This is a new paper published in a peer reviewed journal. It will take time before it garners the positive or negative citations that are the real peer review. In the mean time, our best option is to rely on non-expert opinion to judge the quality of this evidence.

The research that you have already done about the claim seems like half of an answer already. To summarize the main points:

• The ABC news article reports that Gosford believes birds spread fires and is looking for evidence. The article never actually says that raptors are spreading fires, just that Gosford believes that they do.
• Kim Moynahan's blog post criticizes the evidence Gosford is gathering as inconclusive. She concludes "the burden of proof has not been met."
• The abstract of this paper does not contradict Moynahan's criticisms. The paper appears to be a collection of anecdotes.

This is not my field of study, but I can read a scientific paper and either confirm or deny the criticisms of this paper. It is a collection of anecdotes, and the authors very clearly describe it as such. Their collection of anecdotes is impressive, but still just a bunch of anecdotes. They scrupulously avoid overstating their evidence in the paper. They mostly discuss other people's beliefs and observations. The following is a brief example of this.

Results

 

Our review of the literature and our interviews show that avian fire-spreading by at least three species of raptors is generally known to rural residents across northern WA, NT, and QLD, particularly to Aboriginal people, who also represent it in religious ceremonies, and to non-Aboriginal people. A small subset of the population has actually witnessed the behavior. Table 1, Figure 2, treatments in the main text, and the Supplementary Materials (Supplementary Reports 1–7) summarize and map fire-spreading reports and cultural beliefs from seven non-Aboriginal informants and 12 Aboriginal groups.

They report that they are going to use better scientific methods to look for more evidence, but the dangers of fires are holding them back.

In our continuing research, we plan to utilize approaches combining controlled experiments (e.g., fire managers lighting fires purposely, under a variety of conditions, to allow trained field technicians with adequate equipment to document, and then describe and quantify, fire-spreading behavior), ethno-ornithological interviews, and provision of protocols and equipment to bushworkers, most notably Aboriginal rangers, to enable them to record the behavior.

Speculation about motives

If a scientist wants to justify hanging out around active fire fronts, he needs a darn good reason to do that. No funding committee will give the scientist a grant unless he can show that he has a good reason to expect the research to pan out. Without that evidence, grad students may be reluctant to risk their lives doing the grunt work. In my opinion, this paper is doing just that; Establishing that there is a good reason to conduct research near an active fire front.

Summary: This seems to be an open question. I don't see anyone actually making the claim that raptors are running around spreading fires. The authors of this paper provide evidence that people believe that, which is a subtly different claim. The authors probably believe it; They say they are planning to invest time and money into proving their hypothesis.

This is a new paper published in a peer reviewed journal. It will take time before it garners the positive or negative citations that are the real peer review. In the mean time, our best option is to rely on non-expert opinion to judge the quality of this evidence.

The research that you have already done about the claim seems like half of an answer already. To summarize the main points:

• The ABC news article reports that Gosford believes birds spread fires and is looking for evidence. The article never actually says that raptors are spreading fires, just that Gosford believes that they do.
• Kim Moynahan's blog post criticizes the evidence Gosford is gathering as inconclusive. She concludes "the burden of proof has not been met."
• The abstract of this paper does not contradict Moynahan's criticisms. The paper appears to be a collection of anecdotes.

This is not my field of study, but I can read a scientific paper and either confirm or deny the criticisms of this paper. It is a collection of anecdotes, and the authors very clearly describe it as such. Their collection of anecdotes is impressive, but still just a bunch of anecdotes. They scrupulously avoid overstating their evidence in the paper. They mostly discuss other people's beliefs and observations. The following is a brief example of this.

Results

Our review of the literature and our interviews show that avian fire-spreading by at least three species of raptors is generally known to rural residents across northern WA, NT, and QLD, particularly to Aboriginal people, who also represent it in religious ceremonies, and to non-Aboriginal people. A small subset of the population has actually witnessed the behavior. Table 1, Figure 2, treatments in the main text, and the Supplementary Materials (Supplementary Reports 1–7) summarize and map fire-spreading reports and cultural beliefs from seven non-Aboriginal informants and 12 Aboriginal groups.

They report that they are going to use better scientific methods to look for more evidence, but the dangers of fires are holding them back.

In our continuing research, we plan to utilize approaches combining controlled experiments (e.g., fire managers lighting fires purposely, under a variety of conditions, to allow trained field technicians with adequate equipment to document, and then describe and quantify, fire-spreading behavior), ethno-ornithological interviews, and provision of protocols and equipment to bushworkers, most notably Aboriginal rangers, to enable them to record the behavior.

Speculation about motives

If a scientist wants to justify hanging out around active fire fronts, he needs a darn good reason to do that. No funding committee will give the scientist a grant unless he can show that he has a good reason to expect the research to pan out. Without that evidence, grad students may be reluctant to risk their lives doing the grunt work. In my opinion, this paper is doing just that; Establishing that there is a good reason to conduct research near an active fire front.

Summary: This seems to be an open question. I don't see anyone actually making the claim that raptors are running around spreading fires. The authors of this paper provide evidence that people believe that, which is a subtly different claim. The authors probably believe it; They say they are planning to invest time and money into proving their hypothesis.

