Where should professional scientists review bigfoot evidence?

[norseman]

We know what illnesses we inherited from Neanderthals, freckles, red hair.....the Neanderthal genome is mapped.

 

NO WHERE do we find cat eyes in the Neanderthal genome.

 

Your claim that both pictures are just conjecture is absolutely false. Your a smart guy Gig, I challenge you to dig further.

 

http://www.abroadintheyard.com/20-physical-traits-inherited-from-neanderthal/

[MIB]

Back to the original question?

 

Where professional scientists should review bigfoot evidence is the place other professional scientists should have presented their bigfoot evidence.   If there's nothing for them to look at, it's not for lack of trying on the part of us amateurs, it's for lack of trying on the part of the other professionals.   I mean .. they want material published by their credentialed peers, right?   Not us?   So isn't it incumbent on those peers to provide something?   All we get is scoffed at when we put something up for examination, often not because of quality or lack of it, but because we don't have the credentials.

 

MIB

Edited June 24, 2017 by MIB

[gigantor]

Ok, I'll put it on my reading list...

 

However, you cannot reverse-engineer an inherited trait to determine what the ancestor looked like, it's a silly idea. If you could, there would be no mystery about our ancestors at all.

 

Evolution is a one way function.

[Guest Cricket]

 

Thanks to all you guys for being great sports and discussing this with me, I appreciate it! I have to lump my replies together until I can post freely (which should happen in just a couple more days). This is to all who responded in one way or another, even if I don’t address all of you by name.

JDL, those are some critical questions, and I have speculated on what the morphology and adaptations might be, based on what I’ve read and heard said about BF. And that is really fascinating about having seen the Si-Teh-Cah remains. So as mummies, I take it they were fully articulated remains? Did your father do the dating of the site(s) where the remains were found? So the BLM has them. Have any Native American tribes attempted to claim them and call for their repatriation? I am reading a book about the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 in New Mexico (where I live), and the author makes the convincing case that there is a lot of ‘insider’ Native American cultural information that the Native Americans here in the Southwest never reveal to outsiders, and probably never will, so I’m wondering if there is more ethnological information about the Si-Teh-Cah (and other issues) that non-Indians may never have access to. Something to wonder about.

 

FarArcher, I, too, had my DNA analyzed and I have about 1.1% Neandertal DNA (I was disappointed—I had hoped for more!). My brother and my husband each have more, about 1.5%, and I don’t let them forget it, heh-heh!

I’m not entirely sure what you’re referring to in this: “But to use the norms for another species is not entirely honest...” Do you mean the skin color and hair color? If so, the following is from the Australian Museum’s Neandertal reconstruction pages:

“...Scientists reconstructing Neanderthal appearances can now use DNA studies to help them. Researchers found a mutation in the DNA of two Neanderthal individuals that can affect skin and hair pigmentation. The researchers homed in a gene linked to hair and skin colour that produced the same kind of pigmentation changes as in humans with red hair and pale skin.”

I can certainly go along with the critique that there should be a greater degree of body and facial hair in Neandertals, but it does sound like the skin and hair color could very well have been as depicted, based on this genetic clue. I think the Australian Museum’s general appearance in their reconstruction of a Neandertal skull is on the mark (it doesn’t have any hair at all, but I don’t think they intend that to be taken as its ‘finished’ appearance, just the reconstruction ‘in progress’). I definitely don’t think Neandertal reconstructions should have beady eyes, but once the soft tissue reconstructions are in place, the eyes in the Australian Museum Neandertal are not really small or grotesquely large. And that seems about right, IMO.  http:// https://australianmuseum.net.au/image/neanderthal-head-reconstruction-front-view

It may seem as if Neandertals are strikingly different from humans, but here’s what Milford Wolpoff, a Neandertal expert from the University of Michigan, writes in his very comprehensive book, Paleoanthropology: “Actually, it is difficult to find true autapomorphies [unique features] in the Neandertals. As Trinkaus puts it, they mainly differ from other populations in “the frequency distributions of their biological components,” not the presence of unique morphology.” (Wolpoff, 1999:756). There are 18 unique European Neandertal features listed in a table that also indicates the distribution of these traits in “Earliest post-Neandertals” and “Living humans,” who have some or other of these same traits to varying degrees. Wolpoff later goes on to write: “...there is no anatomical definition that uniquely describes modern humans.” (p. 756). This is where familiarity with cladistics (which I linked to in my previous post in this thread) is applicable.

