Guest Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 (I waited until I had my fingerprints filed off and my retinas replaced!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowBorn Posted April 11, 2012 Moderator Share Posted April 11, 2012 squatchilluminati Saskeptic I always knew that you had some dark side agenda about you. Like Darthvader and the dark side. But here we are trying to explain something thats not even out yet. But you seem to have some idea on how this process takes place and i believe that you are right that it might be lack of inexpierance with something unknown to all of us is way to much for anyone of us to even try to digest.Espiecially some thing that could be living within our very own forest.I say "could be" because not everyone has seen these creatures or even expierance them as they truely are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest parnassus Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Wait..these are your numbers? yes, that is in 6 years of academic work, the rest has been in the private sector. p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indiefoot Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 ^Yes, I am a boorish, pig-headed, prejudiced jerk who will stop at nothing to assassinate the character of anyone who dares attempt to analyze alleged bigfoot evidence. Were it not for me and my colleagues among the squatchilluminati, there might have been a bigfoot on display when the AMNH opened the doors of Akeley Hall in 1936! What you are, IMO, is no better or no worse than Dr. Ketchum, or any of the folks participating in this thread. When/if her paper is released and she and her co-authors have had time to answer questions about the timeline and the process, there will be plenty of discussion about the details. There may be a reasonable explanation for the delays. I find it disingenuous to fault her for trying to answer what questions she could with all of the clamor for information that has been going on. Many have put her in a lose/lose situation for not being forthright and open and for saying too much. Her inexperience has been evident from the beginning, the result was adding the co-authors and proceeding. What will be telling if she pulls it off is the fact that it was a noob who did it. The facts will tell and her handling of the PR will have no bearing on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BFSleuth Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 My understanding of Dr. Ketchum's experience with publication of papers, based on a quick Google search, is that she has been a contributing author on a handful of papers related to DNA research. I haven't found anything to indicate she is a lead author on a paper. If anyone else has a more detailed list of her authorship that might shed more light on the topic than I can at the moment. Based on this information I think it may very well explain a level of naivete regarding how to conduct oneself when one is the lead author on a ground breaking paper. However, I do not think it would then follow that Dr. Ketchum has nefarious motivations or is in over her head. IMHO that is a non sequitur. She is breaking personal ground with this experience I'm sure, and in the future she would probably do things differently if she has another opportunity to publish another paper of similar weight. Going public in 2010 to request additional samples seems to be a reasonable thing to do, since she likely felt a need to increase her database of samples to verify what she felt she was developing. Posting on Facebook regarding the status of the paper is perhaps not the way that Saskeptic or other authors would do it, but at the same time this is a highly unusual situation in that she was dependent on independent BF researchers for submitting samples so the cat was already out of the bag before she had a chance to even begin sequencing. Together with the fact that the BF community is, to put a fine point on it, fairly rabid about the topic on both sides of the fence, it would seem that having a singular point of communication with the BF community would be the best way to hold us all at bay. She could have selected to "defend" herself here, and she did so with one post to clarify the issue of the copyrights, but I certainly wouldn't have expected her to continue posting here giving snippets of information here and there, that would be something that could be argued as unprofessional. Having a single point of communication that she can control would IMHO be the best way to proceed. In this case she chose FB, and I think that is a good choice because it is accessible to anyone who cares to friend her and she can control what information she shares. Of course she is getting constant questions of, "When? When? When?", and she gives a consistent answer of "Soon". Perhaps in the future she could heed Saskeptic's advise to simply say, "It is in process" and she might do that on any similar future project. However, that is all water under the bridge at this point. None of this "behavior" rises to the level that forum members should feel a need to assassinate the character of Dr. Ketchum. So what if she is a relative rookie in the field of major scientific publication? I'm all for an underdog and like to see rookies succeed, don't you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 I find it disingenuous to fault her for trying to answer what questions she could with all of the clamor for information that has been going on. I agree, that would be disingenuous. I haven't, however, seen anyone do that. What I've seen are people very anxious for the paper to be published because they think it will vindicate their beliefs about bigfoot. I've seen other people not care one wit when or if a paper is ever published from this work who are simply puzzled about why Dr. Ketchum might be making leading statements about publication dates. So what if she is a relative rookie in the field of major scientific publication? I'm all for an underdog and like to see rookies succeed, don't you? Sure, more power to her. And if we get a "proof of bigfoot" paper out of this, everybody wins! At the same time, I'm entitled to my opinion that we won't be getting such a paper out of this, and one of my suspicions informing that opinion concerns statements from Dr. Ketchum about the publication process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BFSleuth Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 I agree that people have been puzzled by her "leading statements" regarding publication date, and as I noted in my post above this seems to be new territory for her to be a lead author (if indeed she still is at this time). My concern is that folks on this forum have been playing pop-psychologist or otherwise engaging in exercises that cast aspersions regarding her motivations or character, which to me does not necessarily follow from the evidence of her behavior. We've had theories of an ego problem, greed, etc. that are really out of line. I would