The message seems to be that skeptics prevented enough searching in the past, and now they're causing too much searching.
2. Ken Rosenberg resurfaces here.
An excerpt:
A second keynote address, which is free and open to the public, will be presented Friday at 7:30 p.m. by Kenneth Rosenberg, director of conservation science at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Rosenberg will speak on "Saving an Ecosystem through Endangered Species Recovery: Conservation of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker."3. A giant squid and an Ivory-bill are featured on a poster here.
4. Yet another blogger expresses some doubt here:
I noticed this on Google Maps while searching for signs of the allegedly rediscovered Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
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7 comments:
Hey Cyberthrush,
Here's a few things for you to consider:
You don't need massively funded
searches to verify the existence of a bird. You know that if you are a birder.
You don't need to search every acre of habit to know if a bird exists in an area. (Ivory-bills travel widely, isn't that what you believers always tell us in your list of excuses?)
Despite the most extensive, expensive search in the history of birding, no one has been able to conclusively photograph this bird. You can CLAIM to see a bird that doesn't exist, but you cannot PHOTOGRAPH a bird that doesn't exist.
Contrary to what you want people to believe, there has been a great deal of effort put into searching for this bird in the last 60 years. It is impossible to search hard enough to conclusively document the existence of extinct birds.
You can't squeeze blood out of a stone.
Hope isn't fact.
At the end of this search season there will be no conclusive evidence. There will be the usual photos of Pileated scaling, likely some more fuzzy Pileated photos; thrilling recordings of other searcher's recordings, gunshots, nuthatches, etc.; more reports of brief glimpses, likely a report or two of a "good" yet sadly unverifiable report from a true believer. But nothing conclusive.
Hill won't get any photos because the birds aren't there.
The robot cameras won't get any photos because the birds aren't there.
The scores of automatic cameras set up at "interesting" scaling and roost holes will get lots of great Pileated photos. But no Ivory-bill photos.
Fishcrow won't get any photos because the birds aren't there.
Fangsheath's thrilling hints will come to naught, because the bird isn't there.
choupique1's predictions won't amount to a hill of beans, because he's full of beans.
Cornell team members won't find their proof no matter how many books they write, fund raisers they organize, or how many ultralights, automatic cameras, ghillie suits, wooden models or kayaks they employ, because the bird is long since extinct.
MMinNY said... The issue with regard to more recent searches is whether the emphasis on procuring a photo above anything else (for which the climate of skepticism is largely responsible) and the methods used in searching have been counterproductive.
"Emphasis on procuring a photo"? As compared to what?
Skeptics think the emphasis should be on proving the bird exists and, if the researchers can do that, determining population. The true believers want to skip that first very important step and pretty much the second step too. They want to take hypotheses (big holes, scaling, non-matching sonograms), call them fact, skip the real work to turn them into theories, and jump right to conclusions.
Sorry, but that's not real science. That's as "faith based" as Intelligent Design.
A2 said "Skeptics think the emphasis should be on proving the bird exists and, if the researchers can do that, determining population. The true believers want to skip that first very important step and pretty much the second step too. They want to take hypotheses (big holes, scaling, non-matching sonograms), call them fact, skip the real work to turn them into theories, and jump right to conclusions.
Not true at all. The VAST majority of true believers recognize the extreme importance of getting the "million dollar photo/video". If you are reading the Auburn updates, its obvious nothing else will do. A few believers on the "outside edge" may not feel absolute photographic proof is essential, but they are VERY much in the minority. To the believer and skeptic alike, ONLY irrefutable photographic evidence is acceptable.
Its just that the believers are more patient, and are actually out there trying to get the proof. Strangely, this seems to cause derision by certain segments of the birding population...
To the believer and skeptic alike, ONLY irrefutable photographic evidence is acceptable.
Not when this all started. In 2005 skeptics were largely branded as fringe element "loonies" for not accepting Cornell's "irrefutable evidence." It is only because of the loudly outspoken skepticism, of which this blog has played a large part, that believers have had to retreat from "proven" to "we hope to prove."
Its just that the believers are more patient, and are actually out there trying to get the proof. Strangely, this seems to cause derision by certain segments of the birding population...
That's the problem though, isn't it? Believers are not trying to learn the truth, they're trying to prove the bird exists.
It's not that Believers are just more patient, it's that they're just more gullible. People haven't been looking for proof since Cornell's paper, they have been looking since the 40's. Patience? Sorry. Time's up.
"Its just that the believers are more patient, and are actually out there trying to get the proof. Strangely, this seems to cause derision by certain segments of the birding population..."
Patient people who are actually out there patiently waiting for a photo receive no derision since no one has heard of them yet. People who publish or post bad video and photos, "interesting" holes and scaling, and are excited by noises they have "never heard before" - while trying to profit from these things through grants, books, speeches, etc. - are the ones receiving and worthy of derision.
If as the Anon above implies, there are patient people who are out trying to obtain real proof they should be very upset at the impatient - but media and funding savvy - people and organizations that have fouled the IBWO waters.
Has anyone heard what Rosenbro has to say when members of his Wings tours and other tour leaders crack Ivory-billed Woodpecker jokes?
While it's impossible to respect Rosencrow, one can feel a bit sorry for him and Rohrcrow, as their job security must be dependent upon playing along with Fitzcrow.
Its just that the believers are more patient, and are actually out there trying to get the proof. Strangely, this seems to cause derision by certain segments of the birding population...
Anonymous 11:52 AM has summed it up nicely. Hill was given a fairly big pass at first, but when the details of his evidence started to come out, skeptics were stunned that he obviously hadn't learned the lessons that he should have by watching the Cornell debacle.
Hill no longer gets a pass. He's made too many positive statements on junk evidence (most of the sightings are total crap, the rest are potentially crap, the calls don't match IBWO so are crap until proven otherwise, the knocks are crap, the holes are crap, the scaling is crap, and he should be mocked relentlessly for his statements on bark adhesion which never made it past being a hypothesis). He even published a junk paper on it. Now he's written a book. This helps keep his funding rolling.
Hill crossed the line from "I don't have proof" to "I don't have enough proof to convince everybody". There's a big difference between those two positions.
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