Guest Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 Okay then. Thanks for the update.. Melba cracks me up.
Guest Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 (edited) Okay then. Thanks for the update.. Melba cracks me up. I hope I get there one day. I wanted not just a decent project leader for these thirty submitters, but a good scientist published in a good journal, and top notch ethics/altruism as a human being in a field plagued by opportunists...and my family tells me...what were you thinking? lol tall order I suppose....parts of it weren't though. So, it's sad, downright sad. ...no matter how it ends ultimately this has been painful to watch for so long and hope for.... I think I might still be in denial..thinking - "oh, maybe something...something will be proven of her genomes....and the rest of the junk just bad PR... " it raises for me all kinds of concerns about the interim..in this still unproven state. I won't go to F&W with this study (or even my friends that aren't already into BF..which is zero)....so Sykes needs to pass review as well and in the meantime the trigger happy, circus masters prevail... is that Dyer claim shown to be hoax or possible yet..haha don't answer here! Edited February 20, 2013 by apehuman
Guest Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 You have to find something in this to laugh about - or it will make you crazy - Apehuman... I think for some of us, disappointment is not uncommon. So, we just start to expect it. Not that it doesn't get under our skin - we just expect to be disappointed so we don't get our hopes up.... Sad yes - but very good for ones mental health. I still hold out hope that something good can come from her paper - but I am a realist - so my hopes are not real high..
Guest Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 I don't know why people keep defending her actions. She may be a member here(who never posts, btw) but this is a pretty special case, I'd imagine. I guess we'll wait and see what everybody says once she uploads all her data for people to see, but she deliberately ducks and dodges all of the pertinent issues, but has no problem posting cryptic FB posts that address basically nothing. I have zero empathy for her, at this point. If she wouldn't have promised so many things, and just tried her best, I would've still supported her, as a lot of other people probably would have. She tried to bamboozle everyone...Period! And what is Wally's story? Has he had a sighting before, or does he just enjoy the idea of BF? I appreciate the guy, but it seems like he gets taken advantage of from time to time. Does anybody know how much money he's actually invested in this study, or how much of that $30 he actually gets? Did Melba give him any credit?
Guest Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 Have you tried to copy/paste the text from the PDF into a notepad file then changing the file association to .fas? Assuming you are using the windows platform of course. Thanks HODS. I have saved it as a .txt file but will try with the .fas and see if that works better. Using a Mac, but that might still work.
Guest Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 Tyler, I was one of those people too. I wanted her to just publish the dang thing and let the discussion happen - but I also said "Please stop responding to every criticism out there and focus on the paper". BUT - I didn't think she would do what she did. That was a curve ball out of left field. Her last leak had the study being published in "weeks" and not "months" and the publishing would be in a scientific journal. Then, we all patiently waited. It turned into months (not weeks) and the paper turned up on a brand new website, with nothing other than her paper. I think most of her issues stem from bad PR. I would have told Melba to announce the new journal - before the paper published in it. It would have given her the time to address the questions about why the new journal - before publication. By not telling anyone before the paper published, it allowed another avenue of attack for her paper. She already knew she was going to do it - so why not address it up front and deal with it. People already figured out what she did, before her statement about purchasing the journal. So - it put her on the defensive yet again, and at a time when she didn't need to be on the defensive about anything but the paper. Bad PR.. I'm starting to think she likes being in the position of defending everything.... She does it to herself. It's too late now but she needs a handler, a go-between her and the world at large. She has the PR instincts and decision-making skills of a fading Mike Tyson.
Guest TwilightZone Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 I was listening to the C2C interview in which she laments the lower standard of proof required by the recent announcement of a new monkey species. I got curious what real science is supposed to look like so looked up the paper and was surprised by what I found. Oddly, it did not cost $30 to view, it is free. It must therefore be worthless. Also, their photographic evidence is totally lacking. They included easily faked hi-res images of not only the face but also the critter's naughty bits. Who wants to see that? Nowhere to be seen is a video of just the monkey's rib-cage so we can determine once and for all if it is a living, breathing animal. Those wacky scientists! Link below... http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0044271 On a serious note, can someone with knowledge of genetics see if that appears to be all of the DNA data? Is is presented better than Ketchum's for investigation by researchers?