In fact, Wolpoff has long held that Neandertals were not a separate species: “Evidence showing a significant Neanderthal contribution to the ancestry of these later Europeans through any of these mechanisms would disprove the assertion that Neandertals are a distinct species.” (p. 755). I recall at the very first AAPA conference I ever attended in St. Louis, I was in the hotel lobby talking with a group of friends and glanced over to see Wolpoff standing about 3 feet away, deep in conversation with another paleoanthropologist and holding a small box...with a juvenile Neandertal skull in it! Not a cast, but the real thing. I really wanted to interrupt them and say “EXCUSE ME! Mind if I take a look at that????”

So, in short, what you both are saying is that BF:

--are near human and can interbreed with humans

--are a Neandertal variation

If that’s the case, and it has been demonstrated that Neandertal unique traits are also found to some degree in the earliest post-Neandertals and in modern humans, you could then hypothesize that some of these traits may be present in BF. Most of them, however, are deeper internal skeletal morphology, so once again, not much use now because it would have to wait until a specimen is obtained, of course. I can give you the list of these traits just so you know, but this post is getting kind of long so I’ll save that for tomorrow.....

 

 

 

 

[norseman]

1 hour ago, gigantor said:

Ok, I'll put it on my reading list...

 

However, you cannot reverse-engineer an inherited trait to determine what the ancestor looked like, it's a silly idea. If you could, there would be no mystery about our ancestors at all.

 

Evolution is a one way function.

 

We do not have complete genomes of earlier ancestors!

 

Its quite simple. They can look at African and Non African Homo Sapiens genomes and then the Neanderthal genome and identify the genes that overlap. They can also look at what Neanderthal genes in modern humans are associated with. 

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140129-neanderthal-genes-genetics-migration-africa-eurasian-science/

 

The above is science. Cat eyed super ape is pure fantasy.

[gigantor]

Forget cat-eye.

 

An associated gene doesn't tell you what the animal looked like. 

 

Which genes indicate that it had no facial hair, or was very hairy?

 

You are confusing inherited traits from evolution with specific features. We share some genes with all kinds of living organisms. Also, even though we have "decoded" the genome, doesn't mean we know what every gene does, nor the combination of genes. In fact, there are more unknowns than knowned. Google "junk DNA" for reference.

 

To claim that you can analyze a genome and reproduce what specific features looked like is really silly.

 

I think this has already been admitted by the authors of the depiction after the controversy was raised, it's been a few years. I'll dig it up for you when I'm done moderating

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, MIB said:

Back to the original question?

 

Where professional scientists should review bigfoot evidence is the place other professional scientists should have presented their bigfoot evidence.   If there's nothing for them to look at, it's not for lack of trying on the part of us amateurs, it's for lack of trying on the part of the other professionals.   I mean .. they want material published by their credentialed peers, right?   Not us?   So isn't it incumbent on those peers to provide something?   All we get is scoffed at when we put something up for examination, often not because of quality or lack of it, but because we don't have the credentials.

 

MIB

 

It's got nothing to do with credentials....it's the claim and weak evidence.

 

 Giant monkey man with nationwide distribution from farm land to suburbia....oh and it might be an alien monkey man hybrid that can travel thru multiple dimensions.

 Here's the evidence.....we (proponents) say so!

[Guest DWA]

Um, no.  That's an attitude that comes from not reviewing the evidence.  Rule of science, peeps:  when a guy with relevant credentials shows he is applying them to a topic, he is taken seriously, and done.  If most people deny that rule...their objections can be set aside, because they are, officially, not players.  Doesn't matter how many there are in science.  Only matters who's right.

 

Think about it for a minute.  How much do you know about the cutting-edge research going on in the natural sciences for the animals we know about?  I'm betting little to none.  That would make you a typical human.

 

Sasquatch and yeti are cutting edge.  The mainstream is *never on board* with cutting edge.  Why it's called that.  There are two kinds of people who know this is real:  people who have done the relevant research and see no flaws in it...and people who have seen one, and know because of that.

 

 

[dmaker]

12 hours ago, MIB said:

Back to the original question?

 

Where professional scientists should review bigfoot evidence is the place other professional scientists should have presented their bigfoot evidence.   If there's nothing for them to look at, it's not for lack of trying on the part of us amateurs, it's for lack of trying on the part of the other professionals.   I mean .. they want material published by their credentialed peers, right?   Not us?   So isn't it incumbent on those peers to provide something?   All we get is scoffed at when we put something up for examination, often not because of quality or lack of it, but because we don't have the credentials.

 

MIB

Agreed. However the credentialed proponents are doing nothing, peer review wise.

[hiflier]

2 hours ago, dmaker said:

Agreed. However the credentialed proponents are doing nothing, peer review wise.