simply suffice it to say she is a rookie and is very likely doing her utmost to bring the project to completion in an often hostile environment. It would be unusual as such to expect that she should behave perfectly in such an arena, and like all of us she may have made mistakes along the way. I don't therefore feel a need to castigate her for her efforts or for her pronouncements. That to me is disingenuous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Transformer Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 You'll get that with the paper, and it's conclusions, when it matters. Not that I have them written down or anything. Since you have used the co-authors as a matter of "fact" to support the notion that the paper is A-OK "or else she would be getting an earful from them" I think it is important that we know whether there are in fact any co-authors and what their qualifications are to substantiate your position. I am not trying to get into an argument but I am trying to figure out what is going on and separate fact from from guesses whether they are educated guesses or not. If you are one of the people hindered by an NDA I apologize and withdraw the question. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Mulder, you really think that's what is happening? She's being scrutinized because it's the subject matter is of an "unknown"? I think it's a possibility...it certainly would not surprise me. And it's not an "unknown", it's bigfoot, a topic routinely subjected to much scorn and derision by the Scientific community. Only problem with that logic Mulder is the constant FB updates promising that the findings will be released *soon*. So if anyone has made things more difficult for themselves it is her. Folks read the FB *promises*, and when they aren't released in their personal version of *soon* then they begin asking more pointed questions. I'm *hoping* but not *trusting* that Dr. K has something really cool to release. I'm not nearly as negative as some are but will cede that I've gotten my hopes up before only to be disappointed. I think we should be patient and realize that there is more involved in this than many understand. But dang, those FB postings only serve to add to the skepticism in regards to the delay. And, any honest proponent would realize that our eyes are sort of blackened over recent *breaking* news like the *Ga. Boys Hoax and Enoch debacle* that hasn't gone our way. I want to believe that she has something conclusive/semi-conclusive in favor of the subject, but if I'm honest, I'm not really counting on it. Been burned too many times in the past. Fair points, HR...and nice to see you around again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BFSleuth Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 True that, Mulder. I think HR has a good point in regards to how folks interpret "soon". I think in the future, if she is ever involved in a similar project, that she may want to rethink how she handles the PR aspect. Maybe take Saskeptic's advise to simply say, "It's in process". I'm of the opinion that the paper/report exists and is in process. I have my dollar in the pub date pool on 5/17, not due to any inside information, just a gut feeling. But I'll note I haven't done well in office pools... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 ^Yes, I am a boorish, pig-headed, prejudiced jerk who will stop at nothing to assassinate the character of anyone who dares attempt to analyze alleged bigfoot evidence. Were it not for me and my colleagues among the squatchilluminati, there might have been a bigfoot on display when the AMNH opened the doors of Akeley Hall in 1936! AAAANNND that's Saskeptic everybody! He'll be here all week, two shows a night 7 and 9 PM. Good night and don't forget to tip your waiter!" I wouldn't say Saskeptic is in the wrong in any way. I believe others who know Ketchum have stated that in the beginning of the study, as she was pulling people in to assist, they too noticed quite a few noobish mistakes when trying to put a paper together. This comment is not intended to discredit her, or suggest that there is not a paper, but to suggest that perhaps it was her lack of skill at putting a paper together that caused her to reach out to others for assistance, hence her public announcement mistake. I believe she has something put together, otherwise she wouldn't be risking her professional career and reputation on it. I think this also has to be considered a possibility... We don't even know if the paper mentions the word 'bigfoot' or 'sasquatch' The paper might be entitled "Unknown Primate DNA From Various Locales in North America" The paper may simply be a paper documenting the procedures used to identify or categorize the unknown DNA. As if anyone wouldn't see right through THAT... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernyahoo Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Since you have used the co-authors as a matter of "fact" to support the notion that the paper is A-OK "or else she would be getting an earful from them" I think it is important that we know whether there are in fact any co-authors and what their qualifications are to substantiate your position. I am not trying to get into an argument but I am trying to figure out what is going on and separate fact from from guesses whether they are educated guesses or not. If you are one of the people hindered by an NDA I apologize and withdraw the question. Thank you. I do have an NDA , and am giving benefit of the doubt that she has assembled a team of coauthors , some of whom are more qualified than herself in certain aspects of the work, so no matter how this goes down, you won't be pointing a finger at just one person for it's success or failure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BFSleuth Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 I think somewhere in the dark corners of the early part of this thread it was mentioned that there were several authors for this report. The reports I found with Dr. Ketchum as a co-author from my google search had several authors per report. It seems that especially in the highly technical fields that multi-authorship is the norm, especially when more than one discipline is necessary. In this case I would imagine (just my guess) that there would at least be a zoologist, primatologist, and anthropologist signed onto the paper, and it may be that if the paper is to actually claim a new species (rather than simply look at methods of DNA extraction, etc.) that one of them may have become the lead author. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cotter Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 SY - can you say if you have samples in the study? Or your involvement that would require an NDA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernyahoo Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Yes I have a sample in the study. http://www.texlaresearch.com/hairanalysis.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts