Bigfoot Dna

[southernyahoo]

3) She has been testing alleged Bigfoot DNA samples from people like David Paulides and Tom Biscardi since 1995. Because so many samples were from racoons and other known animals, for convenience, she used a system that filtered out human DNA. This exposes her to human contaminated results and known animal contaminated results. The tests she did on Josh's "yeti" hair came back human, but she insisted, "The hair, visually was not human, it's coarser than horse hair ." Ketchum may know horses, but she certainly doesn't know human hair. The video showed fine wispy hair.

My bolding,

Kit, do you have a direct quote from Dr. Ketchum on this? Sounds to me like you have misunderstood. She said she has to screen by morphological exam, to weed out the samples that are obviously from a known animal. It is a logical process, since DNA testing is much more expensive and it would be wasteful of materials and supplies. There would logicly be mutations in BF DNA that contamination could not account for.

[Guest]

Go Sas! It's hard to argue with any of your logic. (And it's hard to argue with conspiracy theorists). More and more, I'm finding it difficult to believe there is a giant, hairy, hominid roaming North America, as cool and interesting as it may be to imagine one. I don't know how to ascribe all the alleged "sightings," but misidentification and paradelia are pretty high on my list...

[indiefoot]

Will some veterinary journal publish this? possibly. Dr. Ketchum is well connected in veterinary circles, and that may help. Certainly no major scientific journal (Nature, Science, primatology or anthropology journals, genetic journals, etc.) will touch it. Why not? because Ketchum's methods are not adequate, her conclusions are unwarranted, and the specimens will not support a replication of her findings and further adequate testing. In short, because she's just dealing with human specimens with some polymorphisms, and making them seem weirder than they are.

Bolding Mine

Have you seen her paper?

[BobZenor]

Well I see I hit the button before I had a chance to ask, which animals are you talking about because the only hybrids I found were closer than that?

Wolf Coyote

...The gray wolf and coyote may have had a recent common North American ancestor about two million years ago...

Red wolves are thought by some to be mostly coyote hybrid of wolves and coyotes. Those are viable hybrids.

Wholphin, not the shape shifting fictional wolfen, but part false killer whale and dolphin. They aren't even the same genus.

http://www.rac.uab.es/bibliografia/articles/RAC/JABG3.pdf

Horses and donkeys[/url] sometimes have fertile offspring.

...According to mtDNA analysis, the difference between the donkey and the horse

suggests that the evolutionary separation of the two species occurred ~9 million years ago...

I think lions and tigers are something like 3 million years separated.

[Guest Quatch water]

2) Ketchum is not a molecular biologist, a medical geneticist, or a laboratory geneticist. She is a veterinarian with five years education in Veterinary Medicine from Texas A&M University...

She has no training as a geneticist. It takes a degree in genetics or biological sciences such as biochemistry and a masters or doctoral in genetics. It takes a minimum of six years post-secondary education to be a geneticist.

You need to be careful about being so critical. I worked on a forensic case and was privy to her resume. She has a lot of research credits and also there are peer reviewed papers. Not only that but she was elected to several international chairmanships in an international genetics society. I am sure that there are geneticists in that group. I think we all need to be patient. She has a lot of credibility to lose if this doesn't work out. I wouldn't think any scientist would stick their neck out that far if they aren't on to something.

[kitakaze]

Hello, Quatch water, and welcome to the BFF.

Two things...

1) Please be sure to make proper use of the quote function, so as to avoid confusion. With the way you have presented my words, it looks as though they are yours. I understand that you are quoting me, but other people may not.

2) As a skeptic, it is inevitable that I would ask you for evidence to back your claims. It is entirely plausible that you could be someone who came here for the sole purpose of supporting Ketchum's credibility. You could be Paulides for all we know. I'm not saying you are, just that I have a legitimate reason to have reservations. Statements made by Ketchum, like bone not being better than hair for DNA analysis, demonstrate to me either an ineptness or a willful deceit. She said they have a bone and that it is huge. Any legitimate lab should be able to tell you what it is lickety-split. Also, a huge bone would be a treasure trove for sample material to cooperate with other labs for confirmation.

Edited October 4, 2010 by kitakaze

[Guest Quatch water]

Hello, Quatch water, and welcome to the BFF.

Two things...

1) Please be sure to make proper use of the quote function, so as to avoid confusion. With the way you have presented my words, it looks as though they are yours. I understand that you are quoting me, but other people may not.

2) As a skeptic, it is inevitable that I would ask you for evidence to back your claims. It is entirely plausible that you could be someone who came here for the sole purpose of supporting Ketchum's credibility. You could be Paulides for all we know. I'm not saying you are, just that I have a legitimate reason to have reservations. Statements made by Ketchum, like bone not being better than hair for DNA analysis, demonstrate to me either an ineptness or a willful deceit. She said they have a bone and that it is huge. Any legitimate lab should be able to tell you what it is lickety-split. Also, a huge bone would be a treasure trove for sample material to cooperate with other labs for confirmation.

I can assure you that I am a little skeptical myself and I am not Paulides or anyone having a hound in this hunt. I just think that criticism should not be given without some first hand knowledge of what she is doing. None of us know what is actually happening so we should wait. If nothing comes of it or if the results are not well proven, then we can criticize all we want. How do you think Dr. Meldrum feels after some of the posts and other scientists/university peer's opinions. He has risked it all to make a stand in favor of the creature. It has cost him dearly though. It is not fair and I just don't want the lynching before we see what is really being done. Time will tell and patience is a virtue. We all want to get to the bottom of this so any help from science at this point is good in my opinion as long as the science can stand up. If it doesn't, it is professional suicide as I am sure there will be many howling how things have gone afoul.

