Article Link: What Is 'peer Review', And How Does It Work?

[Guest]

Jodie

In the first place I think the specimens were supposed to be from all over the country not the world. But the point is that Paulides can say anything he wants about where they came from. How would Ketchum know?

She wouldn't but I am not sure I see the motive in doing that since anything that comes up as human would have to be discarded.

Ketchum said she used existing databases not a sampling of the human population.

Do the existing databases not include a broad sampling of human DNA? Simply using animal or human DNA databases alone would not be a good method to use unless you wanted to create a bias. That would be rejected for peer review unless she went back and corrected that since that is the point of peer review, to validate the methodology. I don't think Ketchum is stupid and I believe she would have thought that through, don't you? It's kind of obvious. I don't think the Klamath Indians are that far off from human(insert sarcasm here) that it would need to be their specific DNA that she would use for human comparison.

Read these recent posts by Paulides and particularly note the "sensitivity" remark and the "forest people" descriptor and the phrase at the very end of the second quotation:

When I read this, I'm getting that NABS is trying to establish some behavior patterns that may or may not compliment the DNA analysis results. As I've been saying, if it is human they will have to discard the samples. It looks like Paulides is going to try to pull some kind of profile together for bigfoot behavior from the NA stories. Is this going to be something Ketchum uses in her paper? I doubt it. So I'm not sure what the point is unless you just want to show that Paulides has a bias for bigfoot being human and is expressing an opinion???? I take the "family ties" remark to mean where the creature falls within the spectrum for primates. Bigfoot may not be a primate like we assume. Maybe the point is to prove what Bigfoot isn't rather than what it is or that it exists. I don't know since I haven't heard anything recently about Ketchum's research. I would be surprised if I did if she needs to revise and redo some things.

Edited May 6, 2011 by Jodie

[southernyahoo]

Simply using animal or human DNA databases alone would not be a good method to use unless you wanted to create a bias.

Okay, I'm having trouble understanding this statement. What other data bases are there? And how would one identify a sample as being human with any other data base?

[Guest]

Okay, I'm having trouble understanding this statement. What other data bases are there? And how would one identify a sample as being human with any other data base?

I was responding to Parn and I might have misunderstood what he said , but I thought he was implying that she was using animal databases only since she would have access to that as a veterinarian???? Parn will need to clarify.

Edit- I was getting the impression Parn thought Ketchum was caught up in whatever agenda Paulides has, if he even has an agenda ( It just sounds like he is opinionated to me), and that would influence what Ketchum did with her research. I don't think that will happen since she seems to be well educated in what she does. It would be akin to a police officer telling me how to deliver a baby just because he he did one emergency delivery in the back of the car. I don't think it matters what Paulides influence is on Ketchum, it won't affect the process. I remember reading some of Parn and Kit's discussion on what DNA databases Ketchum had access to a few months back in a thread now dead. There was some question about exactly what she used for reference, if I remember correctly, but don't hold me to that. My memory isn't that razor sharp.

Edited May 7, 2011 by Jodie

[Guest RayG]

Dr. John Bindernagel seems to be able to get bigfoot papers published.

RayG

[Guest]

Let's say a fellow obtains a fresh sasquatch carcass. It's still dripping blood. This fellow wants to maintain strict anonymity, but wants this discovery to be shared with professional wildlife management so that the species will be maintained. So he somehow ships the carcass to a scientist who is active in the phenomenon. He realizes that he will have to give this scientist some information on where/when/how the creature was obtained, but even goes as far as ask this scientist to keep his name private.

Do you think "peers" (as part of their "review"), wildlife agencies, the environmental community, state governments, and/or other entities would demand the name and story of the individual who "obtained" the carcass, even to the point of threatening the scientist to whom the carcass was given?

I wouldn't think the "peers" would (the body speaks for itself), but I would fully expect the various F&W services to come down like a ton of bricks on whomever has possession of the body.

[southernyahoo]

Dr. John Bindernagel seems to be able to get bigfoot papers published.

RayG

Although the conference organizers ultimately rejected the paper, they did so only after corresponding with me regarding the availability of DNA evidence for the sasquatch. Colleague Henner Fahrenbach of Beaverton, OR confirmed that the results of his attempts to have DNA analysis performed on purported sasquatch hair collected in the field were "inconclusive." It was on the basis of these findings that the paper was declined and organizers decided to restrict the conference to papers on the five known taxa of apes (that is, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gibbons.)

