The Ketchum Report

[Guest]

Drew

I have scanned my hair results from Dr Fahrenbach on this site, but according to some we don't have BF in Australia, so they don't count

I'm curious. Do any yowie advocates think it is a marsupial?

What I just don't get with you Sas is why your cool with being wrong. This attitude is where I see science going. There is not a PASSION to get it right.

I don't know will, one could look at it like Bigfoot advocates have a passion to get it wrong, as long as it gives them their heart's desire, and being cool with being wrong.

[Guest spurfoot]

Many people have concluded that the hard core skeptics simply have a hidden agenda. It is not difficult to guess that agenda, but, the rules of the forum forbid discussing it.

I can see the following scenario happening:

1) Ketchum or Sykes publishes a paper on DNA and names the source creature Genus species .

2) Then Genus species becomes widely accepted as real.

3) Then the skeptics, still having a hidden agenda, will say "But, Genus species isn't Bigfoot/Sasquatch."

4) Any attempt by the acceptors of the evidence to link Genus species with what the common man calls Bigfoot/Sasquatch will be disputed by the hardcore skeptics no matter how good the proof.

[Guest COGrizzly]

Mulder - I visit the Other Forum one time in 2 years and you feel the need to post what I said there on here? Stay classy San Diego.

Yes, I think DNA samples can be "hoaxed" or manipulated to fit whomever's agenda. Saliva, a steak, even a bigfoot hand will not suffice, at least for me. It'll take a body or a significant portion of a body.

ETA - The whole "agenda" use by me (and spurfoot) was a sheer coincidence!

Edited June 16, 2012 by COGrizzly

[Guest]

^Since you pretty much confirmed the accuracy of what I quoted from you just now, I don't see how it's either "classy" or "un-classy". That's what you said, and it's not a position compatible with reason or logic.

You're pretty much doing exactly what spurfoot is talking about: coming up with an excuse to use to dismiss the DNA findings in the event they come up positive.

One set of goalposts, handily moved.

[yowiie]

I'm curious. Do any yowie advocates think it is a marsupial?

I don't know will, one could look at it like Bigfoot advocates have a passion to get it wrong, as long as it gives them their heart's desire, and being cool with being wrong.

Marsupials don't have primate hair, sorry

[Guest]

Indiefoot- to answer your question, IMHO and a little experience about how government agencies work, no agency is going to play along and give up any information unless they want to, even if you have the "goods". They probably have body parts but they have no obligation to play their hand. ptangier

Does FOIA cover non-document parts of a casefile?

[Guest shoot1]

Many people have concluded that the hard core skeptics simply have a hidden agenda. It is not difficult to guess that agenda, but, the rules of the forum forbid discussing it.

I can see the following scenario happening:

1) Ketchum or Sykes publishes a paper on DNA and names the source creature Genus species .

2) Then Genus species becomes widely accepted as real.

3) Then the skeptics, still having a hidden agenda, will say "But, Genus species isn't Bigfoot/Sasquatch."

4) Any attempt by the acceptors of the evidence to link Genus species with what the common man calls Bigfoot/Sasquatch will be disputed by the hardcore skeptics no matter how good the proof.

I don't know about #3, but #4 is technically a legitimate conclusion unless you can prove that the DNA sample came *from* a Bigfoot. My opinion is that there may be more than one species of primates/hominids/hybrids running around simply due to the diversity of physical descriptions.

[Guest MikeG]

Yes, I think DNA samples can be "hoaxed" or manipulated to fit whomever's agenda.

Well, you're just plain wrong on that. Completely and utterly wrong.

[Guest Transformer]

Well, it can't be right?

I mean, there is no type specimen. So, it comes back "unknown Hominid", which can't be bigfoot, because there is no type specimen, so it comes back "unkown hominid", which can't be bigfoot, because there is no type specimen, so it comes back "unkown hominid",which can't be bigfoot, because there is no type specimen, so it comes back "unkown hominid", which can't be bigfoot, because there is no type specimen, so it comes back "unkown hominid",

Unless the results come back that ALL other known Hominds are eliminated and therefore this must be an "Unknown Hominid" then the results are pretty well useless, right? After all "Unknown Hominid" by itself only means that the people were unable to discover anything more about the sample except it came from a Hominid. So, unless you have a scientific test result that states that "All other Hominids have been eleminated and this sample can only be described as an absolutely unique Hominid" then you have nothing really. Does anybody have such a report from an accredited scientist in the right field or Lab that says such a thing or do they all say just "Unknown Hominid"?

[Guest MikeG]

No, Transformer.......unknown means unknown. It would mean one we don't know about at the moment.

It doesn't mean "one of the known hominids, just not sure which one".

Mike

[Guest Transformer]

^ No, Mike .... I know of what I speak and have seen this incorrect and misleading use of "Unknown Hominid" for years. Paul who ran the BFF1 for a number of years was also especially critical of the use of "unknown Hominid" as he also knew what real lab reports looked like. I would challenge anyone to deliver a lab report that states that "Unknown Hominid" meaning that they have decided that there is enough information to eliminate all other hominids and that the sample was found to be a unique and unknown hominid.

