The Ketchum Report (Part 3)

[WSA]

Sorry Llawgoch....your life's experience and mine will never intersect.  Cheers!

[dmaker]

Saw this recently. Pretty interesting stuff, re: Ketchum and peer review at Nature.  It seems Nature took her seriously and allowed the manuscript to go through the peer review process. If you read the referees comments they are taking her seriously. I see nothing that resembles the Bigfoot advocates claims of mainstream science ridiculing and dismissing anything to do with Sasquatch. Here we have what appears to be evidence of a very serious Sasquatch claim being taken very seriously by a prominent journal and several peers.  They do not support her claims or conclusion, but it was not mocked or dismissed as most would have us believe. 

 

http://www.cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/ketchum-paper-submitted-rejected-nature/

Edited September 24, 2013 by dmaker

[MIB]

^^^^ Yeah, I thought I heard something like that ... that her paper had indeed passed peer review, they just chose not to publish it.

 

That raises some interesting questions ... if it met their standards and passed peer review ... could it possibly be the same mess she bought/"created" DeNovo to publish?   Something smells of fish ... and it ain't fresh.   Could she have found something during the research that lead her to sabotage her own work?   Could it be that Wally hasn't sued her because he's in complete agreement about that choice?  

 

No knowing but stuff does tend to make me wonder if we're not getting the whole story.

 

MIB

[dmaker]

I never said it passed peer review. It was at least submitted, considered and returned for modifications. 

[dmaker]

MIB, if you read some of the comments by the referees you will begin to see why it was not passed, but sent back for modifications. The comments are not really ambiguous and some of them are easily understood by lay persons such as myself.

 

A sampling of the reviewers comments:

 

First the data does not make logical sense.

 

PCR based methods and methods used for SNP detection by the authors are known to be highly unreliable when applied to minor amounts of degraded DNA...

 

At no point do the authors provide adequate evidence to support their outrageous claims. The paper suffers from a myriad of faults,...

 

There is a minimum of statistical analysis.

 

I should note that I have no idea if this is indeed genuine. It's from a post on Cryptomundo. I cannot say that I got it from Nature directly. Not sure how one would confirm the veracity of the documents in the link. 

Edited September 24, 2013 by dmaker

[dmaker]

The main I reason I posted this was to hopefully put a nail in the coffin of the claim that mainstream science will not take Bigfoot claims seriously. The Ketchum study was taken seriously enough by Nature to at least pass it on for peer review. And the comments by the peers do not dismiss it based solely on its premise. There is no ivory tower snubbing in evidence here. It was reviewed fairly by mainstream science. It was found lacking, but it was, at least, reviewed on its merits.

Edited September 25, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest]

Couldn't agree more. I guess Mulder's claims don't have much left to stand on now.

[dmaker]

^^ Yes, if the linked documents are indeed genuine, it should certainly take a  lot wind out of the sails of the conspiracy theorists.

And not just Mulder, but one of the lynch pins of DWA's argument is that science refuses to look at Bigfoot evidence seriously. Well here is potentially some pretty strong evidence to the contrary. It was taken seriously, and examined, and found lacking. 

 

So much for the argument that "science" will not look at Bigfoot claims. Unless one wants to argue that Nature is not a serious scientific publication?

 

Though I suppose Mulder might argue that the peer review process at Nature is "rigged" as he would say...

Edited September 25, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest Stan Norton]

 

MIB, if you read some of the comments by the referees you will begin to see why it was not passed, but sent back for modifications. The comments are not really ambiguous and some of them are easily understood by lay persons such as myself.

 

A sampling of the reviewers comments:

 

First the data does not make logical sense.

 

PCR based methods and methods used for SNP detection by the authors are known to be highly unreliable when applied to minor amounts of degraded DNA...

 

At no point do the authors provide adequate evidence to support their outrageous claims. The paper suffers from a myriad of faults,...

 

There is a minimum of statistical analysis.

 

I should note that I have no idea if this is indeed genuine. It's from a post on Cryptomundo. I cannot say that I got it from Nature directly. Not sure how one would confirm the veracity of the documents in the link. 