Guest Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 I'm not going to point out the part - but let me say THANK YOU for a good laugh Twilight..
Guest Tyler H Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 Oh FB, I don't use it well. I went to the Olympic Project site and could find no updated reference to the paper...the pages still look like it isn't released... Tyler..not sure what you mean..you don't fault Melba Ketchum... I do agree the community was desperate for some attention and DNA testing at a reasonable price. But, I can say there was no point in this study if peer-review wasn't the goal...otherwise she could have published well over a year ago, and put out that.documentary right away too. Peer-review was always the goal per her, and what everyone hoped for. It is essential to the credibility of what she and her coauthors claim. We are fortunate that others like Sykes have come forward and will report on it, as have those here. But, peer-review was the goal. On the weird Journal birth/death/purchase.... that was never the goal that I know of...if you can't get published start your own Journal.... maybe such a great opportunity? Nah...totally unorthodox and raises more questions than it answers.. I am trying to figure out how that JAMEZ journal reviewed her paper in just a week or so......and what pool of reviewers..not a name listed anywhere as the potential pool, or on Scholastic ..it looks worse than a White Paper sent to each submitter and posted on their websites.. So, in the end, pass, fail, whatever...Dr. Ketchum, et al are the only ones to fault I find the course of this study approaching shocking . The only other one I might chastise is Wally (or his "broker") for not having more control/transparency over the process/product...but then Wally isn't the scientist, just the money...after that it's the same list..who had any money or power to influence her? So, the only way out of this IMO is a favorable review from several prominent scientists soon, and the replicated results in time. That might go a long way to covering the many missteps and/or ethics issues that seem to keep cropping up.... I fault Ketchum for a great many things - some of which you itemize here, and a great many more that I have itemized many times. But I'm not going to complain that she did not wait longer for a more "professional" release of the data. It was clear to her (and anyone with any insight about the report) that it was never going to pass peer review. Some of us knew that for some time. So, why keep waiting for a "better" means to release it? Just put it out there. I'm not happy about the charge, and I'm not happy that much of the raw data is for some reason being withheld. But I am glad the world can now see this shoddy report, and people can at least START to make their minds up about it, and about her. I'm still glad the info is now "out" and that we weren't subjected to more months of "just wait until this or that peer reviewer gets finished, and then it will be out" peer reviews can STILL take place. And now we might actually know if the reviewers have credentials. You aren't waiting for anything Tyler. Her data and conclusions are given, and what don't you know about Sykes that you can't find out? Do you really think he won't get his hands on the data? BTW, did you find the PHd's in her paper you were so concerned about? Did you talk to them? Shifting goal posts? Also, thanks for not being a hypocrite! Huh? I think you must have misunderstood me SY... and I can't understand you. Re one of your points - I wanted the PHD names to be released, to see if they put their names behind it. If some now are, great. As far as I know, none have clearly delineated the capacity in which they worked with the sample, or to what extent they support the conclusions. I was not doubting that some PhD's were involved in some of the processing... it is a question of whether they think the data support the conclusions/interpretations. The rest of your references are too oblique for me. Tyler, I was one of those people too. I wanted her to just publish the dang thing and let the discussion happen - but I also said "Please stop responding to every criticism out there and focus on the paper". BUT - I didn't think she would do what she did. That was a curve ball out of left field. Her last leak had the study being published in "weeks" and not "months" and the publishing would be in a scientific journal. Then, we all patiently waited. It turned into months (not weeks) and the paper turned up on a brand new website, with nothing other than her paper. I think most of her issues stem from bad PR. I would have told Melba to announce the new journal - before the paper published in it. It would have given her the time to address the questions about why the new journal - before publication. By not telling anyone before the paper published, it allowed another avenue of attack for her paper. She already knew she was going to do it - so why not address it up front and deal with it. People already figured out what she did, before her statement about purchasing the journal. So - it put her on the defensive yet again, and at a time when she didn't need to be on the defensive about anything but the paper. Bad