The Ketchum Report

[southernyahoo]

Given the popular description of bigfoot, how can you seriously suggest that a hunter would mistake one for a man?

LOL, There are alot of people that swear patty is Bob Heironomous in a suit "and" fits the descriptions of bigfoot.

hmmm...... man in suit vs, hirsuted man.

[indiefoot]

Let me just say that I don't know what Richard Stubstad says these days on that specific issue. I don't know that he has retracted much if anything. He still has his website up: http://www.scienceal....com/Foo2.html.

Your specific question was "Did he deny that the earlier conclusions were premature?" Gee, I don't know. But I could also report that Winona Ryder hasn't denied that she's in love with me....so? Yippee?

p.

You saw this earlier. I think he makes it pretty clear.

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

[Guest]

If you think the skeptical arguments have merit before the paper is published, then it is also an acceptable citation from others to predict what skeptics will say.

A tad bit sophistic, sy.

I have no problem with speculating on what the paper may offer, based on various lines of evidence, with the tacit understanding that such comments are provisional. I also have no problem with folks speculating on how skeptics will respond to the DNA report.

The problem is that some folks want to criticise presumed premature speculations while offering their own premature speculations.

[Guest]

The Stubstad statement is based on the fact that at least one sample came from a human who could be traced through maternal DNA to a certain region in Africa, not sub-glacial Europe, as the other samples indicated. How these pieces to the puzzle fit is a mystery to me.

Permit me to speculate on another issue. It seems that the DNA report will verify that the Sierra Kills sample, the Raven Ullibarri sample, and Erickson Project habituation samples as originating from a creature we call Bigfoot.

The problem I see is this: the SK Bigfoot is apparently a Patterson yeti type creature, the Ullibarri sasquatch is very human looking, not apish at all, and the EP Bigfoot is said to look in a manner that I would describe as Chewbaca-like, with fangs even. The SK animal had a conehead, the Ullibarri hairy person did not, nor does the EP Bigfoot.

Of course, maybe the DNA report does not verify these sightings/videos via the samples. But, for the sake of argument, what does it mean if these apparently different entities are verified as a single type of creature we call Bigfoot?

[Guest exnihilo]

Multiple relic hominins?

[Guest]

WTB1,

You can't have it both ways, either Krantz and Meldrum are competent or they are incompetent. If they are competent investigators, then they are competent at drawing conclusions based on those investigations.

Now there you go, messing up the Skeptic's theories with reason and logic...

Saskeptic,

I think you demean the enormity of the task those gentlemen have undertaken. Did they draw your conclusion at their lack of finding the proof you require? You can't on the one hand call them fools and then say their efforts should be sufficient, you can't have it both ways. If you think every conclusion they haver drawn is silly, then it must follow that they are bumbling about the wilderness like Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe.

People find Bigfoot everyday. Not very many of them are motivated or prepared to wrestle one to your doorstep.

See above. It applies to you as well...

Edited February 10, 2012 by Mulder

[Guest RayG]

You can't have it both ways, either Krantz and Meldrum are competent or they are incompetent.

The either/or fallacy, also called the fallacy of bifurcation, the black or white fallacy, or the false dilemma.

If they are competent investigators, then they are competent at drawing conclusions based on those investigations.

The converting a conditional fallacy, in the form: If A then B, therefore if B then A.

Outside of them (Meldrum, Bindernagel, Krantz] name one internationally accredited scientific organization that has performed any sort of seriously funded research into the subject.

Not sure how you want to define 'seriously funded', but there are a couple dozen or more accredited scientific individuals that have performed research into the subject, or at the very least contributed to the written information about the subject -- Alley, Baird, Bourne, Brown, Bryant Jr., Cartmill, Ciochon, Colarusso, Coltman, Cook, C00N, Daegling, Davis, Disotell, Fahrenbach, Fish, Gould, Greenwell, Grieve, Groves, Hadj-Chikh, Halpin, Hertel, Heuvelmans, Higgins, Kerley, Kirlin, Markotic, McCall, Mionczynski, Moody, Napier, Nekaris, Nelson, Porshnev, Pyle, Redmond, Rosen, Sanderson, Sarich, Sarmiento, Schaller, Shackley, Sprague, Stevens, Strain, Suttles, Swindler, Sykes, Trevor-Deutsch, Wasson, Wells, Wheatcroft, Wroblewski, and Wylie, for example.

