A Review of the book,
“NIGHT PARROT”
By Mick Brasher.
....................
I must say at the outset how much I enjoyed
reading and learning about the bird and its history through the 19th
and 20th centuries. The research Olsen has put together with
numerous illustrations was both interesting and informative. I expect I will re-read those chapters more
than once in the future.
Soon enough though it became apparent she
was reverting to the pattern of her all writings whenever Young’s name comes
up. Ever since her book on the Paradise
Parrot, she seems to have developed an obsessive antipathy towards him, despite
the fact that they have never met.
For what Young achieved, he should have
been the hero of her book. He had done
what no others had been able to do, and made a discovery lauded by the
international birding community. Any author worth her or his salt would have
interviewed him at length to bring out the background of where he searched, what
techniques he used and how his efforts finally succeeded. This last section
could have been drawn out to retell the significant points of progress in the
search, and the eventual excitement of its climax. However she could not even
bring herself to talk to him. All he received were two e-mails. As of interest,
I noticed in her acknowledgements on page viii that “Jaselyn O’Sullivan acted
as an intermediary with John Young”, which suggests that Olsen could not even
bring herself to prepare and send those emails!
In early parts of the book, she spent a lot
of effort documenting in some detail the expeditions mounted in failed attempts
to re-locate/discover the bird. Then from page 250 onwards, there is plenty of
detail about Steve Murphy, whom she venerates. He had apparently been searching for the bird
too for many years but with only a Cockatiel’s tail feather to show for it. Despite
being prepared to put in endless time with him, she was unable to seek any real
input or details from Young.
There was another avenue which she could
have pursued in respect to his field work and the eventual discovery of the
bird. She recorded that he was accompanied over the final years by John
Stewart. Stewart is a retired school teacher who lives in north Queensland, and
would have been almost as valuable source as Young. She did not bother to
contact him to seek clarification on issues she had with Young’s account, but
preferred to draw unsupported conclusions in her quest to denigrate him.
So from the time of Young’s discovery of
the bird, the book is littered with endless attempts to denigrate him. For
example
P254 “Young was known for having made claims in the past that
included finding a Red Goshawk nest well out of the species’ usual geographic
range…. and Paradise parrots with eggs in 1970’s”
He had never spoken to her, so she is
presenting hearsay evidence as fact. It appears she refers back to an article
in the Australian newspaper. It’s in the paper, so it must be true? Very
scientific. Her associated claims regarding unbelievable owl survey numbers
have recently been absolutely shredded in Lloyd Nielsen’s paper of 13 July
P 257 “ Those who viewed the images at Young’s invitation-only
screening at the Queensland Museum had no doubt, nor did others who saw the
photographs when they were eventually published. Up close, in good light, the
parrots were unmistakable…..
However few
ornithologists believed in the details of Young’s story. There was
something amiss.
What was amiss had nothing to do with
whether Young had confirmed his discovery. She went on to nit-pick on how long
he said he had been searching for the bird. How petty. Note to her use of the term “few
ornithologists”. What put ornithologists in particular in a position to dispute
the extent of his field work I do not know.
“It was highly unlikely that a wild uncontained bird
would stay around long enough to be filmed so precisely and from such an angle
in torchlight”
This is a lead-up to her later claims that
the bird had been trapped by Young. Where she got her scientific information on
the likely behavior of a Night Parrot being dazzled by torchlight for the first
time in its life, she has not referenced
P 258 Unbelievably, close inspection of the published Night
Parrot photograph revealed that it too had been digitally altered
Back on P 252, she
records that the self-appointed National Night Parrot network decided that any
claimed sighting of the bird would stand or fall on”
: a photograph that has no digital tampering
of any sort; something palpable and unequivocal like a truly distinctive
feather….” . I don’t recall this
being widely published at the time, maybe because they believed that as they
were the experts, only a person under their auspices would have the scientific
knowledge to locate one. Young didn’t produce a photo for their benefit. He was
seeking recognition from the nation’s repository of science in the Museums,
rather than their Night Parrot network or Birdlife Australia, of which he was
not a member. It’s a pity really that
the Network didn’t consider the possibility that a non-scientist could produce unchallengeable
video evidence of a bird they had been incapable of even sighting.
P 258 “Murphy also noticed that at least some of Young’s
photos were digitally labeled as having been taken at five in the afternoon,
which indicated that Young had held the bird since the previous night”
I must be missing something here. The only
Young photos that I have seen were taken at night, as a flash has clearly been
used to pick up the subject. But Olsen prefers to be guided by the digital
label, which shows 5 in the afternoon. That must have been a
particularly early sunset in western Queensland. Anyway, from that she deduces
that he must have somehow trapped the bird and held it since the previous
night. This is important to her, as Young had stated elsewhere that he had
never handled one of the parrots, so she was again trying to discredit him. She
wrote elsewhere that she could tell just by looking at one of his photos that
the bird had been handled (maybe another case of Blind Freddy?). Of course
there is a much simpler explanation –Young did not maintain the date and time
within his camera. If she was really interested for an explanation, she could
simply have asked Murphy to query Young about it. But that might only allow
facts to get in the way of another sniping attack.
P 265“Murphy …… recorded that he and Young needed to work
together collegially, with a sense of trust”
On their first night out together “Murphy secretly copied
the parrot’s recorded call onto a USB stick recorder”
So much for collegiality and trust. This
seems to me to be prima facie evidence of theft of intellectual property.
This is not an exhaustive list of Olsen’s
statements and inferences that litter the final chapter of her book. The tenor
of her antipathy towards Young is revealed in innumerable asides and slights
which attempt to diminish him in the eyes of the reader. She is clearly
incapable of producing any degree of balance on matters which involve him. Any
aspect of her research or investigation which has raised issues of the type she
has criticized and then built upon should, as a matter of natural justice, have
been referred to Young to give him the opportunity to respond. Police officers conducting an investigation
have to examine and weigh up all the evidence, not just facts
that support one conclusion. There are
at least two sides to every story, and balance is not possible until both are
heard. Ironically, Olsen has said as much…
P 254 “..it is well known that humans are highly suggestible :
we can convince ourselves … that we have seen something when we have not.”
It is a great pity that she lost awareness
of her own point while researching her book. But this she clearly did, and
continues to do in later papers. This raises the question of the extent to
which the CSIRO oversaw the integrity of what they published. If as it appears
that oversight was negligible or non-existent, to what extent has it damaged its
own standards of scientific integrity by lending its name to the publication of
“Night Parrot”.
Finally, the obsession that Olsen has with
attacking Young, a man she has never even spoken to, raises concerns of its
own. She seems driven to seek out or create opportunities to denigrate him in
public wherever possible. She does not
limit herself to matters of fact, and the discipline of her scientific
background, so evident in the early chapters of her book, is overcome by her
long-standing bias against him. Because this has been going on for so long now,
it may be time for her to seek help to gain control of her obsessive behavior
and direct her future publications to more worthwhile and productive pursuits
to the benefit her ornithological community.
But what would I know -- I don’t have a scientific bone in my body – Blind
Freddy can see that
Mick Brasher.
