-- Right and Wrrrong --

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Just 'nother a little thought exercise, while biding time:

S'pose enough searchers cover enough areas over the next two years, without positive results, to convince a majority of 'believers' that Ivory-bills are truly extinct. Still, no one would know exactly when the last bird died. Was John Terres wrong with his sighting in the 50's; Dennis wrong in the 60's; Lowery wrong in the 70's; Kulivan wrong in 1999? Not to mention dozens of other names along the way. When exactly did the last of the species perish making all believers wrong? (does anyone seriously believe they were all gone in the 40's???). We can never know; the final passing of a species is almost never precisely known.

But what if even a single living Ivory-bill is documented in those next two years -- then one thing IS for certain: the extinction-proponents of the 40s, of the 50s, of the 60s, of the 70s, of the 80s, of the 90s, of today, were ALL WRONG; insidiously WRONG... impatient, simplistic, and humiliatingly WRONG.
It's conceivable we might never know the truth of the Arkansas sightings, nor ever know when the last Ivory-billed Woodpecker died, and thusly never know at just what point-in-time skeptics got it right and believers wrong -- that is one possible scenario. B-u-u-u-t... the other simpler, more conclusive scenario is that in time we will find a bird (it only takes one) and then we WILL know, with absolute certainty, that the Ivory-bills-are-extinct, follow-the-leader crowd, every one of 'em, were undeniably NOT RIGHT. Time remains on our (believers') side, and as indicated before it's almost an unfair fight: in the near-term, skeptics can't be proved right, and believers can't be proved wrong; only the reverse has any likelihood of transpiring.
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