 

 You could also add the following selective quotes too:

 

"I'm not an expert on hair morphology..."

 

"I must state at the outset that I am not a geneticist and hence not fully qualified to evaluate the DNA data..."

 

Now, I happen to think that this study is a farce and I don't believe a word of it (but that's just gut instinct, not backed up by any evidence) - but to say this review is objective is a little cute and I guess you see in it confirmation of your own position. To me it reads as though these chaps are entirely dismissive and mocking - given the mess the paper was I can't blame them. However, it seems as though Ketchum at least has coherent responses to each of the reviewers' points and it would be nice to see what further communication there was.

 

Incidentally, the grammar in some of the reviewers' wording is terrible - looks very fishy and not of the standard one would expect from Nature. 

[Guest SDBigfooter]

Exactly DMaker, you can quote whatever lines you want to get different interpretations.  I read most of that report. 

 

I have no desire in getting in a back and forth discussion about it but I wanted to add that I respectfully disagree with the whole "nail in the coffin" thing.

 

If you noticed, I previously posted links to the same article and I thought it gave Ketchum some legitimacy.  Both sides appear to be lacking and it all adds to the confusion.

 

I think the only possibility of making any sense of this would be for an independent researcher to do their own study. 

[chelefoot]

However, it seems as though Ketchum at least has coherent responses to each of the reviewers' points and it would be nice to see what further communication there was.

An earlier post has both the Authors Responses to Nature requests for changes and well as a letter written to them by Melba. I think these are authentic due to Melba's Facebook posts stating her disappointment that someone within her inner circle had leaked them.

 

http://bigfootforums.com/index.php/topic/40487-the-ketchum-report-part-3/page-6#entry769597

[southernyahoo]

 

The main I reason I posted this was to hopefully put a nail in the coffin of the claim that mainstream science will not take Bigfoot claims seriously.

I think you should say,"They will take scientific analysis of objective biological material" seriously without rejection of the premise they could be from an undiscovered extant hominid or hominin species.

This of coarse doesn't negate the general balking that the topic of bigfoot receives in spite of the fact that so many studies are presented on such material. (Sarcasm)

[Guest DWA]

If mainstream science took bigfoot claims seriously, we would have known about it 46 years ago when somebody got a movie of one.

 

(46 years of effort; not one piece of evidence of a fake.  No fake scenario that amounts to more than wishful thinking.)

 

Many species are "known" to science only from one photo.  Sure that wasn't distorted?  Sure it wasn't a known species?  Sure? 

 

Scientists are like other people in that they are sure of what they want to be sure of.

 

There are many things for which there is far less evidence than there is for sasquatch, and science accepts them.

 

There are no things for which there is as much evidence as there is for sasquatch that science doesn't accept.  Except sasquatch.

 

No one telling me that there is a good reason for that has been able to provide one, especially the scientists who say that.  Really that simple.

[Guest]

Many species are "known" to science only from one photo. 

 

Name some.

[Branco]

Somewhere in the discussions of Dr. K's results the question at the bottom of this post may have been answered; if so I missed it and apologize for that oversight. 

 

Here's why I'm asking. Several years ago I set up five inorganic materials (mineral & ores) labs in Brazil. In one of many such events, the Brazilian chemist in charge of one those labs in Belem called me here at home to say the analyses of some ore samples showed unusually high iron content. The chemist insisted the lab had not messed up, so i flew back to Belem. I found that some of the reagents used in the test  had been contaminated during their bulk shipment to by Brazil by the reagent having been shipped in a container which had previously been used -without proper cleaning - to ship a ferrous compound.

 

Now that contaminate did not not destroy the specific elemental components in the samples which were designed to be determined by the analyses, but of course it did affect the accuracy of the ore's evaluation.

 

In regard to Dr. K's analyses: If her "bulk" sample was contaminated with "human" DNA, what did the uncontaminated portion of DNA show? Wouldn't the DNA have shown at least something other than "Human" if the sample was simply contaminated?