The Ketchum Report (Continued)

[southernyahoo]

 

 

So SY, your last sentence......would you expound on that? Where is the contamination coming from?

 

I wouldn't say all the samples were contaminated. Some could have been. The mito results came from an outsourced lab. She says the hair samples didn't match human criteria, which I agree with for my sample, and if the DNA results are repeatable then that's what I have, which I think is cogent with other evidence prospectively from bigfoot. 

 

Logicly I just don't think that all 113 samples could be contaminated and go un-noticed. If Family Tree found any they would have had confusing results and they would know it . They certainly would have had trouble getting a complete human mitochondria from a Llama or bear right?

 

Help me understand one point, sa. Your hair sample did not match human criteria but were human, i.e., your hair sample morphology was not apparently human, while genetically it was human (mitro). What morphological attributes did the hair possess that rule out human? And why do you think the contradiction between morphological and genetic identities supports belief in Bigfoot rather than some other conclusion?

 

 

I thought I'd respond to this. If my observations are correct, then with repeating human results coming from samples that are measurably outside established human norms, we are either expanding our knowledge of human hair morphology, which is not likely to come from a bigfoot study, or we are documenting a type of human that has dodged previous studies that outlined the established known human hair morphology. 

 

I think this is why Ketchum would consider her results proof. I think some of the nuclear results played a part in that too, but the common theme here is the human and non-human morphology being cogent with the human and non-human DNA results.

[Guest Orygun]

There's groups of people called habituators. They have them living around their property. And they interact with them, but they're highly secretive because one, people think they're crazy when they say they interact with bigfoot—and I prefer Sasquatch by the way, but bigfoot's easier to say. Finally a group of them came by and said "you want to see 'em? we'll take you and show you." And they did. The clan I was around was used to people and they were just very, very easy to be around—they're real curious about us, and they'd come and look at us, and we'd look at them.

 

 

Too bad they won't let us pet one, might be able to get an uncontaminated sample. Sadly the sample will come back "Wookie-suit"...

[Guest]

 

 

 

, my sample has a medulla that is not consistent with human morphology to the best I can determine. There is a point along the shaft of these hairs where it is not amorphous and 1/3 the shaft diameter, it is closer to half the width of the hair with straight uniform margins. That is it's major difference from human hairs that I can tell. Wider medulla's like this are more common with animal hairs. Other human or ape features would be the even distribution of pigmentation in the cortex. Animal hairs generally have  greater pigmentation concentrations near the medulla and lighter towards the cortex. The width (diameter) of the hairs are also very close to human for my sample.

 

Sy,

Iwas going to post some pictures of this,  but never bothered to figure out how.  Heres the problem, i can post pictures side by side of hairs through my scope,  one would show amorphous with 1/3 the shaft diameter medula, and another with straight uniform margins and the medula diameter = 50 %.   one with scales, the other without. 

 

heres the kicker!  its the same hair,  different locations on the shaft, and simply changing the focal plane can give me a photo of whatever combination of characteristics you would like!

 

Thats why I see no real value for species ID (humans to BF) using hair morphology! 

 

On the other hand I can tell goat and cat, and some others,  but I can come up with any combo you want using human hair!

 

speaking of hair, lets play a game!

1. fill in this common expression

well you are just going to have to grin and _ _ _ _ it!  (4 letters)

 

2. what is the result of a well know british  researchers test on the "prime" BF sample?

 

_ _ _ _ !   

 

like the hair photos,  same word correctly answers both puzzles!

 

[southernyahoo]

 

 

 

 

, my sample has a medulla that is not consistent with human morphology to the best I can determine. There is a point along the shaft of these hairs where it is not amorphous and 1/3 the shaft diameter, it is closer to half the width of the hair with straight uniform margins. That is it's major difference from human hairs that I can tell. Wider medulla's like this are more common with animal hairs. Other human or ape features would be the even distribution of pigmentation in the cortex. Animal hairs generally have  greater pigmentation concentrations near the medulla and lighter towards the cortex. The width (diameter) of the hairs are also very close to human for my sample.

