John Arvin has a team of three paid biologists (along with assorted volunteers) to conduct the work between Nov. 1, 2006 and March 31, 2007.2. Researchers at Cornell are creating lie-detection software. Some details are here.
3. A blog post by Leland Rucker is here. An excerpt:
I read Gallagher and Jackson's books with great enthusiasm in the spring of 2006, but since then, the lack of evidence beyond murky recordings of woodland sounds and tales of cameras that wouldn't work has cooled any fervor about rediscovery I might have had. The paucity of real evidence is overwhelmingly against the bird’s rediscovery.
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5 comments:
From Rucker's blog:
Can Hicks have seen an extinct bird more than 20 times?
Is this true? Does he really claim that many sightings (plus a Cougar)? If so, it's time to buy him a tin foil hat.
"Researchers at Cornell are creating lie-detection software"
Will the software detect self-delusion and mass hysteria?
Funny comment by emupilot on BirdForum...
Although the skeptical view gets harder to maintain with each good sighting, at some point there will be a need for "scientific proof" to keep the ball moving forward on conservation of the species.
"Each good sighting?" I think most of us are still waiting for ONE good sighting. I guess in TB-land, 2 second (or less) views often by inexperience observers and multiple missing field marks are "good sightings."
Here's an excellent lesson for Cornell posted by Jane Turner on BirdForum. What a great example of photographic effect, and the picture is vastly better than any 10 frames of the Luneau video!
Also check out the hilarious comments by Fishcrow posted 1 April (how droll) on
http://fishcrow.com/winter07.html
and on ID Frontiers (which I copy down below). Poor guy, no one seems to want to listen to the man with all the data! He doesn't seem to get the fact that no one listens to him is because he's a &^%%$ LOONIE!
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Many birders have had problems understanding the
"through the gap" sequence of the Pearl video. This is
understandable since the video is blurry, the entire
bird is never visible, and it is presented as a series
of still frames. Michael DiGiorgio's artwork has
helped some to understand the video, but others are
still puzzled. I have now produced a short movie that
flashes back and forth between the first frame and the
artwork as an overlay. A birder who had been confused
has already let me know that this made it perfectly
clear to him. I have also added an analysis of the
aspect ratio of the right wing. These updates are
posted here...
http://www.fishcrow.com/winter06.html
Although no replies have been posted, there have been
about a thousand more hits to the above web page than
usual during the past several days. So it appears that
there is great interest in the ivorybill but equally
great fear in discussing it. As a scientist, I learned
long ago that progress and learning are stifled when
one avoids discussion for fear of making a mistake. I
have made many of them and am not ashamed to admit it.
Jeff Bouton made a mistake the other day about a hawk.
So what?
Mike Collins
Pearl River
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