The Ketchum Report

[JDL]

There are two levels of acceptance to consider, scientific and public.

While it is true that there will almost certainly be room for scientific debate once the Ketchum Study is released, it will be a shift in the public's perception regarding the probability of bigfoot's existence that will change the game. If the public's opinion shifts to perceive the existence of bigfoot as probable, then things will start moving rapidly.

There are a few practical questions from the public's standpoint.

Does a new species exist?

What are they?

What do they do?

How much like us are they (a combination of physiology, sentience, and behavior)?

Are they a threat to us?

With luck the Ketchum article will answer the first question for the public. It may give us a running start on the second (personally I believe that if the public comes to the realization that they "probably" exist, it will be a short matter of time before someone produces a body, fresh or otherwise).

The Erickson Project may give us some early insight into the remaining three questions, draw resources for continuing research from a newly aware public, and spawn competition.

In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that public perception and practical interest will trump any scientific reticence when it comes to crossing the t's and dotting the i's of the Ketchum Study.

Edited February 7, 2012 by JDL

[Guest]

Sas, you wrote, "...if Ketchum's analysis is "right-on" as I put it, then the tissue from which she obtained the DNA is the specimen."

Do you mean to say that a blood sample or other piece of flesh from which DNA is extracted is the equivalent of a body? Would you explain, please?

Equivalent of a body? No, but I think what you mean is "enough to prove the existence of a new species." That answer could be "yes," but it would depend on who is making the assessment. New species have often been identified from fragmentary remains and, of course, there has been a revolution in systematics of so-called "hidden" species being identified and recognized from a parent species solely by a distinct difference in DNA. So there is precedent for species to be identified from DNA analysis and from fragmentary remains.

With what we've been led to believe about the "Ketchum analysis," there is putative bigfoot tissue that has been analyzed, and that tissue includes some blood, muscle, etc. If thoroughly vetted, replicated, etc. DNA analysis of that tissue returned a unique signature - let's say something definitely Homo but definitely NOT Homo sapiens or any of our other near relatives, then that is proof of an extant hominin that is currently unrecognized. A journal might publish the extraordinary paper, lending heft to its impact, and convincing many people that there really is an extant, unrecognized hominin. Whether that level of information is sufficient for the ICZN to recognize it would remain to be seen. They might balk at the lack of more definitive physical remains; to me, DNA doesn't exist in isolation, so any tissue that provided the sample could serve as a type specimen for a new species.

The sticky thing again about what we're hearing is Ketchum's result is that the DNA signatures are purported to be Homo sapiens. If that's the case, then the path ahead gets much murkier. If there's nothing diagnostic in the tissue itself that makes the case for a new species, then you're really relying on the DNA to do it. If the DNA says Homo sapiens, then it seems like a non-starter to me.

[Guest parnassus]

It will not be sufficient to criticize supposed 'modern human DNA' without demonstrating that the sequences exist in known humans. To say Ketchum's sequences are just people, is to state a provable thesis. Go to.

mitchw,

as I have pointed out for many months, that is one of the beauties of the "bigfoot is modern human" concept, for believers. It can never be totally extinguished. Not because it is true, but only because a matching sequence is not in GenBank and may never be found.

Are you aware that unless you have an identical twin, it is likely that no one else on the planet has your exact DNA? So if you go in the woods and get some of YOUR hair snagged on a tree, and someone does a DNA analysis, they will likely never find another modern human to match it? (unless you happen to have gotten your DNA in GenBank, which is very unlikely). And if you can find a veterinarian to tell you that matters, you, as a believer, might be convinced that a bigfoot lives in your woods, based on the finding of YOUR OWN HAIR?

p.

ps: other beauties of the "bigfoot is modern human" belief:

1) since modern human DNA is easily obtainable, anyone and everyone who believes in bigfoot can easily obtain this "proof" to show their spouse or brother in law, that their weekends in the woods and their high tech equipment are all worthwhile.

2) DNA labs will flourish, helping to grow our economy.

