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11 comments:
Soggy Bill tries to have it both ways. He purported to show that the Luneau video had parts that were inconsistent with Pileated.
The problem is that anyone with a brain knows that it is a Pileated. Therefore, you would think that Bill would look at the flaws in his analysis rather than try to poke holes in Skeptics arguments.
Then he decries the fact that we put him in the TB camp. Well...which is it, Bill? Is the Luneau video a Pileated or an Ivory-bill? And if you can't say then you are in Fishcrow's camp.
This really isn't that hard.
Soggy Bill complains that he can't post comments. Then he refuses to take my comments on his blog. He especially hates it when he has to defend his rather poorly argued points. Then he gets mad and stops people from commenting.
He's a hypocrite.
Soggy Bill pretends to forget what the issue is. That way he can shift the burden of "proof" to the so-called "skeptics" (otherwise known as "normal people") to prove to mathematical certainty that the IBWO does not exist. His other game is to dismiss the extraordinarily more likely "alternatives" proposed by skeptics to explain the bogus "detections" as similarly "unproven."
Soggy Bill's rhetoric amounts to weak metaphysical sophistry and nothing more. It's not science. Sadly, Soggy Bill knows this (he's been told as much on numerous occasions) but he's too proud to admit it.
And Collinson gives Bill waaaayyyy too much credit.
Soggy Bill from the comments
Folks who still cling hopelessly to their black trailing edges and "we may have never documented it, but a pileated COULD fly that way if it wanted to!" arguments are just as sad to watch as people who still believe that double knocks and odd squeeks are definitive evidence.
I agree that wasting any time analyzing that worthless irrelevant video is "sad." But nothing is sadder than this:
I think there's only one more published paper to be squeezed from the Luneau vid. That's the formal presentation of the sort of image artifact and flight mechanics issues I've been babbling about for the last year or two (plus the inevitable rebuttal). If Cornell never get around to writing such a paper, us "amateurs" will just have to.
Why is that Bill? Because otherwise peddlers of "viable hope" like yourself will never shut up otherwise?
Try getting a grip, my friend. Life without living IBWOs is actually perfectly fine. You'd be surprised how easy it is to get up in the morning after you've let the fantasy die.
"Folks who still cling hopelessly to their black trailing edges and "we may have never documented it, but a pileated COULD fly that way if it wanted to!" arguments are just as sad to watch as people who still believe that double knocks and odd squeeks are definitive evidence"
Am I looking at the wrong video, here? The Luneau video I have looked at several hundred times for the last two years plus is UNQUESTIONABLY a Pileated. Several frames showing completely black upper wing, with white bases to the primaries, black trailing edge to the underwing. What's the question here? Somebody please get this foggy Bill fella to send me his video. It sounds interesting.
The basic problem with the TB's is that there's a disconnect between seeing a Pileated flying through the woods and what they see in the Luneau video. The TB's seem to be incapable of analyzing the difference between seeing a live Pileated with their own eyes versus what they see in an enhanced, blurry video clip. The TB's remain in denial on this point, even when confronted with other in-flight PIWO video that looks exactly like the Luneau bird.
Foggy Bill seems not to grasp that if the bird can't be identified with certainty due to artifacts it is by default a Pileated, even if we can't prove to his satisfaction that it is a Pileated. He should realize that it is difficult to make such a horrible video of a PIWO on purpose, just like it's hard for a trained singer to sing off pitch for an entire song. In his foggy world all blurry or otherwise unidentifiable bird photos sent to a rarities committee would be assumed to be a great rarity until proven to be the expected species after a reenactment or simulation was made that was blurry enough to be "identical" but still just barely identifiable as the common species.
In the case of any claimed rarity, and certainly in the case of any rediscovery, the burden of proof has and always will be entirely on the birder claiming the outrageous sighting, not on those who wish bird records to be properly documented and therefore express justified skepticism. There is no need to reenact or fully understand every detail of every photograph or video supporting an implausible sighting in order to reject it!
"if you can't say then you are in Fishcrow's camp"
It is fine to say that you can't say the identify the bird based solely on the video alone - the video is that bad - but of course its identity as a Pileated and not an IBWO should still be obvious based on other factors, above all the year of the sighting.
It is easy to repeatedly locate and properly document real Campephilus, as I know from first-hand experience, and until this occurs with an IBWO it will remain extinct in the USA as it has been since 1944. It was an insult to our intelligence for the IBWO rediscoverers to pretend that the video was credible evidence comparable to that supporting bird sightings accepted by credible records committees (definitely not including the Arkansas committee which truly disgraced itself).
Many of the TBs are hypocrites as time after time they fault skeptics for being mean but then say terrible things about us. Like many people they're nice only when you believe their nonsense.
Foggy Bill seems not to grasp that if the bird can't be identified with certainty due to artifacts it is by default a Pileated, even if we can't prove to his satisfaction that it is a Pileated.
Ath,
You're right, of course. I am just not in agreement that the bird cannot be conclusively ID'ed in the video. There are at least three series of wing cycles, maybe four, in which upperwing clearly shows ALL BLACK, except with white primary bases. This is quite discernable with some study, even with the extensive white bleed and low resolution. Sibley touched on this in his study, but he was a little too tactful and diplomatic in his explanation, IMNSHO.
definitely not including the Arkansas committee which truly disgraced itself
Amen to that. I have sat on records committees, and this record is a bad joke. I suspect that the Arkansas committee (minus one who actually displayed independent thought) simply took Cornell's word for it.
Hopefully the ABA committee will soon review the "evidence" and drive a stake through the heart of this truly atrocious video. If they review the record as documented today, I'd bet money ... BIG money ... that it is not accepted.
"I am just not in agreement that the bird cannot be conclusively ID'ed in the video."
For the record I fully agree with you that the bird can be conclusively IDed as Pileated. In my opinion the bird is conclusively a Pileated. My point was that a somewhat reasonable person might conclude that the video is by itself too poor to permit a conclusive Pileated ID, but even so the only possible ID is Pileated based other considerations, namely lack of credible evidence that IBWO persisted in the USA after 1944. I agree with Soggy Bill only that the video is very poor and that there are potential artifacts that can be variously misinterpreted by somewhat reasonable people, but I never in any way supported his attempts to support an IBWO ID. Note the "mis-" and the "somewhat" in the previous sentence. I never said that Soggy Bill's analysis was correct in any way. It does show that people can reach widely divergent conclusions when confronted with subpar evidence.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/2007/05/25/i-saw-the-ivory-billed-woodpecker/1879/#comment-804
Pandora closed the box, leaving hope inside. Regardless of the quality of the circumstantial evidence, there is nothing wrong with holding onto a hope that the bird may still exist. The endeavor to preserve a life form for posterity is a far more noble goal than to discourage those who seek to do so. We should encourage folks to try. Keep the hope alive.
He forgot to say "Amen."
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