The Ketchum Report

[Guest]

Who said if this is the basket you put all your eggs into, you need to find a new chicken?

Well, since no one around here that I know of does that, it really doesn't matter...a definitive DNA study would be the capstone of the case for BF, and put us once and forever across the finish line, but even if neither Ketchum nor Sykes/Meldrum pan out, there is still an excellent case to hand with the eyewitness accounts, tracks, body impressions, forensically typed hairs, etc.

No, the link you provided is to information dated 1994. The journal I referred to was the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 135, Issue 1, pages 85-91, January 2008. Article was first published online 16 OCT 2007

LMS came out in 2006 so he could not have mentioned those journal conclusions in the book.

You did read the bit of the abstract I included, right? Here's the entire abstract:

"Absolutely thick molar enamel is consistent with large body size estimates and dietary inferences about Gigantopithecus blacki, which focus on tough or fibrous vegetation. In this study, 10 G. blacki molars demonstrating various stages of attrition were imaged using high-resolution microtomography. Three-dimensional average enamel thickness and relative enamel thickness measurements were recorded on the least worn molars within the sample (n = 2). Seven molars were also virtually sectioned through the mesial cusps and two-dimensional enamel thickness and dentine horn height measurements were recorded. Gigantopithecus has the thickest enamel of any fossil or extant primate in terms of absolute thickness. Relative (size-scaled) measures of enamel thickness, however, support a thick characterization (i.e., not “hyper-thickâ€); G. blacki relative enamel thickness overlaps slightly with Pongo and completely with Homo. Gigantopithecus blacki dentine horns are relatively short, similar to (but shorter than) those of Pongo, which in turn are shorter than those of humans and African apes. Gigantopithecus blacki molar enamel (and to a lesser extent, that of Pongo pygmaeus) is distributed relatively evenly across the occlusal surface compared with the more complex distribution of enamel thickness in Homo sapiens. The combination of evenly distributed occlusal enamel and relatively short dentine horns in G. blacki results in a flat and low-cusped occlusal surface suitable to grinding tough or fibrous food objects. This suite of molar morphologies is also found to varying degrees in Pongo and Sivapithecus, but not in African apes and humans, and may be diagnostic of subfamily Ponginae."

Once again, my bolding.

If microtomographic examination of the teeth show they are not morphologically similar to apes and humans, we should not be inferring they are.

RayG

why does your source flat out state this:

G. blacki relative enamel thickness overlaps slightly with Pongo and completely with Homo.

Then spend paragraphs trying to back away from it's own finding?

Sure, I'd like to have Dr Meldrum's root source cites, but he wouldn't make a claim he couldn't at least make a case for, based on his work so far.

More sources for Giganto omnivorism:

http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/mesozoicmammals/p/Gigantopithecus.htm

http://phys.org/news/2012-02-fossil-teeth-gigantopithecus-yunnan-guizhou-plateau.html

Note esp this quote from this source:

Both pits and scratches of microwear were commonly present on the occlusial surface under SEM, which implies an omnivorous diet.

and Fig3, captioned thus:

Microwear by SEM showing the pits and scratches on the protoconid surface of a lower first molar of Gigantopithecus blacki from Juyuandong cave, implying an omnivorous diet.

There is a another possibility however, that the study is flawed and this could have been pointed out during peer review; leaving the authors scrambling to salvage it somehow.

It's not uncommon for a paper to be rewritten to account for review criticisms. That's a far cry from "scrambling to salvage" it.

Given all the background activity along legal and economic lines the Ketchum Study seems to be spawning, it's hard to believe that there's nothing there.

The question is what...

[Guest Tontar]

Regarding the slight intended by referencing the movie The Imagination Of Dr. Parnassus, I have wonder at what seems nearly a complete lack of flexible imagination among some forum members. Imagination seems to only be directed in one, focused direction, and not allowed to flourish and wander in many other directions. The scary part is that wondering too much might destabilize the foundations everyone stands upon.

I've read so many times now that people should just try to think out of the box, think like a hoaxer, have a bit of mental fun for a while, and yet there are always so few takers on that challenge. "No, can't be, won't work, it's wrong, too many obstacles..." What fuddy duddy attitudes some times! I think that people that hoax must have a much more playful mind, they enjoy a good joke, a good bit of fun, and definitely like to laugh. I suspect that they also love that the people they hoax are such easy marks.