 

Sy,

Iwas going to post some pictures of this,  but never bothered to figure out how.  Heres the problem, i can post pictures side by side of hairs through my scope,  one would show amorphous with 1/3 the shaft diameter medula, and another with straight uniform margins and the medula diameter = 50 %.   one with scales, the other without. 

 

heres the kicker!  its the same hair,  different locations on the shaft, and simply changing the focal plane can give me a photo of whatever combination of characteristics you would like!

 

Thats why I see no real value for species ID (humans to BF) using hair morphology! 

 

On the other hand I can tell goat and cat, and some others,  but I can come up with any combo you want using human hair!

 

speaking of hair, lets play a game!

1. fill in this common expression

well you are just going to have to grin and _ _ _ _ it!  (4 letters)

 

2. what is the result of a well know british  researchers test on the "prime" BF sample?

 

_ _ _ _ !   

 

like the hair photos,  same word correctly answers both puzzles!

 

 

 

How about just posting pics of the hairs you say tested human. My pics are in focus and focused on the center of the hair where you can see the medulla clearly. Show me one from a human that is focused on the medulla with an medullary index of .5.

 

I can tell you that every bear hair I've seen had a celular vacuolated medulla, and mine just don't have that.

 

[southernyahoo]

 

Sy,

Iwas going to post some pictures of this,  but never bothered to figure out how.

 

 

Slowstepper, go to the bottom of the post window...Click " more reply options". At the bottom of that window, click "browse". Select photo file , then click attach this file. When it's finished loading, put your cursor where you want it, then click " add to post".

 

 

Do it!!!!!!!

[Guest]

 

 

Sy,

Iwas going to post some pictures of this,  but never bothered to figure out how.

 

 

Slowstepper, go to the bottom of the post window...Click " more reply options". At the bottom of that window, click "browse". Select photo file , then click attach this file. When it's finished loading, put your cursor where you want it, then click " add to post".

 

 

Do it!!!!!!!

 

Dont hold your breath Sy.... tis better and easier to throw rocks from a distance. I believe I would have a better chance waiting for Melba's next more/release than waiting on a picture from SS

Sometimes producing the object that enticed the discussion becomes for one reason or another not as important, or misplaced or lost.

I havent that much faith in Sykes either.... and he is ( i have read) working on hairs for his project. ( Jist not yourn)

 

But with the Melba gathering of 116+ samples for a DNA project ....... I don't see how it got away. Any of the places she sent her sample(s) to are now doing and were doing DNA ID for scads of testers. 

It seems so simple to go through the process equally fairly with each sample and get an honest report.

BUt the 116+ have fallen by the wayside with problems

[southernyahoo]

She was focused on the DNA for her paper, but what started it all was the initial vetting of the samples. Screening out obvious human and known animals was a logical approach, and I'd expect Sykes to do the same. What she had said all along was that the ones culled from the influx of samples were for one reason or another not human by morphology and yet did produce human DNA.  Perhaps Sykes might have called no joy with samples like that, believing he had a contaminated unknown, but to a an experienced forensic tech who should know when they have a mixture this could look like the smoking gun. 

 

I think Sykes will either be in a similar boat, or he will have a complete negative paper to publish.

[Guest]

I think you're overstating the expertise of forensic DNA experts. They specialize in looking at two samples and computing the probability of a match, not at sequencing novel genomes. I think Timmer's article did a rather good job of explaining why Ketchum was a poor choice for the study.

[Guest]

@ Southern yahoo

 

 this reminds of structural engineer's/architects that design certain aspects of  stuctures using what they have learned, but

the people in the field doing the actual assembling can see the flaw in the design and through experience have seen it fail time and time again.

 many times i have seen this happen, were the hands on people read into a situation that the "text book" says it's the way it should be, is proven wrong.
DNA is a very complex field of science/study, and as science is in there infant stage in this field, many beliefs,theories, and believed to be facts, will
proved to be false. There will be new doors being open and old doors being knocked down, before they truly understand it.

