...The team was on site for 18 days and managed to fly on only 7. They accumulated a total of 20.5 hours in the air; gathered almost 80 hours of video using the four helmet mounted cameras, and flew many transects. They saw a variety of birds including Pileated woodpeckers - but unfortunately, no Ivory-billed woodpeckers.
Our assistance in the search for the elusive Ivory-billed woodpecker was funded by a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. We were to be on site for three weeks, divided between Louisiana and Arkansas . However, the weather looked so dismal the end of this past week, we are cut the search short a few days and the crew headed home.
There are a lot of people who have dedicated years to the search for this reclusive bird, and although we are disappointed, it would be unrealistic to think we could find it in just 20 hours. The prime search season is when the leaves are off the trees, so maybe we will have a chance next year.
You know, Tom, this whole "what is science" thing is interesting to me.
...
I'd really like to know what the path was from Fitz's "cryptic" email to Kennedy up to the time of "publication"? The reason I'm so curious is because the Cornell video interpretation on which much of the paper rests is obviously so wrong - most glaringly the interpretation of 33.3 (and all that flows from it).
The reason for my emphasis on this is that Simon and Luneau are satisfied in saying, "look we have this article in Science" ...so Jerome Jackson's "opinion" is just some form of skeptical heresy ... if Jerome Jackson wants to talk to us, he should write a peer-reviewed article. Gallagher talks about "raising the bar" in his interview. Raising the bar?
But what does that mean? ... what did it mean for Science to "peer review" the paper in the first place? What were the "peer" reviewers thinking? How did they conduct their review ... what was their feedback? Did they suggest any changes? Were there drafts and revisions? Was there a discussion of "what constitutes proof"?
My concern is that because the discovery team's (Fitz et al.) credentials are impeccable - peer review meant reviewing the "credentials" of the authors (who were at the time they went to Science in the late stages of some "big dealings" TNC style. The senior editor at Science "got back to him in a NY minute" and relayed his blessings in hebrew "blessed are those who raise the dead"?
Lets not fault Cornell for ACTING on their belief. If I was these guys and I thought I had an IBWO I'd put the call into TNC HQ for the revolving loan too ... as much as Fitzpatrick is a "scientist" he is a power player conservationist - one who believes that the goal of bird study is to preserve and protect birds and their habitat. His involvement as a board member in numerous conservation groups speaks to this. He is a man who leverages his knowledge and connections with power into ACTION - and he should not be knocked for doing this. However the idea of science (small s) should not be tossed out in pursuit of the objective of these greater goods (conservation). The journal Science is not a conservation organization, it is in many ways a gatekeeper of a very important idea upon which the western world and enlightenment priciples rest - scientific objectivity.
Science's failure in this regard is the bigger issue, NOT Cornell's action or (flawed evidence). It is too easy for people to say "well the ends justify the means" ... which I hear in the form of "well it is good that we are conserving big old trees".
Science, must not be used as a tool for "ends" no matter how good those ends and we must learn EXACTLY who the peer reviewer are and what they did to review the paper. How did it happen that Science Magazine (and the peers) did not look at the video as you and I did and say ... whoa, that sketch doesn't look like frame 33.3 ... ??
I think we need to create a condition where the "believers" can believe (and keep looking) but can not do so with the satisfaction of saying, "look Science has published this ... we have met the burden of proof demanded of us by science". There is no reason Cornell should not ACT on their belief... but they should not hijack objectivity in the process or tell others that "this is canonized" upon publication in the prestigious journal Science.
Contrary to what Gallagher seems to be saying in his interview, the goal posts aren't moving here,and Gallagher isn't a "dudes or a stringer" he believes what he believes - and is sure that he saw what he saw ... and TNC can buy what they can buy and convince USFWS and the other powers in government that this should be a priority (they have that power) ... but science must insist on objective proof and be clear on what constitutes proof...
The focus of the demand for proof should fall, not on Cornell, but on the journal Science ... which has erred and failed to do a job that is vital.
Some, like Lonoke mayoral candidate Roy Henderson, say they’ve seen the great bird on more than one occasion while fishing in the spring-flooded bayou between the Cache and the White rivers south of Hwy. 70. Perhaps it’s only been the pileated woodpecker he’s seen but even that counts among the great sightings for some of us.
The latest issue of Audubon appeared in my stack of
mail sometime in the last couple of days, and I was
interested to find an ad from Arkansas.com on p. 5.
What strikes me particularly is the image of the
birder in a canoe 'neath ancient cypress trees--and
the fact that the species sought is, conspicuously,
not 'the' woodpecker but rather Red-headed. Unusually
cautious, it seems to me, for a state that had
promised itself so much out of the 'rediscovery'. I
suspect that the official backpedaling has begun down
there.
Since the publication of Jerome Jackson's article in January, skepticism has been spreading down from the top. When the subject comes up at bird club meetings, the most respected birders are dismissing the Arkansas Ivorybill as a mistake or a hoax. When others see the leading birders in agreement, the conversation turns from how to see an Ivorybill to what can be done to set the record straight. The same thing will be happening at rare bird stakeouts and on pelagic trips. What must have seemed like a brilliant coup for the Cornell Lab is rapidly turning into a nightmare...
...
