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Hi gigantor, Being the intelligent person that you are you more likely than not understand the complexities associated with your questions. I'll therefore do the best I can with them. My answers will not be perfect but should show a good direction each might take- each one could very easily spawn it's own discussion. 1) Will the board be elected? if so, who will elect it? It depends on how the format for creating a board is set up. In order to elect one needs candidates. Those candidates should have a good transparent record of fair evaluation of evidence. Their own as well as that brought by others. They don't necessarily need to be proponents but must have the integrity to weigh evidence and/or an individuals veracity. In other words vet the information as well as the one who presents it. This isn't a job for one person. I don't think a member board of less than 7-11 including a chairperson is out of the question. One way might be this:The candidates might be elected by polling the various Forums and research groups that have websites. The candidates obviously have the choice to be on the board or not. The vetting process for the candidates should be at least result in a 75% yea vote for consideration in a final election to populate the board itself. Another method is for people to offer their services as a board member and then go through the same vetting and election processes already mentioned. 2) How will the board be funded? This too needs to be polled but I see it this way. It's all about credibility. Credibility draws existing membership as well as newcomers an would create a better chance of holding onto that membership. A portion of the revenue that Forum or website charges for deeper membership accesses to data could be used to help compensate the board. If it is known that the board is the ultimate last word on information and report data as well as research efforts in the field then a paying membership will trust what it reads and learns. I see this as a valid feather in the cap of any Forum that supports the board and informs the membership that a portion of the membership fee is to provide a monetary incentive to the board members to perform the tasks necessary to keep honest and worthwhile data coming into the Forums and websites from the field as well as from science sources. Ultimately the trust and respect the board generates will enter that science community and the mantle of woo the BF community wears as a reputation will gradually disappear. In that regard where is one to start in turning over the stigma? The possibility of have a board to filter the chaff from the wheat before it gets to the media would be ideal. Of course ALL forums and Forum membership will know what and why certain reports data, and field work had become unacceptable as transparency in any judgments of this nature should have the public know the reason for any decision making. 3) How will the criteria for evaluating claims be created and by whom? The criteria already exists: Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence to back it up. There'is room to move around this but by and large I've seen folks comment about goal posts being moved and so there must be limits set on how leeway to allow. Normal Forum discussions and debates will be as normal as they are now however. The board comes into play only when a claim comes in or as discoveries are made in the field. The woo may still be in the Forums but the official stance of the board should only stand on documented physical evidence or claims of contact if those documentations or claims can be substantiated- a board requirement in order to be accepted as being true. I have an entire method for doing just that (vetting documentation and other claims) already laid out which I will eventually present. Thank you gigantor for your questions- they were good ones.

Maybe I am ... maybe you've talked yourself out of the right answer. The simple fact is you can't disprove habituation, all you can do, if that's what you wish, is become jaded, cynical, and Crowlogic will call you mini-me. I'm looking into habituations but from another angle: I'm looking for one that is real, I'm not looking to prove the final one is not. It takes as long as it takes. I'm having decent success making contact with people. But it takes time. I don't think BFF, with the snark and cynicism and rush to prove, is the place to meet those people. You have to find them out in the real world. You have to go slow, respect boundaries, be real, be authentic, and still pass muster. People who are failing probably can't see in the mirror clearly enough to know why they fail so they have to make excuses even up to the point of denying the existence of the thing they think they are looking for. Ironic. Or something like that. Rambling, I guess. MIB

Actually, hiflier, in this case DWA makes perfect sense ... and nobody has been insulted. Debunked ... go through each and every habituation claim one by one and investigate them either validating or invalidating them one at a time rather than making broad-brush nonsensical summarizations based on ... doing nothing. When every single habituation claim has been individually, thoroughly, investigated, THEN the claims **to date** can be discounted, 'til then, the science has not been done by the so-called scientists. Thing is, checking the ones in the past does not have any value so far as evaluating the ones in the future. **It only takes one.** The others can be hoaxes, doesn't matter, one proof positive **is** proof positive. If you want to debunk habituation ... get started. If that's what you want, then it's up to you to go do the work. Otherwise .. silence is appropriate. Not frequent, but appropriate. MIB

You make little sense. Making it sound like you're the only one who's done the work makes even less sense. It's as if you just walked onto this Forum and read nothing. Insulting other's intelligence is the best and only game you've got. Go ahead...put me on ignore.... I would consider it an honor.

