...Between the listening stations and video recorder sound captures, our goal was to accrue so much sound evidence in our small study area that it could not be dismissed. Without a video, we would not be able to call our results "definitive", "irrefutable", or "proof", but we could at least rise to the level of "compelling" or "highly suggestive" and justify getting enough grant money to conduct a follow-up search. Dan's sound lab was absolutely key to this plan, and I was extremely encouraged by what his group was compiling.I'm sure that equally "compelling" sound evidence could also be gathered at countless locations in the northern United States.
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“I'm sure that equally "compelling" sound evidence could also be gathered at countless locations in the northern United States.”
I’m not so sure. But while we wait for that to be demonstrated to be more than an article of faith, it’s clear that Team Panhandle’s body of evidence is gaining strength. Last year the two sound types they attributed to IBWO were both best attributed to highly mobile diurnal animals.
From what is being posted this year it would appear that:
1) Both sounds are still being detected, and continue to be consistent with diurnal animals.
2) To the extent that the sound collection is different this year... distinct localities of detection density…that difference is itself consistent with mobile diurnal animals.
3) Human and automated detections are continuing to corroborate one another by concentrating in the same localities.
4) Both sound types are continuing to corroborate one another by concentrating in the same localities. Thus, more so than last year, there is a suggestion that the two sound types are related to one another.
And in the meantime:
A) The team has operated under a high level of transparency, demonstrating a commitment to communication with peers, and recently gaining the support visiting career ornithologists who have been persuaded by their own encounters with sounds in the field.
B) No alternative explanation to the audio evidence has gained prominence among the numerous explanations proposed, and many proposed alternate explanations now seem improbable.
C) And of course… No evidence has been produced demonstrating that similar sounds can be recorded elsewhere.
pd
I HEARD and saw blue jays giving kent calls in the Choctawhatchee. I did not tape them, so they can't be compared to the known IBWO kent calls. But, I believe that most (if not all) kent calls heard in the Choctawhatchee are these blue jays. I can't answer the question about the double knocks heard and recorded.
With such a large body of evidence on both double-knocks and kents, I was hoping for a coefficient of correlation in the GPS coordinates, so that with a sufficiently large sample size, one could determine degrees of probability. Blue Jays in the north have crushed my trust in kent calls alone. The jays I heard last May in upstate NY never deviated from IBWO-like kents, uttered loudly...
Never interspersed a "Jaaayyyeh" or a "queedle" call. They were "all kents, all the time".
Haven't heard such a thing since that day. But if you got the double-knocks and kents together
GPS-wise with a 95% or greater degree of probability, assuming purely natural causes, that *might* be something. Yet if you had this already in '06, why would you think a flushed IBWO would totally lose general site affinity?
You've got a map, you've got stick pins in your map, you've got the command center.
So if a D-knock and a kent occupy the same space-time points, or at least occur in the same day, same grid square, you should be able to build some kind of statistical model. That either passes or fails the probability test.
Then you could conversely state that both noises are man-made or machine made, and so you'll want to factor in such variables as
distance from the nearest trail, parking lot... just a sanity check.
And finally, of course, one needs controls that say, both sounds mostly occur together and when present, are mostly together, and when one is absent, the other is (mostly) too. Just to build your case, or not.
This kind of data would get my attention, right now I'm trying not to decide anything.
Paul in Upstate NY
Pd, you've now officially become delusional.
I think you are our perfect example of groupthink. At one time you wanted us to debate these stupid sounds, we did, then you were attacked on here for your ideas.
Thusly, you became emotionally attached to your arguments. And now you have entered La-La land.
You are a perfect example of the "Fishcrow effect".
Attention Pdcrow! Where have you been? The sounds have been debunked.
Since the calls don't match up with known IBWO, saying that it could be from IBWO is really just a hypothesis at this point. It doesn't matter how many times they are recorded. Add in the fact that they don't have a similarly studied control site, and it certainly doesn't speak well of their "science".
I'm no ornithologist, but over the years it seem to me that this field is prone to this type of bad science; quick conclusions on light data with no controls. Some split and lump decisions were made on decidedly light data.
On the flip side, I saw a presentation on Carolina and Black-capped Chickadee hybrids. They did work in 3 sites; one with pure Carolinas, one with pure Black-cappeds, and one in the hybrid zone. This gave them controls to test their hybrid data against. It seems to me that this is the way science should be done.
"Both sounds are still being detected, and continue to be consistent with diurnal animals"
If you only analyze daytime sounds its not too surprising that sounds cluster in the daytime!
It's quite a leap from "diurnal animal" to IBWO! At least we're fairly confident in the Animalia ID this time, as opposed to the AR branch stub bird from the "fully consistent with ivory-billed" Luneau video
"many proposed alternate explanations now seem improbable"
But not as improbable as presence of both unphotographable IBWO and undocumentable Florida Panther in north Florida. If panthers were really there shouldn't it be possible to document tracks at very least?
"you should be able to build some kind of statistical model'"
or perhaps a flat-winged wooden model? Haven't we had enough of gratuitous irrelevant models and pseudostatistics? Either the IBWO exists or it doesn't. It either has been found or it hasn't. The rediscoverers are either fools or heroes. The IBWO is either 100% extinct or 100% extant. Probability calculations are irrelevant.
"Some split and lump decisions were made on decidedly light data"
Like the never-ending Thayer's/Iceland Gull fiasco.
tybayI'm sure that equally "compelling" sound evidence could also be gathered at countless locations in the northern United States.
Then go do it. Your "certainty" isn't worth a hill of beans scientifically (nothing personal). As you frequently point out yourself science works on data not personal conviction. Go get some data rather than relying on suppositions about bicycle brakes and then more people will listen to you. Until then it is all conjecture.
I don't know what they have been recording, but I have seen even less hard data supporting the blue jay deer bleat and bicycle hypotheses than the IBWO theory. Just a lot of suggestions and opinions.
Any conservationist/environmentalist such as Pd who suggests that a model will prove the existence of the IBWO has never confronted Corp of Engineer wetland modeling.
What a farce, Pd. Have you gone completely brain dead?
Do you know how to keep an Ivory-bill believer in suspense?
I'll tell you after this search season.
at least rise to the level of "compelling" or "highly suggestive" and justify getting enough grant money..
Most IBWO "evidence" is "highly suggestive" and what it suggests is that people will use most anything to get more grant money. For how long will these people use this species as leverage in their greed-driven personal agendas?
63 days left until May 31 and Hillcrow must put up or shut up.
Without a video, we would not be able to call our results "definitive", "irrefutable", or "proof", but we could at least rise to the level of "compelling" or "highly suggestive" and justify getting enough grant money to conduct a follow-up search.
Wow. It's breathtaking that Hill laid it out there so plainly. If he was so convinced the birds were in the area, why would he jump to the conclusion that he probably wouldn't be getting video?
Doesn't this passage make it clear that Hill had a pre-set strategy to make pronouncements about "compelling" and "highly suggestive" noises if that's what it would take to keep the dollar-nozzle open?
Yuck.
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