[kitakaze]

Great points, Quatch. I think we should look critically at what is happening and decide for ourselves. I see strong markers of shenanigans. I may be wrong. I hope I am. Having been a Bigfoot proponent in the past before becoming a strong skeptic, I identify with the desire for proof that many Bigfooters feel. I just don't want anyone getting their hopes up, only to be hoodwinked. I see hoodwinking here. It comes across loud and clear to me in everything Paulides and Ketchum say. I don't want to lynch anyone, but scrutiny like mine is natural and expected. I agree that Meldrum has been singular in his vocal support for Bigfoot. I think he has done so for the wrong reasons, but I'm nothing more than one skeptic on the Internet.

Proof will counter all. I hope they have something. I predict they have nothing.

[Guest]

How do you think Dr. Meldrum feels after some of the posts and other scientists/university peer's opinions. He has risked it all to make a stand in favor of the creature. It has cost him dearly though.

Hi Quatch water, and welcome to the BFF.

As explained in post 60, Meldrum's martyrdom isn't really supported by the facts. He's a tenured professor at a state university, I'm willing to bet his students think the world of him, and he has legions of fans in the bigfoot community. If he was worried about risking his career advancement, he would've been more careful with his analysis and his statements over the years that have drawn fire from his academic peers. He strikes me as more interested in bigfoot celebrity than any other aspect of his career. That's fine and it's his choice; he's no victim.

[Drew]

Anyone can put out a test result that states they have found an unknown primate DNA.

However, unless the test result and procedure is peer-reviewed and published, it will still be useless.

What if someone were to say?: "We have found bigfoot DNA in a hair sample"

Do you think the next step would be, "Dear Bigfooters, here is the test result showing that we found Bigfoot DNA"

or:

do you think the next step would be, "journal Nature, here is our paper, showing the procedure, how we determined that it was a Bigfoot, and the actual test results."?

[Guest]

Wolf Coyote

Red wolves are thought by some to be mostly coyote hybrid of wolves and coyotes. Those are viable hybrids.

Wholphin, not the shape shifting fictional wolfen, but part false killer whale and dolphin. They aren't even the same genus.

http://www.rac.uab.es/bibliografia/articles/RAC/JABG3.pdf

Horses and donkeys[/url] sometimes have fertile offspring.

I think lions and tigers are something like 3 million years separated.

After I looked at all of this, it depends on how much drift has occurred as to how the genes function in each of these species and genera. Obviously not too much difference, or they wouldn't be able to produce viable offspring. I had a wolf/malamute hybrid, Cain, and if you asked me, he got most of his genes from his wolf daddy. He didn't look or act like a malamute at all. So I guess it also depends on which sex chromosomes they inherit from which parent that affect how well they thrive. Here is a good link to the Big Cat hybrid variations I thought was good.

http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/ligers.html

[Guest]

FYI just to set the record straight- Bone is not a common sample to extract DNA from and the circumstances in where it was located, age of the sample, etc have an affect on the results. Just because you have a bone doesn't mean you can get a good sample, it has different protocols than hair and tissue for extraction. Comparing hair/tissue DNA extraction to bone DNA extraction is like comparing apples to oranges. That is why it is hard to get valid results from ancient remains.

I think she knows what she is talking about based on what I've read. As everyone else said, wait until you see the paper with details on the processes before you start the critique. I think what they will find will be more or less a stepping stone to build upon, not definitive results identifying Bigfoot as a species.

I did some cursory searching. It looks like she developed a software program called VeriSNP that can ID animals and humans. Here is the link for those interested:

http://www.trademarkia.com/verisnp-77111689.html

Edited October 4, 2010 by Jodie

[indiefoot]

parnassus, on 03 October 2010 - 12:12 AM, said:

Will some veterinary journal publish this? possibly. Dr. Ketchum is well connected in veterinary circles, and that may help. Certainly no major scientific journal (Nature, Science, primatology or anthropology journals, genetic journals, etc.) will touch it. Why not? because Ketchum's methods are not adequate, her conclusions are unwarranted, and the specimens will not support a replication of her findings and further adequate testing. In short, because she's just dealing with human specimens with some polymorphisms, and making them seem weirder than they are.

Bolding Mine

Have you seen her paper?

parnassus, your post sounds as if you have already seen Dr. Ketchum's paper. I would like to find out if that is true. If not, then how can you reach the conclusions you have?

[southernyahoo]

"journal Nature, here is our paper, showing the procedure, how we determined that it was a Bigfoot (new species of hominid) or ( proof that a hairy type of people live in the woods) and the actual test results

.

I would go with this Drew.

[Guest]

FYI just to set the record straight- Bone is not a common sample to extract DNA from and the circumstances in where it was located, age of the sample, etc have an affect on the results. Just because you have a bone doesn't mean you can get a good sample, it has different protocols than hair and tissue for extraction. Comparing hair/tissue DNA extraction to bone DNA extraction is like comparing apples to oranges. That is why it is hard to get valid results from ancient remains.

Oh, baloney! If scientist can create dinosaurs by taking DNA from mosquitoes stuck in Amber for a million years, then they can get it from bone!

Oh, wait......that was a movie!

Nevermind.