Edited February 7, 2012 by parnassus

[indiefoot]

So what do you do with hair that is markedly different from homo sapiens yet tests homo sapiens on the mtDNA side? The nuDNA is still to be revealed as to how it relates to us.

[Guest]

Right, so you really aren't trying to prevent all papers from being published.

Of course not - if you published no papers there'd be no journal!

I do however agree with exnihilo that human nature is ever present,

Have I somewhere argued that "human nature" is not present in scientific publications? If so, that'd be news to me.

. . . and when faced with a paper that could topple a truck load of apple carts, well, I'll just say that i'll be pleasantly surprised if that mountainous perception that we are the only extant hominids on the planet is finally vanquished.

I still don't see what you mean. Journals are in intense competition with each other to publish real breakthroughs. A journal would not pass on the chance to publish something truly novel and revolutionary because if they did, their next competitor would swoop in and do so instead. BUT the rub is in the demonstration that the thing is actually novel and actually revolutionary. If the analysis is unconvincing or there are other significant flaws in the work, then it rightfully would not be published.

[Guest]

Parn, It will not be sufficient to criticize supposed 'modern human DNA' without demonstrating that the sequences exist in known humans. To say Ketchum's sequences are just people, is to state a provable thesis. Go to.

Yeah, that tact isn't going to work. Saying that bigfoot exists is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

Saying that bigfoot DNA is "modern human" is an even more extraordinary claim requiring even more extraordinary evidence.

Coming up with human DNA in samples is not extraordinary evidence. In fact, it's about as ordinary as you can get, and is not convincing to me.

The reasonable person is going to come to the same conclusion. You have a sample whose DNA says modern human, therefore it came from a modern human. You have a reported creature that is far removed from modern human, therefore it's DNA must be different.

A reasonable person, even one experienced in the inner workings of DNA (such as it is) will take a look at the two creatures, modern human and bigfoot, and come to a different conclusion than "modern human" too.

Extraordinary evidence in this case isn't a toenail or blood samples, it's a body and a reasonable explanation as to why modern human DNA shows up in a clearly non-human appearing entity. That's going to take a lot of research.

[Guest parnassus]

So what do you do with hair that is markedly different from homo sapiens yet tests homo sapiens on the mtDNA side? The nuDNA is still to be revealed as to how it relates to us.

indie,

are you referring to the morphologic appearance of the hair? the carefully-phrased and wildly-misinterpreted "unknown primate" stuff? I don't think it has any value at all. The varieties of hair in different parts of the body, in different phases of growth, in different races, under different conditions, different chemical treatments.... If there was anything to it, why hasn't it been published in a scientific journal? why is all that hair squirrelled away in somebody's dresser drawer? why hasn't the FBI weighed in? "unknown primate" to me is just like a banner on a carny sideshow. You pay your money, walk in and there's a guy sitting there reading the newspaper. You ask for your money back and the barker says, "hey, he's a primate and you don't know him. Now run along. "

Ketchum's copyright document indicates the nuDNA is human. And that's not just me talking.

Edited February 7, 2012 by parnassus

[Guest]

Saying that bigfoot exists is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

I like to say that it requires the most ordinary evidence there can be - a body. That's the standard. Wanna stick it to those idiot scientists, sitting around on their brains all day and not believing in bigfoot? Then go get a bigfoot body.

[indiefoot]

indie,

are you referring to the morphologic appearance of the hair? the carefully-phrased and wildly-misinterpreted "unknown primate" stuff? I don't think it has any value at all. The varieties of hair in different parts of the body, in different phases of growth, in different races, under different conditions, different chemical treatments....

The experts who study the physical appearance of hair and fibers are qualified to take into consideration the concerns you bring up.

If there was anything to it, why hasn't it been published in a scientific journal? why is all that hair squirrelled away in somebody's dresser drawer? why hasn't the FBI weighed in?

Argument from ignorance

The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or argument by lack of imagination, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or that a premise is false only because it has not been proven true.

