I'd like to see Tom or one of his blogging bullies offer actual data on PIWO wingbeats to refute the wingbeat data used by Cornell.That's already been done.
The Nolin (BirdViewing.com) Pileated videos are here (WMV Format, about 6.1 Meg). One of these videos shows a known Pileated in a short escape flight calculated at 8.6 wingbeats per second for four wingbeats.
In addition to a branch stub, the Luneau video shows a bird in a longer escape flight that manages 8.5 wingbeats per second for six wingbeats.
Note that we have exactly zero videos showing known Ivory-bills in escape flight at any wingbeat frequency.
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This will all be over by October:
Cyberthrush blog & comments
Just as TB predicted.
The report that CLO is concentrating on wing beats sounds a lot like moving the entire crew from two sinking lifeboats to one … it results in the immediate loss of one boat and the swamping of the other. But hey, they were both going down anyway!
The wing beat claim just got swamped and will be swamped in any audience where someone asks “What about Nolin?”
The wingbeat claim was a hypothesis supported by data. Science is self-correcting. When new data arrives to falsify a hypothesis, the old hypothesis gets rejected. CLO has many options beyond the wingbeat data and they will move on. Others, here, choose to beat an old horse to death. It's rather amusing. CLO gets criticised for "bad science" labeled as fraud for using the only available data at the time. Frankly, I wish I had a nickle for every published hypothesis that was later proven wrong. There is nothing wrong with or anything to be ashamed of a wrong hypothesis; after all, science requires multiple hyoptheses and, by definition, our job is to falsify hypotheses one at a time (begining with a null and an alternative hypothesis). For thhose who understand the science process, you would recognize the significant contributions that CLO has made. We've come a long ways in our understanding of woodpecker biology, video analysis, old-growth swamps...argumentation, debate, negative blogging. Tom owes his fleeting (as it will be) fame to CLO. Why the continual lashing? (Yeah, I know, there will be more ugly retorts to this. It won't end anytime soon.) And how does CLO treat Tom? Has anyone seen a Tom Nelson Skeptic blog emerge?
Anon said "Tom owes his fleeting (as it will be) fame to CLO." Ironically, CLO earned its fame by doing science...
Hey Tom and Methinks, it looks like fellow Bill Smith basher BINAC (Birding is NOT a Crime blog), who has tried to put Mr. Guppy where he belongs, could use a bit of support. Seems the self-righteous have taken over his blog (scroll down to "Mr. Guppy goes postal..." and click on comments). Why can't people see through Mr. Guppy's clown act?
Mr. Anon;
I am not an enlightened academic/scientist but as Mr. Me Thinks says -
A. You accept the fact that CLO screwed up but they followed proper scientific protocol and therefore they are A ok.
B. Us skeptics are dimwits because we keep beating a dead horse (ie; flap rates).
C. CLO has moved on to other scientific proof or facts such as saving old growth forests (non sequitor)
D. How did this become a hypothesis, it's about validating 100% a miraculous claim.
Can you explain your thought process further?
Tom, it looks like you've done it. Congratulations. You (and your fellow skeptics) have clearly beaten CLO at its own game of science, at least regarding wingbeat frequency. I do find some aspects of your argument interesting, however. Some of these issues will sound familiar.
1 - CLO clearly erred in judgment by use of shamefully small sample sizes (N=7 or 5 for Pileated; N=1 for Ivorybill). As Methinks put it in yesterday's comments, "N=1 - brings shivers to most ecologists." However, I must concede that your use of N=1 (the Nolin video) suits your argument very well. I'm having trouble reconciling your sample size with Methinks' remarks: "...because not all data is worth using....and if used should be statistically robust...." (note the word "datum" applies to the Nolin video). To her credit, however, she did backpedal yesterday on some of her remarks about statistical ignorance.
2 - CLO clearly duped us all by taking advantage of a flawed review system; you've filled us in on all the juicy details. The nice thing about the Nolin video is that it did not require a review system to suit your purpose in setting the record straight. Convenient, I must say.
3 - CLO failed to publish the full details of their wingbeat analysis; as Methinks put it, "Note that you had to leave the official Science response paper and the SOM to get to the account of the videos." Kind'a odd, I agree, that CLO posted the details on the internet. Then again, I have only seen the Nolin video and analyses of it on the internet.
Yeah, I know, I sound very critical...you should hear me sound off about Iraq.
Mr. Anon, aka Dr. Latin Grammar, who says "all data IS" but corrects us about a Nolin datum, misses a point made by Tom:
N=0 of known IBWOs visible fleeing in video
N=1 of known PIWOs visible fleeing in Nolin video
There are multiple flights in Nolin-v, however, of two different birds. N=1 would be the appropriate way to deal with these data to get an average and avoid pseudoreplication. There are too few flights to get a good sample of variation in PIWO, but as methinks points out, it only takes one sample to reject the hypothesis that the bird in the Luneau-v flaps faster than any PIWO. In other words, one cannot reject PIWO based on the flap rate in the Luneau video, even with N=1 of unseen (and probably nervously fluttering flaps) IBWO.