This is a new paper published in a peer reviewed journal. It will take time before it garners the positive or negative citations that are the real peer review. In the mean time, our best option is to rely on non-expert opinion to judge the quality of this evidence.

The research that you have already done about the claim seems like half of an answer already. To summarize the main points:

• The ABC news article reports that Gosford believes birds spread fires and is looking for evidence. The article never actually says that raptors are spreading fires, just that Gosford believes that they do.
• Kim Moynahan's blog post criticizes the evidence Gosford is gathering as inconclusive. She concludes "the burden of proof has not been met."
• The abstract of this paper does not contradict Moynahan's criticisms. The paper appears to be a collection of anecdotes.

This is not my field of study, but I can read a scientific paper and either confirm or deny the criticisms of this paper. It is a collection of anecdotes, and the authors very clearly describe it as such. Their collection of anecdotes is impressive, but still just a bunch of anecdotes. They scrupulously avoid overstating their evidence in the paper. They mostly discuss other people's beliefs and observations. The following is a brief example of this.

Results

Our review of the literature and our interviews show that avian fire-spreading by at least three species of raptors is generally known to rural residents across northern WA, NT, and QLD, particularly to Aboriginal people, who also represent it in religious ceremonies, and to non-Aboriginal people. A small subset of the population has actually witnessed the behavior. Table 1, Figure 2, treatments in the main text, and the Supplementary Materials (Supplementary Reports 1–7) summarize and map fire-spreading reports and cultural beliefs from seven non-Aboriginal informants and 12 Aboriginal groups.

They report that they are going to use better scientific methods to look for more evidence, but the dangers of fires are holding them back.

In our continuing research, we plan to utilize approaches combining controlled experiments (e.g., fire managers lighting fires purposely, under a variety of conditions, to allow trained field technicians with adequate equipment to document, and then describe and quantify, fire-spreading behavior), ethno-ornithological interviews, and provision of protocols and equipment to bushworkers, most notably Aboriginal rangers, to enable them to record the behavior.

Speculation about motives

If a scientist wants to justify hanging out around active fire fronts, he needs a darn good reason to do that. No funding committee will give the scientist a grant unless he can show that he has a good reason to expect the research to pan out. Without that evidence, grad students may be reluctant to risk their lives doing the grunt work. In my opinion, this paper is doing just that; Establishing that there is a good reason to conduct research near an active fire front.

Summary: I don't see anyone actually making the claim that raptors are running around spreading fires. The authors of this paper claim that people believe that, which is a subtly different claim. The authors probably believe it; They say they are planning to invest time and money into proving their hypothesis.

This is a new paper published in a peer reviewed journal. It will take time before it garners the positive or negative citations that are the real peer review. In the mean time, our best option is to rely on non-expert opinion to judge the quality of this evidence.

The research that you have already done about the claim seems like half of an answer already. To summarize the main points:

• The ABC news article reports that Gosford believes birds spread fires and is looking for evidence. The article never actually says that raptors are spreading fires, just that Gosford believes that they do.
• Kim Moynahan's blog post criticizes the evidence Gosford is gathering as inconclusive. She concludes "the burden of proof has not been met."
• The abstract of this paper does not contradict Moynahan's criticisms. The paper appears to be a collection of anecdotes.

This is not my field of study, but I can read a scientific paper and either confirm or deny the criticisms of this paper. It is a collection of anecdotes, and the authors very clearly describe it as such. Their collection of anecdotes is impressive, but still just a bunch of anecdotes. They scrupulously avoid overstating their evidence in the paper. They mostly discuss other people's beliefs and observations. The following is a brief example of this.

Results

Our review of the literature and our interviews show that avian fire-spreading by at least three species of raptors is generally known to rural residents across northern WA, NT, and QLD, particularly to Aboriginal people, who also represent it in religious ceremonies, and to non-Aboriginal people. A small subset of the population has actually witnessed the behavior. Table 1, Figure 2, treatments in the main text, and the Supplementary Materials (Supplementary Reports 1–7) summarize and map fire-spreading reports and cultural beliefs from seven non-Aboriginal informants and 12 Aboriginal groups.

They report that they are going to use better scientific methods to look for more evidence, but the dangers of fires are holding them back.

In our continuing research, we plan to utilize approaches combining controlled experiments (e.g., fire managers lighting fires purposely, under a variety of conditions, to allow trained field technicians with adequate equipment to document, and then describe and quantify, fire-spreading behavior), ethno-ornithological interviews, and provision of protocols and equipment to bushworkers, most notably Aboriginal rangers, to enable them to record the behavior.

Speculation about motives

If a scientist wants to justify hanging out around active fire fronts, he needs a darn good reason to do that. No funding committee will give the scientist a grant unless he can show that he has a good reason to expect the research to pan out. Without that evidence, grad students may be reluctant to risk their lives doing the grunt work. In my opinion, this paper is doing just that; Establishing that there is a good reason to conduct research near an active fire front.

Summary: This seems to be an open question. I don't see anyone actually making the claim that raptors are running around spreading fires. The authors of this paper provide evidence that people believe that, which is a subtly different claim. The authors probably believe it; They say they are planning to invest time and money into proving their hypothesis.