Edited July 17, 2013 by zigoapex

[southernyahoo]

Whole nuclear genome work would likely take a team of scientists to study it, I would agree, but the basics of sample identification and dealing with contamination should be the forensic lab's forte. Just ask slowstepper, it only takes about 400 (clean) basepair from one gene in the mitochondria to make an ID for species and make it stick, unless you have a hybrid species diverged from the same maternal lineages.

 

Matching human DNA to a specific person would be another must for a forensic lab.

 

I think the bad choices were to skip certain protocols in the process of selection of the three samples that provided the whole genomes. Timmers article seemed to gloss right over the other 110 samples as if they also produced chaotic results, when in fact they did not.

 

The whole nuclear results were chaotic.

The nuclear results from the Amelogenin locus which contains the X and Y chromosomes were not consistent. Many PCR failures , some novel sequence, and some human results were found.

The Mitochondrial results were most consistent and purely human for the majority.

 

To some folks, that might mean you throw out the whole batch, but there was a whole lot of money spent. Not all of it went to Ketchums lab and the work done by other labs.

 

It makes me want to test my sample one more time, but throw in the towel?, nope not yet.

[Sunflower]

SY,

 

Good for you, don't throw in the towel just yet.

[Guest]

I think you're overstating the expertise of forensic DNA experts. They specialize in looking at two samples and computing the probability of a match, not at sequencing novel genomes. I think Timmer's article did a rather good job of explaining why Ketchum was a poor choice for the study.

 

TWO different labs independently made the SAME repeated errors in procedure resulting in improper analysis of "contaminated" samples?

I find that very hard to believe.

 

I finally read through the whole thing, and it reads like an exercise in circular reasoning and selective application of standards.

 

On the one hand, the author acknowledges the validity of forensic dna testing and the expertise of forensic dna analyists.  Their practices, after all, are time-tested and court approved.  Yet here comes a novel dna sequence and suddenly those time-tested, court-approved methods are complete bunk?  And the analysts who previously were said to be very good at spotting and eliminating contamination are mysteriously incompetent?  TWO LABS worth of analysts?

 

That doesn't pass the "sniff test".

 

Next the author goes on to make great hay about the "unsuitable" nature of the software deployed, even after running the analysis himself and getting confirming results.  So it MUST be the software, right?  I thought it was "contamination"?

 

Moving on, the author carries on at length about non-human, non-primate sequences, such as the "bear" dna.  This is after he tacitly admits that most mammals share varying degrees of dna similarity.  He again attributes the presence of "bear" dna to contamination, in which case I refer you back to my first point.

 

The whole article basically reads like a circular argument.  The dna MUST be contaminated because the results of the test can only be explained BY contamination...but there's that pesky bit about forensic dna analysts being expert in dealing with such situations...

 

The author accuses Ketchum's team of "seeing what it wants to see".  Yet the author, given a choice between "real, and novel dna" and "degraded/contaminated sample" always chooses the later option.  So who is "seeing what they want to see"?  Why is it Ketchum and not the article author?

 

The author even admits his bias in the very opening paragraphs of the article.  His goal was NOT to independently examine and confirm or refute Ketchum's results (which, if you read the article carefully, he admits several times that when he repeated the analysis, they CONFIRM Ketchum).  His stated goal was to "figure out what went wrong".

But because he's "skeptical", he obviously ISN'T suffering from confirmation bias and Ketchum is?

 

Sorry, but that article is nothing but a clever bit of misguided reasoning (either accidentally or intentionally).

[Guest]

There's a difference between performing tests and analyzing the results. I thins case, the issue is that Ketchum's analysis is flawed. To use a med school metaphor, he saw hoofprints and thought zebra instead of horse. The results are consistent with contaminated samples. The explanation is that the samples were contaminated, something that happens even in the bet forensic labs in the country. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the study only proved that old saying: GIGO.

[Sunflower]

Mulder,

 

I agree.

[Guest]

Speaking of seeing what one wants to see welcome back Mulder.

Nothing about Ketchum's process passes the sniff test. That was the main point of the article.