This IS about the Ketchum report, so it is on topic, but there are other situations that have a lot of relevance to what has been discussed above. Look at the Yellowtop story. Total hoax, but produced by a guy who obviously has a creative and out of the box way of thinking. You can find his personal information easily, he's an artist, does living art, performance art, and so on. He does his hoax, initially as convincing as possible. Makes a website to host the hoax. And then, people buy into it full bore. To him, it worked. Then he decides to play some more. He starts reporting new sightings, and people buy into those. He makes each new one more and more unbelievable, even comical, in the process peeling back layer by layer the fact it is all a hoax. By the end, it's completely obvious that everything from the beginning was a hoax, and what's worse is that even at that point where it all is fairly obviously revealed as a big joke, there are still people wanting to hand onto the idea that the initial reports are still true! EVERYTHING about the Yellowtop story was fake, the newspaper photos and stories (made in Photoshop form scratch), the whole history, everything. The author of that hoax has to be scratching his head wondering what is up with people that never seemed to get it. BUt we know who the guy is, he makes no secret who he is, he simply had fun and doesn't care that the BF community might hate him for pulling the wool over their eyes. Life goes on for him, as he lives in a world with a completely different set of peers and friends.

Look at the pre-release hype that was produced for Blair Witch, 2012, and The Fourth Kind. In each case, websites were created, identities for individuals that never existed, videos to support the storylines, a huge endeavor for each of those movies. Was there money to be made off of those "hoaxes"? Absolutely, millions of dollars. Which made it worth the investment required for those hoaxes. There's no reason that a much smaller investment could not be made for a much smaller return. It's entertainment, it's for fun. Some people think that way, they like to have fun, like to entertain. Not everyone is so literal and lacking in imagination that they can't see the personal reward of pulling off pranks.

Look at all the current BF hoaxes. Is it about money? Sometimes, maybe, like the Georgia boys who wanted to sell their crock for cash. But not everyone is in it for money. Look at that Yellowtop artist, he was in it for the fun, not for the monetary profit. Look at crop circles, no money to be made there, yet those have always been big draws for creative people. Bragging rights is all they might get in the end, which is fine for a lot of people, (dude, we did the absolute BEST crop circle to date!).

The fact that Parnassus comes up with a completely feasible, and rather simple scenario that a hoaxer might pull off a really credible DNA hoax is not only interesting, but extremely compelling. Parnassus is not a hoaxer, he's got better things to do, but imagine for a second that a non-hoaxer can come up with a workable and convincing scenario, and that a genuine hoaxer could and would put that much more energy into pulling off the gig with solutions to most all of the obstacles members here have thrown up as objections.

Hoaxers depend on people believing in the hoax, and they count on them rejecting the possibility that it would be a hoax. The objections posed above in numerous posts is exactly the sort of cover they depend on. They don't hoax skeptics, they hoax believers. Believers buy into the hoaxes and come up with the protective rationale all on their own. The believers in hoaxes end up the biggest salespeople for the hoaxes!

Someone like Parnassus poses a very legitimate hypothetical way for the DNA project to be produced without any genuine bigfoot DNA, using only real human DNA. He very well could be peeling back the layers of a hoax, and what happens? The believers fortify the the possible hoax by using their imaginations, but only focusing the imagination in one direction, protecting the integrity of the story. Instead of saying, "hmmm, you know, you might have something there, but I hope you're wrong..." he's met with "nope, you're wrong, I can't imagine any way that could work, I want it to be real..."

Thing is, you don't have to buy into a skeptical, or proponent scenario to allow it to have the potential credibility it offers. I'm impressed with Parnassus's theory, and less impressed with the lack of imagination some seem to have to consider its merits. When he says try to think like a hoaxer, he means it. Give it a try. Don't try to come up with arguments against it, come up with those arguments, and then find a way around them. Be creative. Heck, if I am trying to troubleshoot a design problem, or mechanical problem (like a hanger door that kept snagging a connection pin in the roller track), I want someone who can try to think around obstacles working with me instead of someone who stops at each obstacle and calls it quits.

If Ketchum's report ever comes out, we will have something to discuss. But so far, what do we have? Not much. From what I have read, there's not even the famous steak. What steak? All I have heard they have form that steak incident is a piece of skin/hide with virtually no meat on it, that came from who knows what animal, that was collected a long time after the supposed shooting incident, where no trace of the supposed BF bodies that had been shot. Just a piece of skin acquired somewhere near where something supposedly happened. No direct chain of custody from BF body to the lab. So if it turns out to be phony, then chain of custody can be claimed to be the reason, no harm, no foul.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Tontar
Implied profanity removed

[Guest]

Do you actually think she would make more money on a bigfoot hoax than she would as a veterinarian and on her dna lab work ?

