birding-aus

John Young and his Parrots

To: <>
Subject: John Young and his Parrots
From: "Jeff Davies" <>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:24:29 +1100
 
Tony, you seem to have missed the point of what Andrew Stafford and I are
making. John Young has released the photograph publicly and after scrutiny
by the leading expert in Australia on photo forgery it was found to have
problems. John Young was asked to present the raw file so this could be
sorted out and he hasn't responded. Why are you shocked and dissapointed
that we are responding logically to something John innitiated by going
public with this photo in the first place. The image that appeared in the
Courier Mail was high resolution so we are not just passing judgment over
the low res. image posted on his website. There is no "benefit of the doubt"
to give, because the photo is out there and he needs to explain away the
problems that have been found. There is nothing for John to say "sorry
folks, my mistake" about if this goes the wrong way for him, because, well
do I really have to spell it out to you. We are only "badgering him to
release other material if it helps explain something that is already in the
public domain. This "conjecture" has arrisen by John presenting a
photo(evidence)for what is essentialy a scientific claim. All scientific
claims must be subject to peer group scrutiny with all data available for
review. 

Cheers Jeff

 
-----Original Message-----
From: 
 On Behalf Of Tony Russell
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 10:14 AM
To: Birds
Subject: John Young and his Parrots


I have just re-read the report of John's findings on his website "John Young
Wildlife Enterprises" to refresh my mind as to what all the current fuss is
about. I have also reviewed most of the  tittle tattle as to John's
credibility currently being bandied about on this net.

I must say I find myself shocked and disappointed that there seem to be some
among us so determined to tarnish the name of such a highly regarded
naturalist without anything to go on other than the fact that he is playing
things close to his chest and hasn't yet revealed the full details or
evidence ( presuming he has some) of his reported find(s).
Is this suspicion born of envy or yet another example of how we in Oz just
like to tear down tall poppies?  
Hey, let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt until he deems it
appropriate to either tell us more or pull his head in and say sorry folks,
my mistake. Let's stop being so impatient. Even if he backs down we
shouldn't lose our respect for him.
My bet is that he's either sitting at home feeling sorry and embarrassed at
having made a mistake and wondering how he can rescue the situation, or he
knows he's on safe ground and laughing his head off at all the petty
nitpicking. 
I don't believe that any amount of badgering is going to get him to disclose
anything further in public until he is good and ready, so instead of
insisting that he "put up or shut up" why don't we just shut up ourselves
and wait for his next revelation, whichever way it goes.
Don't we owe him enough respect and patience for that? If he is indeed on to
something good I'm sure we'll hear about it eventually.
Until he does tell us more all the positive or negative conjecture in the
world isn't doing any good for anyone, not even those who like the sound of
their own voices, but least of all for the reputation of Australian birders
in the rest of the world.

Tony.

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