A Skeptic’s Christmas Poem
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17 comments:
I LOVE Gallagher ... especially that watermelon smashing thing (AKA "Sledge-O-Matic").
But you gotta bring some plastic to protect yourself ... sh*t will be flying EVERYWHERE!!
Gallagher is giving a talk entitled 'Discovering the IBWO'! Is he now claiming credit for discovering this species? Not rediscovering? What a guy.
oh, has environmentalism any hope?
This is article is a great insight into the strange mix of faith, science and celebrity that has sewed such deep confusion and conflict about this story.
Because Cornell has made this a referendum on "hope" - people have been forced to choose between "hope" and "evidence" ...
It is a sad sad day for the environmental community. Cornell, an instution that stands for science, has morphed into a church.
Here you have the "naturalists" basically saying "we are capable of reading the scripture for ourselves, yet we choose not to. We follow the pope.
... we'd rather believe, than to assess this on the merits.
Luckily the Luther like blogger has nailed his 95 theisis on the door at Whittneburg.
Gallagher is giving a talk entitled 'Discovering the IBWO'! Is he now claiming credit for discovering this species? Not rediscovering? What a guy.
I LOVE Gallagher ... sh*t will be flying EVERYWHERE!!
I Love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Has Cornell morphed into a church, or just the CLO? Probably just the Pied Pecker and his rats.
Cornell should take the C out of CLO.
Regardless of the speaker or topic, it looks like a very nice local event.
"Gallagher is giving a talk entitled 'Discovering the IBWO'! Is he now claiming credit for discovering this species? Not rediscovering? What a guy."
Yes! Go into the Cornel Laboratory of Orn. in Ithaca. On the wall is a beautiful reprint of the Havel print of Audubon's Ivory-billed Woodpecker painting.
Next to this reprint. Is a statement of the rediscovery of the Pecker by Gallagher in 2004! It doesn't mention Bobby Harrison or Sparling or anyone else!
But this really is almost appropriate because in many ways the "rediscovery" fiasco is really the product of Gallagher. Ok, of his imagination, but still of Gallagher, who saw and convinced his good friend Fitz that it wasn't just a good-ole-boy flight of fancy.
Because in the world of the CLO, backwoods Arkansas boys don't change the world. That's purely left to the Ivy Leagues.
Unfortunately, that's almost true!
Over at BirdForum, cinclodes, a.k.a. Mike Collins, is really sounding like a spurned and bitter man. He appears to be an incautious observer who can't understand why those more talented and experienced don't fall at his feet. This post shows a persecution complex a mile wide and a pathetic plea for recognition:
I don't have a very high opinion of birders, but I have to admit that no experienced birder could mistake a pileated for an ivorybill. The fact that no big-name birder has found an ivorybill has exposed them as phonies, but I have known this for years. The American birding community is based on a petty social hierarchy in which birders kiss up to those perceived to have higher ranking and kick those perceived to have lower ranking. In such a community, phonies tend to rise to the top and the best tend to become loners. Skepticism thrives because (a) it's important to dismiss any findings by up-and-coming birders in order to stay on top of them and (b) the phonies at the top are so mediocre and small minded that they can't fathom the achievements of others.
In memory of Steve Irwin;
who did more to educate the world about crocodiles and venomous snakes and help conserve these reptiles then any of them good old boys at CLO who bagged the fame and the money for a 4 second video and fleeting sightings of birds.
Given how TV is watched by so many kids, I can't think of a single person in history who introduced more people to the word "conservation" than Steve Irwin.
From News.com.au I learned: In 1996, Discovery Communications launched the first TV channel in the U.S. dedicated to animals. With Irwin as its first big star, Animal Planet spread to 237 million subscribers in 160 countries, in 24 languages.
And the NNDB cites 200 million viewers for The Crocodile Hunter in over 30 countries.
This blog has long stood for accountablity to the evidence.
There isn't any point is trying to parse CLO and Cornell. True you could take out the CLO and Cornell would still ride high above Lake Istapoga, er I mean Cayuga, Istapoga is the lake that Fitzcrow used to call home.
But if you took Cornell out of CLO, what would you have? What would it be? It would just be a dinky little woodlot with with a staff that spends a lot of time revising their mission statement.
No Cornell can't just be given a pass on this. Cornell itself has thoughtlessly given a proxy to "the lab" to use its credibility to make claims about the world. Cornell needs to be to one to recover this thoughtlessly given proxy. Cornell is either serious about its reputaion and intends to protect the institution of science.
If not it is all too real a possibility that a cornell degree will become a liability, not an asset.
...From the article... "His report and his book gave all us birders a little bit of hope. There is no harm done with it."
This story has always been primarily about hope. As long as there is fear and xenophobia we will continue to have bigfoot sightings. And as long as we have hope, we will continue to have ivory-bill sightings. CLO has always played to hope, starting with their first phone call to Science, which initiated a journey of childhood Manifest Destiny for its editor. How many major players in this story had childhood dreams of ivory-bills?
So forget the bigfoot analogies. This story is more like Stanford telling us they found unicorns living in the hills of Southern California. Who cares about the conservation implications? Worry more about impact on imaginations of nine year old girls with unicorn themed bedrooms.
This story won't come to it's maturity in the form of a retraction from Science. It will mature into something more like a children's afternoon special.... before the closing credits role a mother and daughter will embrace, "Mommy, will we ever know for sure?" "I don't know Ashleigh, but we can always hope!"
This story won't come to it's maturity in the form of a retraction from Science. It will mature into something more like a children's afternoon special.... before the closing credits role a mother and daughter will embrace, "Mommy, will we ever know for sure?" "I don't know Ashleigh, but we can always hope!"
I had been feeling constipated today until I read this. Thank you!
Marcus Benkarkis wrote...
"In memory of Steve Irwin; who did more to educate the world about crocodiles and venomous snakes and help conserve these reptiles then any of them good old boys at CLO..."
What a cruel thing to say, that CLO could not keep up with Steve Irwin in conserving reptiles like crocodiles and venomous snakes...my, my, my...
Thank you for missing my point.
One man, Steve Irwin, starting with his Dad's dinky reptile zoo in the middle of nowhere's ville Australia and without the ready made CLO respectibility and history, a PR media machine, TNC syncophants, Federal Government support, millionaire buddy donors, Audubon, et al; created in 14 years a conservation thought process and movement across the planet.
I am and was not comparing CLO's bird mission with somebody who actually did something productive.
Not only that, but Irwin was actually able to film the animals he sought.
Not only that, but Irwin was actually able to film the animals he sought.
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Funny people out there. Good one, again.
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