I highly doubt that.

[Guest Particle Noun]

Well, for a story, or another scenario, yeah, his idea has a lot of merit! It's pretty ingenious, I'll give him that.

But Tontar, we hear from the skeptics all the time to use critical thinking, common sense, to stick to facts. And yet, so often, like you accuse the 'believers', when it comes to offering alternative explanations, or in this case a 'hoax theory', the skeptic gets to throw all of that right out the door!

I'm sorry, but Parn's hoax theory, while entertaining, and perhaps good fodder for a short story, really isn't applicable to this case. Or, if it is, it is on the extreme margins of credulity.

Let me walk that back a little. With modification, I'd say the more likely (although I still don't buy this angle) scenario wouldn't be one where someone faked and sent in samples from around the country to hoax Dr. Ketchum, but would be that Dr. Ketchum herself, or her team, substituted samples sent by known parties.

But, Parn's suggestion that a person or persons orchestrated a hoax by sending in samples from all around the country completely ignores the fact that we know of many of the people who sent in the samples. What about them? What part would they play in the hoax? I haven't heard Parn address this once, and yet to me this is a major aspect of this study. Maybe you can fill in the blanks there for him. Is Southernyahoo going to post soon that, surprise! The NDA was REALLY there to prevent me from telling you all that this was an elaborate hoax? Is the postulation that ALL of these people are in on the joke? How fun would that be?

It is frustrating, frankly, that what I see as a very weak theory when put against the known facts of the case is being now touted as something other than an interesting aside. No, I'm sorry, for me, this isn't a compelling theory, and not because I want to believe so bad, but because it doesn't stand against the known facts of the situation, at least in my view.

[southernyahoo]

I can see how someone who has such a vivid imagination could get lost in a world of hypotheticals where there are no facts to ground them in reality, but some of us have facts that drag these imaginative scenarios straight down the toilet. It gets boring when it's the same people over and over imagining a hoax when they could just as easily imagine a legitimate new biological entity being proven. We know there are plenty of those, yet some just can't go there.

[indiefoot]

It takes less imagining to see a BF riding a train than to see Parn's scenario being possible.

[Guest Tontar]

PN, I think that bringing up SY as an example of someone who is known, is a member, and who you point to as someone that Parnassus or now myself might suggest was in on a hoax would be beyond the scope of such a hypothetical. Plus, as has been mentioned here, it's improper to comment on that sort of stuff when it concerns members.

That said, I have seen a lot of posts within the forums, this forum and other forums, and on television, and in a variety of Facebook groups, that make me question a lot of people that are known to have staunch reputations. In fact, I saw a couple of people that live fairly local to me, who have habituation situations at their houses. They have constant visitations form bigfoots, and yet they still have good reputations, but where they live I can tell you is in settled, urban to suburban areas, without significant access to wildlife corridors to the higher mountains. Heck, there's an extremely well known person that either lives with a woman that has nightly visitations, or visits with her constantly, and the BF's that visit her braid the horses' manes and tails, or tie them up to trees with funky knots, or leave presents near the house, or take gifts and leave others, and the stories get pretty extreme. So, is all of that happening? I don't know, but some of it stretches the imagination a bit further than credibility can allow. So then what happens regarding such people of good repute? Some times good people do funky things.

Who knows. Maybe we can stop wondering about it if the report ever comes out.

I can see how someone who has such a vivid imagination could get lost in a world of hypotheticals where there are no facts to ground them in reality...

LOL! :-)

[TimB]

So, in essence, what you are saying is that Parnassus's hypothetical situation has no connection to the actual factual situation involving Southern Yahoo. I would say that you are very accurate on that interpretation. Parnassus's theoretical possibility can not in fact be applied to any actual situation.

Tim B.

[Guest Particle Noun]

I'm sorry to have brought up Southernyahoo, and really wasn't intending to entrap anyone. But, he is a part of the study, and it goes right to my point, as TimB says above, that theories about hoaxing samples in the methods described by Parn would most likely involve many known parties.

But yes, hopefully the report comes out, and all of this discussion will seem quaint. Hopefully we can all have a beer and a good laugh about it!

[Guest BFSleuth]

The fact that Parnassus comes up with a completely feasible, and rather simple scenario that a hoaxer might pull off a really credible DNA hoax is not only interesting, but extremely compelling.

Someone like Parnassus poses a very legitimate hypothetical way for the DNA project to be produced without any genuine bigfoot DNA, using only real human DNA. He very well could be peeling back the layers of a hoax,...

