The Ketchum Report (Continued)

[TimB]

Tim B - Don't chase down hearsay... chase down facts - contact them DIRECTLY YOURSELF. Do you understand what "hearsay" means?

"I'd like to stay focused on the facts." I have stepped into an alternate universe. We need 'facts and logic police' in North America. My brain may explode from reading claims like this from people who ignore or deny SO MANY facts.

Well, I won't take your statement personally, Tyler- I know you and yours are passionate about convincing everyone that Dr. Ketchum is evil. I think that clouds your thinking so that anyone who doesn't get in line with you doesn't understand the "facts" or care to be informed.

I merely pointed out that the things posted as fact from JREF here are actually second hand testimony of other peoples' conversations. How is that anything but hearsay, Tyler? Please explain it to me in between bouts of incredulity, if you get a chance...

Tim B.

PS- I'll play your game once, Tyler- here's the online definitions of hearsay-

Noun

• Information received from other people that cannot be adequately substantiated; rumor.
  
• The report of another person's words by a witness, usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law.
  

Which is exactly the level of evidence second and third party reports of people's opinions are. It's not FACTS- it's low-level evidence that is really irrelevant.

Until the players come forward THEMSELVES and say what these find upstanding critical thinkers from JREF are reporting they say, then it's HEARSAY at best, untrue at worst. NOT what I call convincing evidence. But hey- I don't have any agenda.

It's like all the analysis that's being posted by "PHDs" on this board- that can't be verified, so we have to take their word for it. NOT definitive evidence in MY book, but it's enough to full the fire of people who are looking to prove their agenda. Until a name is attached to the analysis, it's meaningless. If you can't put your name behind what you say, it says a lot about the value of what you say.

Edited April 3, 2013 by TimB

[southernyahoo]

"following labs provided analysis"... yet another fallacy that has been proven false, multiple times. The labs provided sequencing. None that I am aware of, have admitted to providing "analysis" of the results. Now... it's possible that 1 or 2 did, and I am just unaware of it... but patently, all of those labs cited in this post did NOT provide analysis. Some of the labs have even denied that claim outright. But the myth keeps getting perpetuated.

From Silent Sam and Family Tree. This covers the mtDNA sequencing and analysis.

Thank you for your email. To answer your question, yes, we did process mtDNA samples for Dr. Ketchum. Information about the tests can be found at our website. We ran either the mtDNA Plus or mtFullSequence.

I cannot comment on anything else. Our lab simply analysed DNA samples that were sent to us. There was no chain of custody for any of the samples, so I cannot verify any information regarding their origin, how they were obtained or how they were processed before we received them.

What Fallacy????

[Guest]

Former lab rat here...analyze a sample is to get data. Analyzing data can be a whole other thing. I believe when they stated "simply analyzed" they likely meant just reported data but did not interpret it.

When I did lab work, I "analyzed" samples for cyanide contamination - which meant I analyzed prepared samples on a machine. Did I interpret those results? Or analyze them further? Heck no. I left that to others with higher degrees and higher salaries.

[southernyahoo]

Family Tree DNA definately does DNA analysis and haplotype determinations for people seeking their ancestry as their name implies. The question to ask is did they provide haplotype interpretations? The data in table 2 perhaps?

[Guest]

I've worked with scientists in many disciplines - terminology is KEY, and MANY scientists use it very precisely. I think Family Tree is using "process" and "analyzed" as synonyms in this statement. I say this for two reasons.

1. If you "process" or "analyze" samples, you are running tests on samples ... to produce DATA. Then, that DATA is interpreted/analyzed. The way I read the Family Tree statement, they are using "analyzed" as a synonym for "process" because both words modify the word "samples." They are NOT stating that they analyzed/interpreted the DATA. A precise scientist would have said they analyzed/interpreted the samples AND the data IF they had done so.

2. Their first statement is that they processed the samples. They then used a common linguistic method of repetition, emphasized with the word "simply," to drive home their point. But in that repeat reference, they used "analyzed." Because of this sentence's function as an emphasis/repeat of the original statement, I think they fully intended "analyzed" to be synonymous with "process."

Based on my experience, this statement means that they did NO analysis/interpretation of the data.

That said, to me, because SOME people might read this a different way, it would be worth it to ask for clarification regarding whether or not they did any analysis/interpretation of the DATA. Some scientists don't write well - I know, because I've edited their work.

Just want to acknowledge that Bananasquatch made the same point while I was typing my post.

[southernyahoo]

31 was the plate. Blood from the shards of glass left on the plate left out for them. Might have been saliva as well.

Sample 31 shows to be from AL= Alabama? This wouldn't be from the Kentucky Project/ Erickson Project?