I'm sure there's a response in there somewhere....Your first sentence insults everyone's intelligence. Thank you for being obtuse.

Anyone who knows me well enough and what my MO is should pretty much know that I don't post threads lightly. Nor do I post them as a kneejerk reaction. Before starting a thread that is nearly always controversial I get my story straight and look at all angles as much as I'm able in order to promote an idea. The concept of having an ethics board came after much thought as well as hashing out what such an entity would be responsible for. After all, what good would having such a body be if it carried no weight and offered no benefit to the community it would serve if it wasn't respected and had no code of its own for its own. And what about what goes on in the field? How would having an oversight group affect field research? It depends on how satisfied everyone is with how organized or disorganized the field work is. There is much more to cover but the question of trust had to come first and so the point of creating an ethics board had to be addressed. Besides, most of the ones that like the current dog and pony show are mostly in it for personal gain as opposed to getting proof of existence. Business not science. Part of the job of the "board" will be maintaining the path of science. There's a lot to that and it isn't all bad nor boring by any stretch.

@ Yuchi1- agreed but I also think things cannot remain as they are either. @ Crowlogic- disqualifying the 85% is what is needed though. The 15% left after the housecleaning will be the new backbone of the subject. Many of the so-called "experts" will by necessity fall by the wayside. Being currently in the public eye or currently active in promoting the "biz" will not be a qualifier for making the cut. Time to get serious about things like authoritative research and funding.

The Theory of Evolution is too limited to apply to everything we see in nature. It is sufficient for much, but not all. Yet, dogmatic adherence is common among theories crafted by people enamored of the Theory of The Theory of Everything. In the case of humans, proponents espouse that there must be continual improvement of the species. This may, may, apply with regard to humans if you have a limited perspective (we have reached the point scientifically and socially that we now circumvent the Theory of Evolution by preserving genetic diseases and limitations that would have been selected out in past centuries, and some contend that we are setting ourselves up for a major die-off in the event of any disaster that deprives us of something so basic as electricity - a 50% die off based on a couple of Congressional reports that I have read), but it does not necessarily apply to all species. The simple fact that we now selectively breed and genetically modify various species is another example of how the Theory of Evolution can be circumvented. Nature is dynamic. Biology responds. Evolution, though, is not, first and foremost, about improvement. It is about survival. In the case of the Coelocanth, its biology was sufficient to a certain set of environmental conditions. It remains sufficient, though the environmental conditions that can support it have become more geographically limited. It may also be that there are descendants of the Coelocanth that look nothing like it which have adapted to environments that the Coelocanth cannot occupy. Catastrophic conditions have to be incorporated into the Theory also. The development of an antibiotic is catastrophic to bacteria and they evolve to respond. The accident at Chernobyl spurred the mutation and evolution of field mice in the affected area. Intervention by a species on the development of another, or even on the development of its own is technically a catastrophic event. The concepts of devolution through the preservation of the unfit in our own species must be accounted for, as must the practice of Eugenics. So I agree that the Theory of Evolution is limited. I also agree that dogmatic adherence to the Theory of Evolution can lead one to disregard or reject evidence that does not agree with prevailing thought, so when one insists that 150 years of scholarship have affirmed the Theory of Evolution, I would counter that it is more likely that 150 years of dogma have been applied to protecting the Theory if it does not account for everything we see in nature - which it does not. Technically, Faenor, the Theory of Evolution itself demands that species be able to evolve beyond the constraints of the Theory of Evolution. No one has yet started calling it the Law of Evolution.

Scary thing is, you may be right! Just ask them.