The chances of encountering an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the vicinity of the 2004 sightings would be minuscule even if it actually existed. Moreover, birders have always been much more skeptical of the Arkansas Ivorybill claim than Science magazine or the mainstream media. They know that dudes and stringers "see" Ivorybills regularly throughout the U.S., and that the media made similar claims about the obviously bogus "sightings" in the Pearl River area of Southeastern Louisiana. If some established expert birder were to report seeing an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, twitchers around the world would be checking airline schedules to Little Rock. But expert birders never see Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. [Non-birders reading this need to understand that birding expertise bears no relation to academic accomplishments, publications, or professional appointments. One doesn't become a great birder by taking classes, passing exams, or writing books and articles. Some of the world's finest birders never took a course in biology and certainly would not put up with the mind-numbing drudgery and anti-scientific political correctness prevalent in modern academia.]
...But I think it's about more than the bird. My hope is that if the ivory-bill does exist, we can generate new awareness of what these swamp forests are and were.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents the state’s major environmental groups, said in its comments that the bridge could affect habitat for the ivory-billed woodpecker. The bird once was thought to be extinct but since has been rediscovered in Arkansas.
...Slugging along on the forest floor, dealing with deadfalls, mud, wild pigs and cotton mouths would test the endurance of even seasoned birders. To catch sight of a bird with such a reclusive nature, maximum stealth would be required in an environment not conducive to quiet travel.I think it's very likely that even this "perfect observation platform" will never lead to definitive Ivory-bill proof from Arkansas.
Four aircraft flying low and slow over the forest canopy when the leaves are off the trees, offers a birds eye view of this isolated habitat and if the weather would cooperate it would be the perfect observation platform.
You are providing peer review in the disruptive age of the internet (ie you do so without anyone's permission) - personally, I've looked at the "evidence" and I agree with your interpretation of the evidence. This only makes me a skeptic relative to the accuracy of statements of Fitzpatrick et al.
I've been wondering about the implications of this story for the journal Science since I've been hearing rumors that that there is a rebuttal article forthcoming in Science. Unlike a journal like the Auk - that can subject a submission to a review process that can go on for a long time - I've been told that Science makes a "go no go" decision quickly.
I had not noticed this interesting essay by the editor of Science until now and I certainly think it is noteworthy.
I am curious if Science has disclosed what kind of "peer review" the Fitzpatrick story underwent? I have not heard such information. Who were the peer reviewers? The tone of the editor's writing makes it seem like he was "tapped" to "participate" in an event which had already been decided, as much as he was there to pass judgment on a controversial and extraordinary claim. In a way all the "peers" arrived at the journal's door and in unison said, "we concur". This is not peer review.
I also feel a bit uneasy about the quotes in the Arkansas Times article concerning "peer review".
Let's be clear--if anyone is a "peer" who has standing to "review" the findings in the Fitzpatrick et al. paper that Science published, it is Jerome Jackson. He is the definition of "peer" in this case. He isn't some guy in MN with a blog ... for Luneau to dismiss Jackson's comments as "not peer reviewed" ... and for Simon to tell Jackson to "write a science article" rises to the level of contempt for the idea of peer review in the first place. When Jackson says "I think the bird in the video is a pileated for the following reasons", that is peer review.
Peer review is not the "circle" of people who are "brought in early" to "work" this amazing discovery.
In any objective use of the word peer, the man who wrote the IBWP entry in BNA gets to wear the title "peer" ...
[Volunteer searcher Marian] Lichtler said she did film a pileated woodpecker, which is a large woodpecker that looks similar to the ivory-billed variety.
She said Cornell researchers are interested in any images of those woodpeckers, too.
Because of the terms of her volunteer tenure, Lichtler said she couldn't expand on that point.
Connie Bruce, a Cornell spokeswoman, said the policy is intended to make sure the information published about the search is accurate.
During the initial search in 2004-2005 that led to the announcement, volunteers were sworn to secrecy that there was even a search for the ivory-billed woodpecker under way.
However, one of key issues skeptics have cited is the possibility that the ivory-billed report could be a pileated woodpecker with aberrant plumage.
Jerome Jackson, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University and a leading expert on ivory-billed woodpeckers, raised that possibility in a piece in the latest issue of The Auk, a journal published by the American Ornithologists Union.
Well, I'm going out on a limb (no pun intended) that Cornell will offer; 1) a public apology for poor science, and 2) admit to "jumping the gun" within the next 3 weeks.Among people who are paying attention, sentiment has very clearly changed. My inbox is just one small indicator--the volume of "hate mail" has drastically declined, and I'm now getting many more emails that are highly critical of Cornell's science.
A population of leucistic and partially leucistic Pileateds, "group think", and a fellow that REALLY wanted aberrant Pileateds to be Ivory Bills (to go with his childhood wish of discovering a relict population of same) provided the impetus for this great Snipe hunt.
...
This is amazingly bad science. The rationalization and justifications make these "objective" scientists sound like religious zealots. I'll bet you that we haven't see ALL the photos. This is some sort of magical quest.
The Luneau 2006 photo (just below the mostly leucistic Pileated) would fool darn near anyone. Did he take just one photo? I doubt it. I'm, (how do they say it at Cornell?) 99% sure that is a photo of "Elvis."
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