— End of Year and An Offbeat Recommendation —

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Suspect I may post again before end of year, but in case not, will take this opportunity to wish all a happy holiday season and new year... after what has been one of the wackiest years yet! with hyperbolic claims and avian Rorschach tests, inadequate to convince skeptics, continuing to ardently spring forth. I do hope USFWS will make a 'final' decision early next year (in either direction) and we can quit arguing over that Agency and just focus on searches.

Finally, a bit of an odd recommendation today. I suggested some books in the last post and will mention one more, though not pertaining directly to the IBWO. One of my loves is mathematics, and one favorite (but lesser-known) math expositor is Jason Rosenhouse (have enjoyed most of his books, and a blog he long ago wrote). Just recently read his 2020 volume, “Games For Your Mind,” all about logic, puzzles, and math philosophy. If you have an inherent interest, and some background, in these topics, which can be dry and tedious but which Rosenhouse treats well, I highly recommend this volume (will help if you already have some familiarity with the names/work of Lewis Carroll, Raymond Smullyan, Alfred Tarski, Bertrand Russell, Gödel, etc.).

Why do I even venture to mention such a book in the context of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker? Because I think actual strict, tight “logic” is often sorely missing in the debate over the IBWO, on the part of both skeptics and believers alike. Chris Haney touches on logic, writing a lot about thought “fallacies” in his book “Woody’s Last Laugh” though that is not the more formal, academic logic that Rosenhouse is addressing (and Rosenhouse touches on both "classical" and "non-classical" or "fuzzy" logic).

Again, this work won’t grab you if you don’t already have an interest in the area, but for those with some (mathematical) background I think this is the best, most accessible treatment of some difficult and rigorous ideas I have seen, and I wish this subject, which can be made fun by its connection to recreational math, was taught more widely and earlier-on in our educational system. To be clear, you will NOT read this book and think at any point, 'oh wow, THAT applies to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker!' but rather simply it may instill a greater appreciation of precise, critical, deductive thinking in general, in place of inductive assumptions and generalizations (...or, contrarily, it may turn you off entirely to the subject of academic/philosophical logic!).

With all that said, and despite the emphasis on 'logic,' I expect the final resolution of the Ivory-bill debate may well also involve a major dose of intuition!

In any event, onward to 2023....

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