Instead,lets paint them all with a broad brush, and claim any hunter faced with one would kill it. All hunters are irresponsible killers,so the few who claim they had the chance,and did not take it, are liars.

While it would be fallacious to suggest all hunters are irresponsible, it wouldn't be fallacious to suggest some hunters are irresponsible.

RayG

[Guest]

scientists don't think any of this stuff ..... Evolution isn't a ladder with bacteria at the bottom and man at the top. That is misleading and dogmatic to assert as much.

Continuing the "sidebar" for a moment: I think he's more right than you are on this point. The concept of the "evolutionary pyramid" or "ladder" is how I was taught basic evolutionary theory in high school. And (up until the last part of the 20th century at least) Western science did indeed (and some Western scientists still do) operate from a highly humano-centric moral perspective.

You can see a hint of it even in this very forum in the continued calls for a "slab monkey" to serve as a "type speciemen", implying that it is not only morally correct, but morally required to kill a living thing in order to "document" it's existance.

And before you get all huffy about "non lethal" documentation (blood analyses, etc) as we now do with other animals, I suggest you re-read this thread and see just how many times it's been implied that w/o the "type specimen" for the DNA profile to be compared with that the Ketchum study will not suffice as proof of BF.

[Guest]

Oh no you don't, Ray...no way in Hades I'm letting you get away with this BS!

The either/or fallacy, also called the fallacy of bifurcation, the black or white fallacy, or the false dilemma.

You do NOT get to on the one hand hold up Meldrum, et al as "proof" that science has examined BF when it suits you to do so, then turn around and deny that there is scientific evidence to support the existance of BF.

Then, compounding your hutzpah, you accuse US of logical fallacy when we call you out about it.

The converting a conditional fallacy, in the form: If A then B, therefore if B then A.

No, it's granting certified experts the due consideration that their professional credentials require. Dr Meldrum (to use an example) is a professional primatologist, with the appropriate training and skills. We therefore MUST carefully consider his scientific observations and conclusions regarding BF from a primatological perspective.

To insist (as you, Saskeptic, and others have insisted) that he is not a bigfoot expert, and therefore has no professional qualifications to bring to bear, is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at special pleading. Same with the blanket dismissal of Dr Schaller (holder of professional expertise in both primate AND ungulate research) when he applies his dual credentials to examination of the Skookum Impression.

Not sure how you want to define 'seriously funded', but there are a couple dozen or more accredited scientific individuals that have performed research into the subject, or at the very least contributed to the written information about the subject -- Alley, Baird, Bourne, Brown, Bryant Jr., Cartmill, Ciochon, Colarusso, Coltman, Cook, C00N, Daegling, Davis, Disotell, Fahrenbach, Fish, Gould, Greenwell, Grieve, Groves, Hadj-Chikh, Halpin, Hertel, Heuvelmans, Higgins, Kerley, Kirlin, Markotic, McCall, Mionczynski, Moody, Napier, Nekaris, Nelson, Porshnev, Pyle, Redmond, Rosen, Sanderson, Sarich, Sarmiento, Schaller, Shackley, Sprague, Stevens, Strain, Suttles, Swindler, Sykes, Trevor-Deutsch, Wasson, Wells, Wheatcroft, Wroblewski, and Wylie, for example.

All of which has been summarily dismissed by institutional science and by Skeptics, employing their double standard and special pleading.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Biggie
-Edited text.

[Guest]

Oh no you don't, Ray...no way in Hades I'm letting you get away with this BS!

You're cute when you're angry, Mulder.