Edited June 16, 2012 by Transformer

[Guest MikeG]

OK, we'll agree to differ. If we get nuDNA analysis of multiple samples I personally can see no way in which your definition of unknown hominid will be right, and mine will be wrong.

Mike

[Guest Nalajr]

For me if that study comes out and offers proof that there is DNA and tell how and from where it was obtained, then show how it couldn't be a human or any other animal that is known, I think I'd have to call that pretty much game over. I would at least wait until several well respected skeptics also went through the information and offerred their conclusions as well.

Sure I would prefer a whole body or at least a good bit of one, but absent that, you have to go with what you have available at the time. I think it would be VERY hard to argue that Sassy wasn't real if all those DNA studies came back showing that there is indeed an unknown primate cruising around our worlds remote forests, backed up of course by some of those "well respected" researchers in their fields and "heads of departments."

Nalajr

[Guest]

Unless the results come back that ALL other known Hominds are eliminated and therefore this must be an "Unknown Hominid" then the results are pretty well useless, right? After all "Unknown Hominid" by itself only means that the people were unable to discover anything more about the sample except it came from a Hominid. So, unless you have a scientific test result that states that "All other Hominids have been eleminated and this sample can only be described as an absolutely unique Hominid" then you have nothing really. Does anybody have such a report from an accredited scientist in the right field or Lab that says such a thing or do they all say just "Unknown Hominid"?

No, Transformer.......unknown means unknown. It would mean one we don't know about at the moment.

It doesn't mean "one of the known hominids, just not sure which one".

Mike

This non-objection used to crop up (and still does) in relation to the forensically typed hairs examined by Pinker and Moore back in the 70s. Skeptics would assert that "unknown" simply meant "unidentified" with the implication that it was some known animal.

Typically, that overlooked the rest of the findings, where the examiner would go on to state that they had in fact checked against the known animals and had explicitly excluded them as potential matches, leaving an animal not in the database.

^ No, Mike .... I know of what I speak and have seen this incorrect and misleading use of "Unknown Hominid" for years. Paul who ran the BFF1 for a number of years was also especially critical of the use of "unknown Hominid" as he also knew what real lab reports looked like. I would challenge anyone to deliver a lab report that states that "Unknown Hominid" meaning that they have decided that there is enough information to eliminate all other hominids and that the sample was found to be a unique and unknown hominid.

Again, I point you to the findings of Pinker, Moore, et al in the case of forensically typed hairs, who explicitly say that they compared the samples to known animals and found no match.

In the case of DNA, the results are even more diagnostic. Assuming a good "read" on the sample, if it doesn't match anything in the database, then it, by obvious process of elimination must be from a new, undocumented critter.

ETA: we already have such a statement from Dr Sykes about at least one sample.

Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine and one of the world's leading experts on DNA analysis examined the hair. "We found some DNA in it," he said, "but we don't know what it is. It's not a human, not a bear not anything else we have so far been able to identify. It's a mystery and I never thought this would end in a mystery. We have never encountered DNA that we couldn't recognize before."

http://www.professorfringe.com/news_stories/bigfoot_dna_evidence.htm

Please carefully note the emphasized part.

Edited June 16, 2012 by Mulder

[Guest RayG]

Again, I point you to the findings of Pinker, Moore, et al in the case of forensically typed hairs, who explicitly say that they compared the samples to known animals and found no match.

Yes please. Point us to the findings of Pinker and Moore. Where may we find their actual authored 44-year-old analysis, and not a second or third-hand interpretation from John Green, Dr. Meldrum, or someone else?

ETA: we already have such a statement from Dr Sykes about at least one sample.

Please carefully note the emphasized part.

Dr Sykes statement loses its impact somewhat once you dig a little deeper.

Please carefully note the emphasized part of this Wikipedia entry:

>>A well publicized expedition to Bhutan reported that a hair sample had been obtained which by DNA analysis by Professor Bryan Sykes could not be matched to any known animal. Analysis completed after the media release, however, clearly showed the samples were from a Brown bear (Ursus arctos) and an Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus). -- Chandler, H.C. (2003). Using Ancient DNA to Link Culture and Biology in Human Populations. Unpublished D.Phil. thesis. University of Oxford, Oxford.<<

Mulder if you're going to be honest about presenting bigfoot information, then present ALL of it, not just the incomplete or misleading tidbits that shine a positive light on the existence of bigfoot.

RayG

Dr Sykes statement loses its impact somewhat once you dig a little deeper.

A much more recent blurb from Dr. Meldrum renders the original statements from Dr Sykes null and void once and for all.

Please carefully note the emphasized part.

"On Saturday, April 28, I had lunch with Dr. Bryan Sykes... Sykes also analyzed hair samples from Bhutan attributed to the Yeti, which seemed to defy DNA identification. Interestingly, during our conversation I learned that further efforts were subsequently successful in determining that the hair originated from bear." -- Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 1:81-82 (2012).

RayG