ivory-billed woodpecker flap - why?

My last post on IBWO for a bit (I think)...

Since the announcement that the challenge to the IBWO video has been withdrawn due to new acoustical evidence being shared with the challengers, some birders have felt happily vindicated, others don't think the audio evidence is or should be considered any more convincing than the video, and still others feel a little jerked around or disgusted.  It's a pretty strange situation, because the process of science and the world of academia, warts and all, is being displayed to the public in a way and over an event that is nearly unprecedented. 

People are struggling to understand why or how this situation evolved.  Why did the identification have to be challenged at all?  Why didn't the challengers get to look at better material than what was available online?  Why didn't Cornell just produce the audio evidence sooner?  My take below the fold.

First question answered here -- this is how science works.

Next, why didn't Prum et al. have access to the original, full-length video and its various permutations used by Cornell in their Science paper?  I noted here before that I've heard a couple versions, which boil down to one side saying Cornell wouldn't release it, and Cornell saying they were unable to provide it in time.  I think perhaps the answer is somewhere in the middle.

The video is always referred to as "the Luneau video," including in the Science paper. To the best of my knowledge, continuously-running video cams on the canoes/kayaks were not provided to searchers by Cornell, and Luneau's video outfit may very well have been his own.  Now Luneau is selling a 9-minute DVD of the video on his website; this is the only place it is available and it is under his copyright, not Cornell's.  I don't know what type of agreement searchers had with Cornell regarding evidence they may have obtained, and I'm not a copyright expert, but it seems likely that the video may not have been Cornell's to release to the public or other scientists at the time their paper was being challenged, at least until details had been worked out.  This jibes with one version I heard: that the video couldn't be provided until it was available for sale to the public.  And here we are, it is available, but from Luneau and not Cornell.

As for why Cornell didn't offer the audio sooner: at first they didn't have it.  Many hours had to be analyzed and compiled. The usual procedure in research is to get all your materials together, then perhaps present them at a professional meeting (as Cornell will be doing in a few weeks), and then publish them. Every peer-reviewed journal I know of prohibits prior publication of research that they have accepted, and this often includes putting material on a web site, etc.; I imagine it varies among journals.  Most scientific research is pretty closely guarded.  I think it is very unusual, in fact, that Cornell would have gone ahead and offered audio evidence prior to presentation to anybody. This, I think, speaks to the strangeness of this situation.

Nuff said for now.

Comments

[Tom Nelson]

I've written a blog entry called "IBWO: It may be extinct".

If you're interested, please take a look here:

http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2005/08/ibwo-it-may-be-extinct.html