On Thursday I predicted that pundits would make the rediscovery of the Ivory-billed woodpecker an opportunity to criticise predictions that humans are causing mass extinctions--while conveniently ignoring evidence that goes against their claims. Today I came across the first case I know of, which appears a short Week-in-Review piece about the woodpeckers in the New York Times. (You have to scroll down a bit to the article.)
First, a conservation biologist is quoted saying that most things that scientists think are extinct are extinct. The article then ends with this:
But Stephen Budiansky, the author of several books on natural history, said the discovery points out how uncertain the business of predicting extinctions of species great and small - mostly small - can be.
All of the big numbers we have heard, of tens of thousands of extinctions worldwide, are not based on field observations," Mr. Budiansky said. "They're based ...