I nevertheless attended the conference and was able to discuss the sasquatch as a possible great ape with zoo keepers, and primate researchers.

The idea that there is a possibility of an upright great ape existing, especially here in North America, is indeed "unwelcome" to many of us. This was recently brought home to me when, attempting to engage the attention of a colleague who is a zoology professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, I sent him a review copy of my book. When I next saw him his response was predictable: "but John, if this thing exists, it would be the zoological discovery of the century, and…and..." He left the thought hanging, but the implication was that "and that is impossible." His head-shaking incredulence was overwhelming and helped me understand just how unthinkable the sasquatch as a real animal is for mainstream zoologists in the university atmosphere.

His reaction helped me understand just how risky it would be for someone like him or his university colleagues to publicly show a serious interest in the subject of the sasquatch. It also helped me realize that for someone like him this was an unnecessary risk, with little to gain and much to lose. For this reason, we will one day acknowledge university academics like Professor Grover Krantz, recently retired from the Western Washington University, and Dr. Jeff Meldrum at Idaho State University.

In this regard it may also be worth documenting a conference presentation proposal which was rejected, and why it was declined. The sasquatch paper had been proposed for presentation at a national conference. The reasons given by the conference chair for rejection concluded with the comment : "Until there is "hard" evidence of their existence the issue will remain tabloid material and not part of the scientific community."

Interesting quotes, The question still stands, which has to come first, the hard evidence validated by science or the "interest and engagement" of the subject by scientists?

[Guest Cervelo]

SY,

Bigfoot gets hit by train, plane or automobile their all over it sure! Same stuff we have now no way. You've got to remember most research is done with someone else's money and if you want the money to keep coming, some risk is good, but go to far out on the limb and that tenured teaching position go's poof! It's always about the money!!

[southernyahoo]

Good answer Cervelo.

[southernyahoo]

I was responding to Parn and I might have misunderstood what he said , but I thought he was implying that she was using animal databases only since she would have access to that as a veterinarian???? Parn will need to clarify.

Edit- I was getting the impression Parn thought Ketchum was caught up in whatever agenda Paulides has, if he even has an agenda ( It just sounds like he is opinionated to me), and that would influence what Ketchum did with her research. I don't think that will happen since she seems to be well educated in what she does. It would be akin to a police officer telling me how to deliver a baby just because he he did one emergency delivery in the back of the car. I don't think it matters what Paulides influence is on Ketchum, it won't affect the process. I remember reading some of Parn and Kit's discussion on what DNA databases Ketchum had access to a few months back in a thread now dead. There was some question about exactly what she used for reference, if I remember correctly, but don't hold me to that. My memory isn't that razor sharp.

The availability of data bases is not a problem

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GenBank

GenBank and its collaborators receive sequences produced in laboratories throughout the world from more than 100,000 distinct organisms

[Guest parnassus]

You have to grasp Paulides basic concept. Which is:

The Sasquatchs of tribal legend were not animals or monsters, just nearby tribes who were some combination of bigger, stronger, meaner and/or hairier. Forest people. That is what he wants you to learn about.

I happen to agree with him on this. A number of tribal names used today are variants of a rival tribe's word for their enemies eg Apache, Sioux mean "enemy".

Now from his radio broadcast it is clear that he also wants you to buy into those tribal legends about abduction of women and rape. If you go back to his Feb radio appearance he makes that explicit. Paulides is making the case for interbreeding between tribal people and Sasquatches. I also agree with him that a considerable amount of this occurred between hostile tribes (remember we are talking about the word Sasquatch meaning little more than "enemy people").

Now, a few words about DNA. There are a very large number of variations in human DNA. Some of them are characteristic of particular races. Some of them are characteristic of certain isolated populations within races, for example: tribes. Doesn't make them any less human and there DNA would not look strange to a population geneticist but it does mean that they are more likely to befuddle a veterinarian (or an insect guy, which is what happened with Snelgrove Lake). The smaller and more isolated a population is (eg Hupas) the less likely it is that their particular combinations of DNA will be part of a veterinarian's database. So is it likely that when she saw Hupa DNA, the veterinarian called it just like the insect guy did with the Snelgrove Lake DNA: "not quite human."

