… and please don’t put your words ( and others ) into our mouth
I will briefly respond to some of the more notable claims and inaccuracies in Mr Mooney’s last contribution ( here ), but I don’t intend to enter into a protracted debate, as there are now four peer reviewed papers that people can refer to. This long running Punch and Judy show is past its use by date:
1. We have no idea what reference (in The Wilson Bulletin) that Mr Mooney refers to. For those interested in our actual source material, please download our peer-reviewed papers at: www.tasmanianfox.com.
2. The review panel ( www.tasmanianfox.com ) had absolutely no contact whatsoever with The Times journalist who authored the article Mr Mooney refers to. This came out of the blue. We may well agree with some of Mr Mooney’s points and we did also attempt to advise them that they got many facts wrong in this story and that it did not at times reflect our own analysis, understanding and information. But we are not prepared to have other peoples’ inaccuracies put into our mouth by Mr Mooney.
3. The plaster casts of the fox from Burnie Mr Mooney mentions were indeed examined by the panel. These are held as part of a museum collection. We cite the reference numbers in the paper that are clear for all to see.
4. We did request to view the video footage of the Burnie fox from the department a number of times and it was not provided. Under those conditions we could only use the statement issued by the then director of the Parks and Wildlife Department that this footage did show a fox. That is referenced quite clearly in our paper as a caveat ( Wildlife Society Bulletin on our site ). Again, we have no control on how people may relate this analysis secondhand in the media and who may decide do go off half-cocked without checking the actual document and material we authored.
5. True – the ‘sighting’ at Burnie in 1998 was dismissed in this paper, for a good reason too. It is ‘physical evidence’ that this paper refers to. That’s pretty clear in the title of the actual paper! There is another paper that addresses anecdotal sightings that has yet to be published.
6. We don’t have to prove that there are fox hoaxes, just as no-one needs to prove that the earth is not flat. Our job is to show that you have not proven that these dead foxes represent evidence of foxes being extant in Tasmania – by testing the evidence. Blind Freddie can access the pathology reports and histology and show that the time of death in two of the most celebrated cases did not match the narrative provided time and time again. Anyone can download them from the website. If Mr Mooney would like to take up an alternative interpretation of the histology and pathology he is welcome to get his own papers peer reviewed – I suggest that he should do just this. It would be a mistake to conclude that we have not sought wider opinion from independent people qualified to make these judgements. I will look forward to his interpretation of the histology slides.
7. Just how and why we would use scientific journals as a platform to berate those who have perpetrated hoaxes is a mystery to all of us.
8. Mr Mooney (as has DPIPWE) best get hold of the paper we published in Forensic Science International: Genetics ( from the website ) and have a read of it, then read back their own statements ( and that popularised on a DPIPWE website – before it was pulled down ). You will find that this statement misrepresents what our conclusions have actually been. Again, Blind Fred cannot miss it, unless Blind Fred has not bothered to understand that we assess the species-specific PCR published in 2007. Furthermore, the lab that ran the test used to report the 2012 result that ‘foxes were widespread’ has now admitted to error in their own test. That DPIPWE and others presume to speak for us in this regard and put a simplistic spin on a complex argument that refers to an ecological model and involves three papers we produced is not something we can control. We’ve asked plenty of times for them to read the actual paper. Again, anyone can read our online review and point out where any error is and we will correct it. But please Nick, don’t put words of others into our mouth and expect us to stand corrected or be impressed by this.
9. Mr Mooney suggests that this is not an academic (or scientific?) issue. Really? We suggest that this is why the program started and ended up in a mess. Rampant speculation, incorrect information and story telling is no replacement for science and a respect for evidentiary quality. The ABC Background Briefing episode ( TT here ) nicely demonstrated the risks of using anecdotes and story telling. This is not what the actual UNESCO precautionary principle allows for – but I wonder, has Mr Mooney actually read it? It makes no difference how reliable you believe anecdotal evidence to be – it remains anecdotal evidence (not empirical data) and should never be used as a trigger for the PP. Full stop. One would have thought that after the Background Briefing episode that Mr Mooney would have seen the risks inherent in passing on anecdotes.
10. Our panel is composed of four overseas-based scientists, two Tasmanian scientists and a mainland academic. Our analysis was passed to 12 other scientists (mainly overseas) independent of us for review and then by way of six papers to some other 20 editors and reviewers in six different scientific journals. If Mr Mooney would like to claim that the people concerned are not professionally competent or the process is unfair, he should come right out and say so.
11. We have done our level best to analyse a murky collection of data mixed with speculation and have struggled to obtain data from the fox programme for some two years. Some of which has just been released. We don’t claim to be superhuman and recognise that scientists must keep checking their work and be open to criticism. If people can find error in our analysis, please let us know. But we would ask that our own source material is referred to and not articles that we have had no hand in whatsoever or Mr Mooney’s version of a second-hand account that is offered up as a revelation.
As for the other flapping red-herrings left on the deck by Mr Mooney concerning finances and police reports etc (whatever this is meant to imply) I will leave to Mr Mooney to explain in his next story.
I strongly suggest that the time of speculation, intrigue and revised narratives has long since passed and pretty much everyone is disinterested in new versions to muddy the waters yet again. This has been a well-worn pattern in the last 13 years and like a tired magician’s trick, most people don’t care for that show any longer.