My guess as to why CLO has not taken the Nolin video and published an analysis of it is because it would show that in fact PIWOs do routinely match the flap rate of the [Pileated] in the Luneau video.
Rock on Anon, Dr. Latin. Ego quoque Latine scio!
Someone please explain to me why it is that when Tom and his crew repeat themselves it’s “beating a dead horse”, but when CLO and crew repeat themselves it’s merely “fundraising”.
Anyway, there is a part of this horse not yet beat well enough. A CLO apologist above dismisses the wing-beat claim as a valiant hypothesis. This can’t stand. CLO has always presented the wing-beat claim as evidence…not a hypothesis. In fact it has always looked more like deception.
CLO knew the initial wing-beats of flight were likely to be faster than later beats (they said so themselves). CLO knew only about ten beats were countable in Luneau. And CLO had every reason to know the visible beats in Luneau were slowing. Yet they claimed 38 beats at a continuous high rate. This fanciful fabrication looks a lot like strategic deception.
CLO knew using a sample of one was dubious. CLO knew using PIWO counts from extended flight was dubious. CLO knew about the manybirds.com video. Later, CLO knew about Tom’s critique and knew about the Nolin video. (Wasn’t Nolin a CLO volunteer?)
Yet we’re told that lately the wing-beat claim has been the centerpiece of their pitches. This is not science running its course. It’s deceptive fundraising, legally known as fraud.
There. It’s beat again.
This was clever: "Mr. Anon, aka Dr. Latin Grammar, who says "all data IS" but corrects us about a Nolin datum, misses a point made by Tom." It was followed by "Rock on Anon, Dr. Latin. Ego quoque Latine scio!" Methinks the author missed who wrote "data IS." So fun to pontificate.
"Are you saying that even though they are wrong about the ID in the video, it is OK because we know more about old growth swamps?" No.
Tom, Methinks, others: Would you go so far as to say CLO has staff that are lying? Where, specifically, do you propose CLO issue their apology, or retraction, or whatever you'd like to call it?
To anonymous: "Where, specifically, do you propose CLO issue their apology, or retraction, or whatever you'd like to call it?"
Why not in all places they have abused the claim: Science, The Auk, their own website, Living Bird, Birdscope, and many other places with ancillary claims, e.g. various college newsletters and magazines (Mindy LaBranche, class of 1980 at Wells College, got her say in this summer's magazine for Alumnae where a misleading timeline is published). A press release to NPR, AP, New York Times, and Knight Ridder, for example, would get the ball rolling. A letter to the IBWO Recovery Team as well as to the Boards of TNC and CLO would be a good start too. Why not call the documentary producers and ask to come clean in a filmed interview. That would make for more interesting films! In other words, they have unlimited opportunity and scope for coming clean. Will they do this? ...In our dreams, which, because of the miles to go before we sleep, remain forever equally near to and far from ever happening (apologies to Robert Frost and Walter Benjamin).
"Would you go so far as to say CLO has staff that are lying?"
Houghton-Mifflin online shows this definition of lying:
"Given to or marked by deliberate concealment or misrepresentation of the truth".
My answer to your question above is "Yes". Many specific examples are detailed on this blog.
You know, there are worse things than being called a liar.
There is a point where spinning your position slips into willfully ignoring evidence that fails to support your position. This can slide into bullying people to get them to not support your "detractors", and lead to to willfully misrepresenting your position through false claims and
fabricated images. When you layer all that atop a bed of fundraising for a false cause I think you've left lying behind and moved on to another more dangerous plain.
Springsteen said "is a dream a lie if it don't come true - or is it something worse?" I gotta say Yes, and this case proves it.
As to how to address the false claims and willfully slanted science...I think it is, first of all, up to the journal who foisted this upon us. Kennedy put his name on the first piece - the claim of rock solid and indisputable proof were not true then, were not well researched, and are not true now.
First, I think Kennedy and Science need to answer for this, then I echo the call to the others up above.
But just to be fair to the birders of the world, I think I'd throw in BBC on the news release.
Let me get this straight. The Luneau video shows a bird with an 8.5 wingbeats per second escape flight and a separate video of a Pileated Woodpecker indicates an 8.6 wingbeats per second escape flight? Ummm...I'm going out on a limb here and will suggest that multiple videos of PIWO's will sink the remaining CLO lifeboat.
I used to think that the word "hoax" in the title of the Peckergate website was too harsh, but the more I learn about this affair the more apt it seems.
Okay, Tom. You clearly have the courage to say it as you believe it. Anyone else willing to label Cornell as outright liars?
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