We appreciate your defense of Parn's hoax "thought experiment". However, there are two glaring holes in the experiment that don't match with the facts of the case as we know them. First, in order to pull of the hoax in his scenario scores of independent researchers would have to be in on the hoax in a coordinated effort or Dr. Ketchum et al would have to replace submitted samples with their own selected data set. In the first case I think we can safely assume this is not true based on statements from forum members that did submit samples. As for the latter case, to suggest that a scientist would request samples from the research community only to then ignore the samples and replace them with their own samples in hopes of hoaxing the scientific community would then need to understand that during the peer review processor during attempts to replicate the experiment they would have to understand that their hoax would be revealed. Why go through all that when they could simply use the data set from the family group as proposed by Parn, and publish a paper revealing new DNA types that aren't currently in the Genome Database? Either scenario rises to the level of ludicrous.

Second, Dr. Ketchum herself in the only post she ever made on this thread noted that the DNA under study is not human. Therefore Parn's scenario would not work for this hoax, because you can't get nonhuman DNA from a human.

I realize that Parn is clinging to the hope that this is all just human DNA based on what must have been an exciting revelation for him when he saw that battery of copyright findings (which prompted Dr. Ketchum's response on this thread). I also realize that the skeptics among us are wanting to cling to that little tidbit of information, in the hope that it still might be true. Based on that hope the statement that all Dr. Ketchum has is human DNA has been reinserted in this thread again and again, perhaps hoping that the rest of this forum will conveniently not notice that it has already been denied in the strongest possible terms. Now, hoping that we again won't notice Parn wants to engage in a "thought experiment" that takes up this same debunked concept and raise the ante with a scenario that requires suspension of belief that would make Hollywood proud.

I'm not buying.

[Guest]

But, Parn's suggestion that a person or persons orchestrated a hoax by sending in samples from all around the country completely ignores the fact that we know of many of the people who sent in the samples. What about them? What part would they play in the hoax?

Where in Parnassus' hypothetical scenario did he state that every person who submitted samples to Dr. Ketchum was a willing participant in the hoax? Where in the leaked information from Dr. Ketchum et al. has it been confirmed that every sample submitted for analysis tested "positive for bigfoot?"

You could have 20 honest people submit things for analysis that they think harbor bigfoot DNA. You could also have one dishonest person submit 10 samples from different parts of the country under 10 different pseudonyms. Ketchum could analyze the 30 samples and have the 10 from the dishonest person show the weird signal being interpreted as "bigfooty" while the 20 from the honest people reveal the things that such samples always have in the past: bison, horses, bears, etc. The result would still be that the "bigfoot" signature showed up in samples from all over the country.

Certainly there are samples submitted for the analysis that have NOT come back "bigfoot." We haven't heard anything of those. All we've heard is that - allegedly - multiple samples have been identified from different parts of North America and that those samples share features that are being interpreted as bigfooty.

[Guest]

No, the link you provided is to information dated 1994. The journal I referred to was the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 135, Issue 1, pages 85-91, January 2008. Article was first published online 16 OCT 2007

Upon further review of the posts in question, I realize I inadvertently introduced confusion by my choice of words. Your article may post-date the publication of LMS, however, Dr Meldrum obviously was aware, either from his own work or from the work of others, that the tooth wear patterns of recovered Giganto teeth suggest omnivorism, otherwise he would not have been able to mention same in his book.

Sorry about the confusion.

[JDL]

What triggered the spate of media articles regarding the Oxford DNA study? Did they put out a press release? Did one outlet pick up on it and it went viral? Have journalists been prompted to look for such related material by an embargoed article? Anybody know?

Edited May 22, 2012 by JDL

[Guest]

BFSleuth, not all skeptics are clinging to any contrary "hope" at all. Some of us are really in the camp of, "I don't think they could exist, but I'd sure like to be wrong."

Not sure JDL. I think I was the first to post it this a.m. After someone posted about a tweet, I typed in "bigfoot/yeti DNA" in Google, as I do every so often, and came across it.

[Guest BFSleuth]

I might add there is a third problem with Parnassus's scenario that I forgot to add to my post above. It would have to do with the hair samples submitted, presuming that hairs are part of the included data set. Hair morphology as I understand it is very different between human and potential BF hair. There would be no way to submit human hair samples that are different than human structure and contain human DNA.

Of course, we could up the ante on the scenario and dream up a bazillionaire behind the whole thing that has a top secret lab that is creating all the samples....