Now I suspect that Dr. Ketchum must eventually realize (or be informed by a human geneticist) as did the insect guy in the Snelgrove Lake fiasco, that she was just looking at human DNA that differs from typical Anglo or African American "strains."

So it is true that the Hupas were probably someone's "enemies", (who isn't?) and thus could be referred to by some tribe as "Sasquatches" in that sense, I don't really think we want to label them that way, because in today's world, sasquatch means Bigfoot, a huge hairy monster, and the Hupas are certainly not that.

That is where I think she is now. Just the way I connect the dots.

We shall see where she and the California Boy go with it.

Edited May 7, 2011 by parnassus

[Guest]

Ok, that makes sense. I guess we will have to wait and and see what comes of it.

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 06 May 2011 - 09:20 AM, said:

Let's say a fellow obtains a fresh sasquatch carcass. It's still dripping blood. This fellow wants to maintain strict anonymity, but wants this discovery to be shared with professional wildlife management so that the species will be maintained. So he somehow ships the carcass to a scientist who is active in the phenomenon. He realizes that he will have to give this scientist some information on where/when/how the creature was obtained, but even goes as far as ask this scientist to keep his name private.

Do you think "peers" (as part of their "review"), wildlife agencies, the environmental community, state governments, and/or other entities would demand the name and story of the individual who "obtained" the carcass, even to the point of threatening the scientist to whom the carcass was given?

I wouldn't think the "peers" would (the body speaks for itself), but I would fully expect the various F&W services to come down like a ton of bricks on whomever has possession of the body.

Exactly, and those are the guys with powers of criminal prosecution. If you actually shoot a sasquatch in other than self defense, you might be taking a huge chance turning it in. More, and perhaps even more intimidating, the environmental industry has the power to make your name and memory into a pariah for eons, if not forever.

You may be right that the "peer review" group may not be much of a threat, but your anonymity may still be threatened to some degree. They will certainly want to know where the carcass was obtained from (particularly the location of the kill), and there may well be individuals among them who might press hard for the name of the individual who supplied the carcass for confirmation purposes, but ultimately, if the carcass is laid out before them on a slab, such pressure can't be used as an "I don't believe it" moment. While I'm the guy who likes to point out the extreme lengths of denial, one still can't use the anonymity of the shooter to deny the fact that the carcass is in front of their face.

[southernyahoo]

One problem with Parnassus's theory is that Native American gentetic types are known and available to genetic researchers. They wouldn't go undetected.

ETA: Another problem would be that MtDNA is passed on from the mother. So if there are no Native American variants in the MtDNA, whatever off spring from interbreeding wouldn't likely have rejoined the Sas tribe.

http://www.unl.edu/r...s/greenberg.htm

Wallace's group used particular enzymes to cut the DNA into standard pieces, then looked for variations in the length of those segments-called restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs)-to indicate the presence of mutations. They got intriguing results, finding that native Americans carry only four variants of mtDNA, called haplogroups A, B, C, and D, with each group characterized by a different set of mutations. These variants were found in some East Asians and Siberians (but not in Europeans or Africans), which indicated that the mutations originally came from Asia. Not every indigenous group seemed to carry all four, however. Wallace's team found, for example, that although most Amerind speakers carried all four haplogroups, Na- Dene speakers carried just one (haplogroup A), and the Eskimo- Aleut speakers carried two (haplogroups A and D). So the team concluded that Amerind speakers descended from women who carried all four types, while the other two groups descended from women who carried just one or two. And this suggested that they came to the New World in three distinct waves from Asia, just as Greenberg had proposed.

Edited May 8, 2011 by southernyahoo

[Guest]

Do you think "peers" (as part of their "review"), wildlife agencies, the environmental community, state governments, and/or other entities would demand the name and story of the individual who "obtained" the carcass, even to the point of threatening the scientist to whom the carcass was given?

No. Who cares who collected it if you have the carcass and the location, date, etc.? I wouldn't.

The media, on the hand, might start asking questions. I suspect if there were any demands to reveal the identity of the person who collected it they'd ultimately come from "no-kill" bigfooters.

[Guest]

Exactly, and those are the guys with powers of criminal prosecution. If you actually shoot a sasquatch in other than self defense, you might be taking a huge chance turning it in.

Even if it WAS self-defense, F&W still wouldn't let you keep it, since it was still illegal to "take, possess or transfer". They'd seize it and destroy it, even if it were sent to a lab.