 

An important point to be sure. It's a glaring irony that those, supposedly in our court, fail at this very basic tenet. Papers are accepted all the time but I've yet to see anything self published get beyond being........uh.........self published.

[norseman]

On 6/23/2017 at 11:11 PM, gigantor said:

Forget cat-eye.

 

An associated gene doesn't tell you what the animal looked like. 

 

Which genes indicate that it had no facial hair, or was very hairy?

 

You are confusing inherited traits from evolution with specific features. We share some genes with all kinds of living organisms. Also, even though we have "decoded" the genome, doesn't mean we know what every gene does, nor the combination of genes. In fact, there are more unknowns than knowned. Google "junk DNA" for reference.

 

To claim that you can analyze a genome and reproduce what specific features looked like is really silly.

 

I think this has already been admitted by the authors of the depiction after the controversy was raised, it's been a few years. I'll dig it up for you when I'm done moderating

 

 

They do it all the time. The humanlike foxp2 gene has been found in Neanderthals and I believe denisovians.

 

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071018/full/news.2007.177.html

 

Which makes it extremely likely that our ancestors had some form of speech.

 

Neanderthals had the ginger gene (MCR1) which makes it very likely that a good portion on the population had red hair and pale freckle skin.

 

 http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071018/full/news.2007.177.html

 

On top of this there are other clues.

 

Evidence points to the fact Neanderthals made clothing.....

 

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071018/full/news.2007.177.html

 

Lastly looking at the "killer Neanderthal" hypothesis. It's bull manure, that the genetic and archeological evidence doesn't support it. And not all of the junk DNA in the world will save it.

 

http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/bioblog/2010/10/killer-neandertals-does-this-o.shtml

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Cricket]

The link in my comment above didn't work, so here's the fixed link: https://australianmuseum.net.au/image/neanderthal-head-reconstruction-front-view

I think this reconstruction by the Australian Museum is reasonable.  

[norseman]

That's because facial reconstruction is a science. And it gets dang close.

 

http://anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone/facial_reconstruction.html

[Guest Cricket]

norseman, I agree.  The people who do that have extensive training in anatomy.  I promised JDL and FarArcher the list of purported Neandertal unique traits, so here they are (Wolpoff, 1999:756):

 

Projection of nasal root in front of orbits

Puffy maxilla and associated midfacial prognathism

Midfacial projection

Mastoid projection below juxtamastoid process

Mastoid tubercle

Suprainiac fossa

Large frontal and large mixillary sinuses

Large occipitomastoid crest

Lambdoidal flattening and bun

Circular cranial shape, as seen from the rear

Double-arched supraorbital torus

Horizontal-oval mandibular foramen

Retromolar space

Large numbers of perikymata

Relatively large limb joint surfaces

Dorsal scapular groove

Long public ramus

Proximal femoral flange

 

Wolpoff demonstrates that these features supposedly unique to Neandertals, however, are seen in degrees the earliest post-Neandertals, and also in living Europeans to some degree.  If one is going to propose that BF are closely related to Neandertals, then they ought to share some if these.  

One of the links you posted, norseman, mentioned sunlight, Vitamin D and skin color in northern latitudes, which is something I forgot.  That is another reason why depictions of Neandertals with paler skin and areas of less hair density are not unreasonable.  We need 15 minutes a day of sunlight striking a skin patch the size of a baby's face in order to be able to synthesize Vitamin D.  Neandertals could have some degree of hair density, but not the total body fur on dark skin that some hypotheses like Vendramini propose. 

[norseman]

http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_4.htm

 

People who live in far northern latitudes, where solar radiation is relatively weak most of the year, have an advantage if their skin has little shielding pigmentation.  Nature selects for less melanin when ultraviolet radiation is weak.  In such an environment, very dark skin is a disadvantage because it can prevent people from producing enough vitamin D, potentially resulting in rickets disease in children and osteoporosis in adults.  Contributing to the development of osteoporosis in older people is the fact that their skin generally loses some of its ability to produce vitamin D.  Women who had prolonged vitamin D deficiencies as girls have a higher incidence of pelvic deformities that prevent normal delivery of babies.  

The Inuit people of the American Subarctic are an exception.  They have moderately heavy skin pigmentation despite the far northern latitude at which they live.  While this is a disadvantage for vitamin D production, they apparently made up for it by eating fish and sea mammal blubber that are high in vitamin D.  In addition, the Inuit have been in the far north for only about 5,000 years.  This may not have been enough time for significantly lower melanin production to have been selected for by nature.