PR.. I'm starting to think she likes being in the position of defending everything.... She does it to herself. HODS said: At the end of the day - it isn't my work - and as far as I am concerned she can put her paper on an insert for a box of cracker jacks. But I would think if a person put 5 years of their life into something so important, how it's presented would matter. Just my 2 cents. Again agree with almost every critique anyone has to say. But I'm still glad the info is now "out" and that we weren't subjected to more months of "just wait until this or that peer reviewer gets finished, and then it will be out" peer reviews can STILL take place. And now we might actually know if the reviewers have credentials. I was listening to the C2C interview in which she laments the lower standard of proof required by the recent announcement of a new monkey species. I got curious what real science is supposed to look like so looked up the paper and was surprised by what I found. Oddly, it did not cost $30 to view, it is free. It must therefore be worthless. Also, their photographic evidence is totally lacking. They included easily faked hi-res images of not only the face but also the critter's naughty bits. Who wants to see that? Nowhere to be seen is a video of just the monkey's rib-cage so we can determine once and for all if it is a living, breathing animal. Those wacky scientists! Link below... http://www.plosone.o...al.pone.0044271 On a serious note, can someone with knowledge of genetics see if that appears to be all of the DNA data? Is is presented better than Ketchum's for investigation by researchers? first - lol second, I have info regarding the data. I know that there are people who have seen much more of the data than what is apparently currently available for download. They are still parsing it, but it seems that it may be closer to the amount of information for a whole genome, in at least one of the instances. They do feel quite certain that said raw data is all very shoddy and did almost nothing to rule out contamination which lead to amalgams of sequences... Snippets of human, snippets of bear, snippets of everything that was present in the sample. Illumina is very good at detecting EVERYTHING present, and then giving gobs of data. But without proper efforts, analysis, interprettion, etc etc, it's a pile of hay.
Guest njjohn Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 While everyone focus on the Smeja sample (Which visually to me definitely does look different) it's surprising that the other two samples that resulted in full genomes that collection was ideal with no chance of human contamination--unless intentional--are being written off to contamination. As to the snippets.. It's my understanding that human and animal dna is similar in many shared respects. You will get small hits for every animal on the planet. Small hits don't mean it's that animal or contamination. The blast would give the overall similarity, not just a string here or there. Again, not an expert, so someone else can chime in and tell me if I'm wrong.
Guest Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 Anybody up for Abby from NCIS to get to the bottom of this DNA?
Northern Lights Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 Anyone reading this thread have their opinions changed based entirely by the negative content? Might want to read this: http://news.yahoo.com/trolls-online-comments-skew-perception-science-204704946.html BTW-I'm not calling anyone here a troll. Their topic header, not mine. I just thought it was interesting. Thanks
Drew Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 Oh dear heavens. The fat lady is now singing folks... http://www.historum.com/blogs/ghostexorcist/1380-melba-ketchum-s-bigfoot-dna-study-questionable-ethics-creating-journal.html
Guest Tyler H Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 While everyone focus on the Smeja sample (Which visually to me definitely does look different) it's surprising that the other two samples that resulted in full genomes that collection was ideal with no chance of human contamination--unless intentional--are being written off to contamination. As to the snippets.. It's my understanding that human and animal dna is similar in many shared respects. You will get small hits for every animal on the planet. Small hits don't mean it's that animal or contamination. The blast would give the overall similarity, not just a string here or there. Again, not an expert, so someone else can chime in and tell me if I'm wrong. Bart's report will be out within a week, and you'll see all the related pics. There is no such thing as "no chance of human contamination". Especially when you are dealing with the Illumina system Mmmm... I'm not one who is well-qualified to give DNA lessons, and don't have time for a proper clarification ... but it's not quite as simple as you state.
Martin Posted February 20, 2013 Posted February 20, 2013 (edited) When the entire journal birth issue is so dodgy what can really be said about the rest of the study? I read the paper from a journeyman perspective and felt like I was reading a Habituators Romance Novel. Edited February 20, 2013 by Martin
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