[Guest njjohn]

Family Tree DNA definately does DNA analysis and haplotype determinations for people seeking their ancestry as their name implies. The question to ask is did they provide haplotype interpretations? The data in table 2 perhaps?

Actually that's a good question. My guess is no, because she said the sequences were than BLASTED gave the haplotypes in table 2. If the lab were to do that, you'd think they do all of the samples, not just 30. 30 out of 111 would be incomplete analysis, especially since they didn't know which ones were which. The sample sources were withheld from them. They phylogenetic trees were also done after, because they were only done on the 3 samples they ran nuDNA on later.

It is interesting that the haplotypes they didn't go beyond screening were outside of the timeline to fit the hypothesis. The 30 that did all fit the 13-15k timeline. The rest sit at 25-30k.

And yes SY - 31 was the Erickson project sample, or one of them anyway.

[Guest]

31 was the plate. Blood from the shards of glass left on the plate left out for them. Might have been saliva as well.

Sample 31 shows to be from AL= Alabama? This wouldn't be from the Kentucky Project/ Erickson Project?

Whose name is beside sample 31, SY? It was my understanding that Adrian's habituation sites used the glass shards on plates. Could be I was misinformed.

[Guest njjohn]

The Erickson Project (Adrian Erickson, Dennis Pfohl, Leila Hadj-Chikh, Randy Brisson, Zoltan Bartha, and Ray Brisson)

And Dennis Pfohl is listed as original finder to 31.

[Guest]

Well, that would be one of the samples submitted through the Erickson Project, then. There were supposed to be multiple habituation sites.

[southernyahoo]

I've worked with scientists in many disciplines - terminology is KEY, and MANY scientists use it very precisely. I think Family Tree is using "process" and "analyzed" as synonyms in this statement. I say this for two reasons.

1. If you "process" or "analyze" samples, you are running tests on samples ... to produce DATA. Then, that DATA is interpreted/analyzed. The way I read the Family Tree statement, they are using "analyzed" as a synonym for "process" because both words modify the word "samples." They are NOT stating that they analyzed/interpreted the DATA. A precise scientist would have said they analyzed/interpreted the samples AND the data IF they had done so.

2. Their first statement is that they processed the samples. They then used a common linguistic method of repetition, emphasized with the word "simply," to drive home their point. But in that repeat reference, they used "analyzed." Because of this sentence's function as an emphasis/repeat of the original statement, I think they fully intended "analyzed" to be synonymous with "process."

Based on my experience, this statement means that they did NO analysis/interpretation of the data.

That said, to me, because SOME people might read this a different way, it would be worth it to ask for clarification regarding whether or not they did any analysis/interpretation of the DATA. Some scientists don't write well - I know, because I've edited their work.

Just want to acknowledge that Bananasquatch made the same point while I was typing my post.

It would be pertinent to know the question asked since it is stated in response to one.

[Guest Silent Sam]

It would be pertinent to know the question asked since it is stated in response to one.

The question I asked of Family Tree(which was the same in all the emails I sent out) was...

Since your business is listed in the "Analysis for Hire Laboratories" section of the paper we were hoping you might be able to provide our show with a brief description of any work you might have performed related to this paper and any thoughts or observations you had regarding it.

[southernyahoo]

Here it is again.

Thank you for your email. To answer your question, yes, we did process mtDNA samples for Dr. Ketchum. Information about the tests can be found at our website. We ran either the mtDNA Plus or mtFullSequence.

I cannot comment on anything else. Our lab simply analysed DNA samples that were sent to us. There was no chain of custody for any of the samples, so I cannot verify any information regarding their origin, how they were obtained or how they were processed before we received them.

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[Guest]

Based on that question, then, I would still say that they did no analysis/interpretation of the data.

[southernyahoo]

Family Tree DNA definately does DNA analysis and haplotype determinations for people seeking their ancestry as their name implies. The question to ask is did they provide haplotype interpretations? The data in table 2 perhaps?

Actually that's a good question. My guess is no, because she said the sequences were than BLASTED gave the haplotypes in table 2. If the lab were to do that, you'd think they do all of the samples, not just 30. 30 out of 111 would be incomplete analysis, especially since they didn't know which ones were which. The sample sources were withheld from them. They phylogenetic trees were also done after, because they were only done on the 3 samples they ran nuDNA on later.

It is interesting that the haplotypes they didn't go beyond screening were outside of the timeline to fit the hypothesis. The 30 that did all fit the 13-15k timeline. The rest sit at 25-30k.

And yes SY - 31 was the Erickson project sample, or one of them anyway.

You may be confused nijohn, Family Tree did not do the nuDNA.

ETA; You might also check your sources to see if one of the labs responded to Ketchum asking "What is this, it doesn't BLAST"

I think that was SeqWright when doing the nuDNA sequencing in the Amelogenin locus.

Edited April 4, 2013 by southernyahoo