Meanwhile, I think you'll be hard-pressed to find statements from skeptics (whether one irrationally capitalizes that word or not) disparaging Krantz, Meldrum, et al. in such black-and-white terms. Getting back to indiefoot's charge, one can "have it both ways." I don't think Krantz was, and I don't think Meldrum is, incompetent. Far from it in both cases. I do think, however, that both are wrong about bigfoot, and I am critical of their analysis and judgment with respect to that issue.

RayG was correct about this statement from indiefoot: "You can't have it both ways, either Krantz and Meldrum are competent or they are incompetent."

That's an example of the either/or fallacy. If you don't want to label it as a fallacy, that's fine. We can just call it wrong. I'm fully comfortable considering both Meldrum and Krantz to be competent, but wrong about bigfoot.

[Guest RayG]

Mulder, those logical fallacies I pointed out were neither unsupported claims nor BS. A logical fallacy s simply an error in reasoning, and I pointed out the specific fallacies being used. I can provide links if you need them, but most people can easily find the explanations using Google.

I realize your frustration at the reluctance to accept Dr. Meldrum or any other scientist as a bigfoot expert, but I have yet to hear of any of them examining an actual bigfoot to confirm their assertions. I would welcome any source you can provide that would show otherwise.

Don't lose hope, there are any number of scientists whose work was initially questioned or considered unacceptable. Alfred Wegener is probably the poster child for a hypothesis (continental drift) that was ignored or ridiculed for years, but eventually became accepted by mainstream science. I suspect it was accepted because of the scientific data that was gathered and confirmed, not because of appeals to emotion.

RayG

[Guest]

Of course, maybe the DNA report does not verify these sightings/videos via the samples. But, for the sake of argument, what does it mean if these apparently different entities are verified as a single type of creature we call Bigfoot?

wouldn't any seperation of genetic difference be discoverable at the genome level? If all modern humans can be classed H.sapien sapien and if we depended on only limited anecdotal reports and fuzzy evidence - say some witnesses get limited views of a Zulus, and another limited views of an old country Irishman, or another views of Aborigianl Australians, and another only one Shaq, and another three very small people?

It seems the range of variabilty in the modern human exceeds the variability reported for Bigfoots? Or, at least the variabilty reported for Bigfoots is a range that could well be within a single species designation? For me that is what the paper should illuminate to some degree. whether that ends up being subspecies human and a Bigfoot......attaching that to the descriptions you provide doesn't seem much more troubling than proving the samples are from the purported sources and that each source has some morphological or anectodal, something to describe characteristics of the provider?

[Guest]

There are experts on bigfoot, despite the uncertainty factor--Dr. Bindernagel, Dr. Meldrum, and others. We all know that scientifically bigfoot is a big question mark, but there are certainly individuals with a great deal of specialized knowledge, knowledge they don't discuss, I gather, and that yer average squatcher (us'ns) lacks. We have experts on lots of mysterious topics with many larger pieces of the puzzle missing--physics, for example, Neanderthal, MesoAmerican cultures.

This whole thread is about a report that is more mythological and mysterious in nature than bigfoot's existence or the existence of any experts on bigfoot, anyway.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Kings Canyon

[Guest]

There are experts on bigfoot, despite the uncertainty factor--Dr. Bindernagel, Dr. Meldrum, and others.

Sure, but if there's no bigfoot then they aren't experts on bigfoot (the hypothetical organism) no matter how well they understand the bigfoot phenomenon, human anatomy, evolution, etc. Lots of folks on campus like to refer to me as the "bigfoot expert", but my pedantic side always corrects them that no one should be considered a bigfoot expert until such time as it can be proven that there's a bigfoot someone has examined. This thread is about whether or not Melba Ketchum is on track to be the first to legitimately claim such an appellation.

[dudeman]

This may be a stupid question and if it is I'm sorry, but what is the difference of sapien vs sapien sapien? And was Cro Magnon sapien or ss? Where in the time line did sapien come in, as to where ss came in?