
By statiscally studying the postings of Texbirds, I have determined that John Arvin and probably Fred Collins departed their day jobs on or about June 1 and have been missing ever since. But we know what that means. They are in the field, spending the $100,000 federal grant monies issued for finding and documenting the Ivory-billed in Texas!
Yeah!!!
By my statistical reckoning they have been seeing IBWO for the last 14 days. Undoubtedly documenting the 7 pair as prognosticated in my bold prediction.
Yes, Skeptics, your days are numbered. Take your aliens and go back to where you came! Yeah, I’m a student of history too!
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of
comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of
challenge and controversy.
--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
A moment of silence please as we consider the ticks and snakes that our beloved searchers must be enduring. (Could we get a Bush fly in to the troops here, please!)
…sniff…
signed,
The True Believer
Cyberthrush says "Again we are dealing in probabilities here..."
This is really the main point. We are not dealing with images, specimens, tissue, etc. We are dealing with probabilities. And Cyberthrush knows which way the probability scale is tipping. That's why he no longer allows comments.
"But as you get to the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th person the likelihood of the same error being committed by different people on different days from different places/angles becomes increasingly small (and there are many more sightings claims for the Big Woods than the original 7 used for publication). Even taking excitement, human foibles, and so-called 'groupthink' into account, vanishingly small."
This is absolutley ridiculous "reasoning" completely unsupported by real world events. Mis-identified rare birds have been happily checked off by dozens even hundreds of people (and on successive days) before the mistake was noticed by anyone.
Logic and Reason are critically endangered here. We need federal funding to preserve and uphold intellectual rigor - and to develop good birding skills, since so many "believers" seem to have left theirs (if indeed many of them ever had any) at the entrance to the swamp!
To date there is No unequivocal evidence from Arkansas or anywhere else that the IBWO persists.
No good video evidence. No good audio evidence. No good - high quality - sighting evidence.
As they are fond of saying next door in Missouri "show me..."
Mike R.
Seattle
I am absolutely sure
That in a moment’s blur
An otherwise perfect pileated
Can easily become pixelated
Skeptics! May I remind you that humbleness is next to godliness. Please show respect for my peeps. Or as the Woodpecker's Prayer reminds us,
"Give us today the sight that we need,
and forgive us our misidentifications,
as we forgive those
who have misidentified others"
TB
Ivory Bills are most clearly seen
Where Pileateds are routine
Cybercrow reports we are standing on one flimsy rickety persistent and convenient leg -that leg is apparently a abberantly plumaged PIWO.
Duuuuude! Methinks you are so right, only you got the order wrong! We have 60 years (hence the persistent part), of no data (hence the flimsy, rickety part) that we stand on (hence the stand on part). It is all so convienient (hence the convienient part.
So Methinks retorts that it could say "the persistence of the flimsy and rickety data-free world that appears to provide a convienient and appropriate atmosphere for the believers"
(Tom: Can I have a regular feature where I get to write like a Gossip Columnist about the goings-on at Bird Forum. Here is a draft.
Report from Crazy Land, Part I: In case you missed it Fishcrow was quoting Machiavelli yesterday (he must have just returned from the daVinci Code, and MMNY (or whatever his name is, lets call him Minnie Me for now) was suggesting that Tom's tagline (the Sagen quote)encouraged collecting of IBWO.)Put these two together and they'll give Alexander Haig a run for his money!
I could do better, but TB's post is making me cry.)
Cyberthrush will always be remembered as one who brought us much humor.
A heartfelt thanks from me to you, Cyberthrush!
TB wrote:
A moment of silence please as we consider the ticks and snakes that our beloved searchers must be enduring. (Could we get a Bush fly in to the troops here, please!)
*****************
Dear TB-
If JA & FC have really been out there for 2 weeks and haven't reported in, then you better start organizing a search party to find the bodies. You know, it would really be OK if they wait until November to look- this macho summer search is really too much.
So, like, why is it that, like, the BIG THREE "MOST CREDIBLE" IBWO SIGHTINGS (Kulivan, Sparling, and the dynamic duo of Gallagher-Harrison) that were, like responsible for two major IBWO searches and were, like, more or less full views of, like, tame, perched birds and stuff, but then, like, all subsequent sightings are like, totally just glimpses of totally wary birds and the observers just see, like ONE fieldmark?? AS IF!
Valley Girl
Hey folks.
I just discovered this site. I was amazed by the claims of the Cornell researchers and their terrible data from day one.
I thought you might be interested in a recent discussion I had -- before finding this site, unfortunately -- with some "true believers."
http://designparadigm.blogsome.com/2006/06/13/methodological-naturalism-hobbit-style/
Yep, take a statistics course. The "one sole thin flimsy rickety persistent and convenient leg to stand on" is as solid as the "Pillars of Hercules" in the present IBWP Saga.
Ah Amy, Welcome Home. Send us your thoughts, humor, poetry, prose, and if you have any, money.(That part is a joke.)
Methinks they'll never appreciate you on the outside.
Welcome, Amy, to the land of sanity.
Where,
a. Poets
b. Ditty Writers
c. Comics and Satirists
d. Rational Scientists
e. Methinks Lawyers
f. Parallel Universe reviewers from BF world.
h. Aliens
i. TB - Chairman Emirtus
j. El Imperial Woodpecker - Theology
k. Valley Girls
can all get together to discuss Quantum Entangled Gases without fear of ridicule.
As one of the many egotists floating around the blogosphere, did I see "Valley Girl" surreptiously (sic, spelling, whatever) added to my list?
Yes, sorry. I actually meant to put,
(apologizes to the author of the list)
at the bottom but it got left off in cutting and pasting. I know it's a weak excuse but it's all I got. Nice original post by the way.
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