Yeah, well, when one gets into the details of fossil finds, for example, there's frequently less geology, and more conforming the numbers to match the preconceived determinations. I have a problem with "standard evolutionary theory." Why is this "evolutionary theory" so limited? Next question, why is this "evolutionary theory" so very selective and only works on a few species, and not at all on others? Wouldn't this evolutionary theory apply across the board if this were a real mechanism? 99.5% of all species are extinct. I don't see adaptation as should be so very evident, rather I see lots of extinctions. Glad you included geology and evolution. For current evolution theory to be a working mechanism, one must have what can be termed steady-state geology. After all, if it takes eons to alter and change in a painfully slowly method to a new, improved species, the geology must me steady state. But it's not. Geology is catastrophic geology - eras defined by mass extinctions. You can't morph if you go extinct. Then there's the extreme selectivity of this "evolutionary theory." Slow incremental changes, if a true mechanism, should be a universal mechanism, or a mechanism that works on all organisms, more or less at the same rate. In older books, especially on the fossil records, was at least one highly detailed, complete fossil of a coelecanth, and we were told A) the coelecanth went extinct 66,000,000 years ago, one could look at the stubby lower fins and see them clearly in the process of evolving into legs. Son of a gun. Found living coelecanths, and they are identical to the fossil dated to have gone extinct 66,000,000 years ago. Guess what? No legs. No change. Same fish. No evolving whatsoever. Now we know this is not a perfect fish, so it should have gotten slimmer, bigger, smaller, more efficient - something! But it didn't. So over 66 million years, not one tittle of evolving, but somehow, the most complicated, most intelligent thing to walk the earth, went from a primitive h. Heidelbergensis to a modern human in less than 600,000 years. That's quite a transition. Fast, too! I don't think the narrative is right. I have no idea what the correct narrative is, but I know BS when I smell it.

I've been trying to explain that vice versa didn't have to happen in order for Neanderthal to have human DNA. They "Neanderthal" would only need a female hybrid from a human mother to breed with. Of coarse they would need numerous such females to be taken over with human mitochondrial DNA.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. *Ketchum* is a crackpot and her "science" was garbage. Her being wrong, however, does not disprove the hybrid notion. That's the same logic as lack of evidence being evidence of lack and is not valid in either case. The debate itself has no merit. It does not matter who wins or loses. MIB

Craig Woolheater posted a piece on the same subject on Cryptomundo earlier today. Craig asked Cliff, Bobo, and Matt about the rumor. Cliff said: "No, we aren't cancelled. In fact, we are filming more episodes this summer. The programming folks at Animal Planet have made some decisions about how to best support Finding Bigfoot based on the data, and they are moving ahead with their plan. Luckily this has little to do with me, so I can just focus on bigfooting." Bobo: "No, viewers were pissed about the night change and advertisers buy slots ahead of time so they have to go through current cycle. Or something like that. We're filming all summer." Matt M.: "Animal Planet is holding the remaining episodes for next season to add to the new ones that they are currently filming in order to air them back on the original air time of Sunday nights." So no, Finding Bigfoot is apparently not cancelled.

Females are XX and they get one copy of X from each parent. Males with XY get their X from their mother but not from their father where they get the Y only. http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/chromosomes/typesx/ It's probably still a flip of the coin, with hybrids, which gender a fetus is supposed to be at conception, but like the OP article suggests, both genders may not reach full term in the womb with equal success. It's speculative on my part to present hypothetical scenarios that Neanderthals could have persisted longer than the fossil record supports, but there was at least some success or we wouldn't have Neanderthal DNA in us. So what success did Neanderthals experience post hybridization is the open question. The possibility that they carried our DNA in them still remains. That's my primary point to make where Sasquatch as a hybrid is concerned.

That show was terrible, it was all about ratings and Matt Moneymaker wanting cameras pointing at him the whole time. How about we get more shows on TV where people actually investigate with science. Has anyone seen the couple of episodes MonsterQuest dedicated to bigfoot? I'd watch a whole series done like that!