"unknown primate" to me is just like a banner on a carny sideshow. You pay your money, walk in and there's a guy sitting there reading the newspaper. You ask for your money back and the barker says, "hey, he's a primate and you don't know him. Now run along. "

Parnassus

Ketchum's copyright document indicates the nuDNA is human. And that's not just me talking.

Richard Stubstad

January 26, 2012 at 8:06 AM

Regarding the hoopla about Ketchum’s copyrights, I think that the copyrighted materials that somehow showed up recently were submittted way back in 2010. At the time, I helped write at least one of these documents, and it was ONLY based on the first two samples (out of four) when both showed up as sub-glacial European origin on the mitochondrial side of the DNA. This was truly a surprise, and gave rise to this early copyright.

Later, even while I was still involved, a whole lot of additional data showed up indicating that there was NOT a single mitochondrial source of ALL the samples; hence the copyright is basically meaningless by now.

Why this showed up now is beyond me. This was way back in 2010. Why didn’t anyone notice this a year and a half ago?

Richard Stubstad

[HOLDMYBEER]

........ 2) In order to disprove that "default", you have to have more than what you call provenance; you have to have more than: "it came from a bigfoot and I know that because someone said so and I put it in a bag and labeled it." That won't do...its just exactly what has failed all these years (or even weaker): "someone said they saw a bigfoot leave that footprint"; "someone said saw a bigfoot kill that deer." You cannot overcome the presumption that something very much like you and I left that human DNA, unless you have enough of the body of a bigfoot along with it, to demonstrate at least some of the characteristics: an 8 foot 600 haircovered, monster with a strange wide and hinged foot, glowing eyes, a conical head, no clothes, fire, tools, or shelter, superhuman speed, olfaction, yet can't be photographed, etc etc.

p.

I couldn't agree more. People talk about provenance but almost nothing in this business is truly vetted to the level of eliminating any reasonable doubt. I have not lost hope, though, that properly vetted physical evidence could happen under the right circumstances but without a body.

...one of these days I will figure out how the multiquote feature works..

Edited February 7, 2012 by HOLDMYBEER

[Guest]

I am still not getting the gist here I think Parn. Just because it came back Human, how does that indicate what your saying? Neanderthal is Human, yet very different from us. Radically different if Danny Vendramini is correct in his depiction of them.( I am just using them as an example here). Could there not be that kind of variance, yet, still genetically test Human?

I understand we could get into the whole definition of Human from the aspect of tools,cultural organization,etc. But speaking strictly from the DNA, would Ketchum and the crew really be inaccurate in calling the DNA Human?

Excluding fantastical claims, just sticking to bigger, stronger,hairier, and what ever interesting evolutionary changes may or may not have occurred.

They did not say it tested Homo sapiens, just that it tested Human......or am I just messing this all up?

[southernyahoo]

Of course not - if you published no papers there'd be no journal!

Therefore it is misleading to say you are trying to prevent a paper from being published.

Have I somewhere argued that "human nature" is not present in scientific publications? If so, that'd be news to me.

Lets say it is a conveinient omission from your list of possibilities. You don't believe it would have any bearing on an editors decision concerning a bigfoot paper?

Journals are in intense competition with each other to publish real breakthroughs. A journal would not pass on the chance to publish something truly novel and revolutionary because if they did, their next competitor would swoop in and do so instead. BUT the rub is in the demonstration that the thing is actually novel and actually revolutionary. If the analysis is unconvincing or there are other significant flaws in the work, then it rightfully would not be published.

I don't disagree on this.

[Guest]

Therefore it is misleading to say you are trying to prevent a paper from being published.

It's also misleading to paraphrase someone out of context.

Clearly, my quip about editors and authors having opposite motivations referred to process of peer review. Once a manuscript is found to be appropriate for publication, editors can be quite helpful in getting it ready, and I never indicated otherwise.

Lets say it is a conveinient omission from your list of possibilities. You don't believe it would have any bearing on an editors decision concerning a bigfoot paper?

Well you can just "say" anything, but the question is if you're uttering something of substance.

