Knock Knock. Who's There?

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Ivory-billed woodpecker.

Those first three sentences of a New York Times editorial in early August puckishly summarize the resolution — for now — of a scientific dispute about the ivory-billed woodpecker. It seems the bird may exist after all.

The furor over the woodpecker, gone missing the past 50 years and more, started April 28. Scientists from Cornell University and the Nature Conservancy published a paper on Science Express, an online version of Science magazine that permits fast-track publication of new scientific findings. The paper alleged that the ivory-billed woodpecker, aka the Lord God bird or Campephilus principalis, was alive somewhere in Arkansas.

But a 4-second-long video of the supposed woodpecker was too little evidence for some scientists. Among the doubters: a Yale distinguished professor, Rick Prum, and a University of Kansas Natural History Museum ornithologist, Mark Robbins.

Movie buffs who have seen the 1960s film Blowup would instantly grasp the problem posed by the 4-second-video. In Blowup, the hero examines a photo he's taken and wondering whether he sees a body in it. He blows the photo up again and again trying to decode it: Is it, or isn't it, a body? That's what the 4-second video is like to the vast majority of us whose knowledge of birds is limited to the body shape of pigeons or a bluejay's squawk. If you're no birder, you'll look at the video and go, What the heck was that?

So Robbins, Prum and a couple of others had begun to build a case against the idea that the bird in the video is an ivory bill. Their argument was close to publication in a scientific journal when, on the last day of July, they received a recording from the Cornell group. Its contents: a hitherto unreleased sound recording that led them to withdraw their paper. The news account that's part of this special web site, designed to provide background and broader context for the story, provides the details.

The existence of the ivory-billed woodpecker won't be debated here. It appears the sound recording will not be the end of things. But no matter what happens, this story, like a flare shot into the night sky, brings our attention to many related stories. We hope that Kansas educators will use them to launch classroom discussions about how science works and how scientists think, about how journalists and the public understand and respond to science and about other matters.

Besides the news account referred to above, this site provides links to various articles related to the controversy, all of which have appeared since April 28.

We add depth and background to the controversy through a series of essays written by University of Kansas faculty and staff.

• Teresa MacDonald raises questions about the meaning of "extinction" at a time when cloning seems to make it possible to bring species back from the dead.
• Rick Musser talks about the qualities that made the story of the ivory-billed woodpecker a natural focus of pack journalism.
• Thor Holmes describes the physical equipment a bird needs to make a living smashing its face into trees, along with other interesting facts about woodpecker design.
• Phil Wedge talks about the pleasures of birding.
• Richard Schowen talks about the intuitive leap that's the launch pad for most scientific investigations.
• Rex Buchanan recommends a volume on extinct birds.
• Roger Martin comments on the guidelines scientists use to change their minds.

Happy birding.

Roger Martin
Publications & Features Editor
KU Center for Research

Contact Martin at rmartin@ku.edu.