What is this "human nature" you think that I've conveniently omitted from my comments about publishing bigfoot papers? I still don't know what you're talking about. Perhaps if you articulated it clearly instead of writing in coded inuendo, I might.

It's like this: imagine there's a bigfoot on a slab, and someone has written up a manuscript about it. There is absolutely no doubt that this was (lately) a real, live bigfoot that is now dead. I'm the editor of the journal to which the manuscript has been submitted. Myself, my staff, and the peer reviewers are 100% on board - bigfoot is real! The analysis is irrefutable and the paper is very well written. Other than elation at my good fortune to have been editor when this discovery took place, what human nature do you think would keep me from giving the paper the green light in my journal?

If your answer is "none," congratulations.

Now imagine what we think we know about Dr. Ketchum's analysis. Is the case it presents as open and shut as what I described in my "body on a slab" scenario? If so, it should be published. If not, then it's not "human nature" that might keep the work from being published, it's the inability to be 100% confident in the work.

[Guest]

As usual Mulder, you continue to grind your anti-science axe to a nub while reality marshals on for the rest of the world to see. All four of the people you list are/were taken seriously. This can be seen by nothing more than the academic positions they obtained and held, but it is also reflected in these statements from their Wikipedia pages:

*snip for space*

[/sup]Every one of those guys is/was well-respected in their fields and "taken seriously" by the "scientific community." Heck, one of those names is George frikkin' Schaller! But that doesn't mean that they haven't/didn't face criticisms in their careers for certain positions they held or statements they had made. No one is immune to that. I have intellectual "adversaries" (for lack of a better word) among my colleagues, but their critiques of some paper I've written or some area in which I do my work don't mean the scientific community dismisses me. If the latter were true, I wouldn't be allowed to keep this comfy chair in my cozy office, and I'd have trouble publishing anything from my lab. That's not the case for me, nor is/was it the case for Meldrum, Swindler, Schaller, and Krantz.

Very good, then I can expect the formal admission by institutional science that: 1) they were wrong and 2) there is good scientific evidence for BF to be published in the immediate future!

Progress at last!

This is turning nonsensical.

What on earth in any way is weasel-worded about requiring evidence to be verifiable or replicable?

Because those words, like the others your side uses, are self-defined and those definitions adjusted to deny the existing evidence on proffer.

If it isn't that, it isn't evidence.

Much of wildlife science is observational on a one-time basis, and based entirely on the reported data. (To wit: Scientist goes out and observes so many of animal X and reports on their numbers and behaviors.)

When the "scientist" does this, it is called "data", and Science can't get enough of it.

When the "non-scientist" does this, it is called "hearsay" or "anecdote", and Science can't run away fast enough from it.

People accuse me of being "anti-science", which could not be further from the truth. What I AM is anti-bias and anti-manipulation IN science. I want science to truly follow the procedures it claims it follows and do so objectively and impartially.

If it does that, it will have no choice but to admit that there is at a minimum a strong circumstantial body of evidence to support the documentation of an as yet unrecorded large bipedal ape/hominid existing in the remote places of the world.

[Guest]

Very good, then I can expect the formal admission by institutional science that: 1) they were wrong and 2) there is good scientific evidence for BF to be published in the immediate future!

Progress at last!

Well Mr. Name-That-Logical-Fallacy, if you could kindly direct "institutional science" to that good scientific evidence any of those gentlemen have produced on the subject then you might get some satisfaction. You must know of some, because you surely wouldn't blatantly fall victim to an appeal from authority in a thread in which you've been so quick to call "logical fallacy!" on other posters.

Much of wildlife science is observational on a one-time basis, and based entirely on the reported data. (To wit: Scientist goes out and observes so many of animal X and reports on their numbers and behaviors.)

When the "scientist" does this, it is called "data", and Science can't get enough of it.

When the "non-scientist" does this, it is called "hearsay" or "anecdote", and Science can't run away fast enough from it.

Sorry Charlie, wrong again: Citizen Science.