The Ketchum Report

[Guest FuriousGeorge]

^Wait a minute. So he didn't initially compare the hair to another big brown animal from that region, and still gave out the results? One of the same animals that is speculated by some to be the original source of the legend of the yeti?

Wow, if that isn't a needle scratching across a record moment, there will never be one.

A few years ago, I tried to explain that this is what probably happened with the Destination Truth Bhutan "yeti" sample. It was not well received, as a scientist would not leave out such details.

<singing> How ya like me now? </singing>

[Guest]

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?

Their findings were quoted and/or cited. I don't have the "original" reporting of their statements, nor, I suspect does anyone else.

Does that mean they didn't say what they said?

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 Unpublished D.Phil.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

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

I will accept on this one specific that you appear to be correct.

It still does not change the fact that one cannot simply assume that "unknown" means "we didn't bother to track it down".

That is presumption of incompetence on the part of the researcher, and flies in the face of not only explicit statements by Pinker, et al, but with good general practice.

[Guest COGrizzly]

Mulder - I guess I will put it a different way. I would respectfully ask that you not take information of mine from any other forum and quote it here. Feel free to quote/copy&paste anything I say here. I do not think there is a rule about it, I just find it uncouth.

MikeG - Good to know that DNA cannot be hoaxed. Thank you.

I think I may have misrepresented my own thoughts and feelings on this topic. I think even if there are several DNA samples that are all the same, and it's an unknown whatever, it still won't matter to the general public regarding Sasquatch being a real creature. I think that will take a body.

[Guest RayG]

Their findings were quoted and/or cited. I don't have the "original" reporting of their statements, nor, I suspect does anyone else.

Does that mean they didn't say what they said?

I don't recall seeing any of their statements or findings 'quoted', which is why I asked for something from them directly. And yes, we've been down this road before, where things said 40+ years ago have morphed into things that weren't said.

I will accept on this one specific that you appear to be correct.

It still does not change the fact that one cannot simply assume that "unknown" means "we didn't bother to track it down".

That is presumption of incompetence on the part of the researcher, and flies in the face of not only explicit statements by Pinker, et al, but with good general practice.

Suffice to say, the statement by Dr. Sykes that you presented need not be mentioned by you in the future, when the subject of 'unknown' hair analysis results comes up. Agreed?

RayG

[Guest Transformer]

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"?

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

What a classic case of moving the goalposts! We went from arguing about exisiting scientific reports of supposed "Unknown Hominid" findings and what the term "Unknown Hominid" meant in that context to imagined future results from DNA testing! That is quite a shift and the original argument needs to be addressed again. Mike: Do you think that the hair and other samples that have been supposedly reported on by labs in which the term "Unknown Hominid" is used means that all other known Hominids have been clearly and concisely eliminated as being the source of the sample? Please provide one lab report from an accredited lab or individual not a story or a summation but the actual copy or link or photo of the lab report to back your claim. Thank you.

[Guest]

Mulder - I guess I will put it a different way. I would respectfully ask that you not take information of mine from any other forum and quote it here. Feel free to quote/copy&paste anything I say here. I do not think there is a rule about it, I just find it uncouth.

Fair enough.

MikeG - Good to know that DNA cannot be hoaxed. Thank you.

Technically, it IS possible to assemble relatively short genetic sequences (about 100 segments is the length I heard about), but it is very expensive and the end result wouldn't fool anyone studying a complete sequencing..

I think I may have misrepresented my own thoughts and feelings on this topic. I think even if there are several DNA samples that are all the same, and it's an unknown whatever, it still won't matter to the general public regarding Sasquatch being a real creature. I think that will take a body.

That may be true, simply because of the high level of mis/disinformation flying about.

[Guest]

Good "real" evidence will instantly speak for itself. Trust me, nobody has it yet. If somebody gets it we won't have to wait around, we'll all see the worlds top scientists going nuts on CNN. When we are teased and put off just remember the Georgia freezer incident. We had to wait for a big deal to be made over it before anybody we trust was aloud to examine it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

[Guest gershake]

In response to someone asking if she was going to be the person to decide the scientific species name:

"It is not that simple. Wish it was....."

https://www.facebook.com/melba.ketchum/posts/457187237626731?comment_id=5877277&offset=0&total_comments=1

[Guest]

. . . you've been harping on the complete body in the past, and that's what I figured you meant.

For a long time I used the expression "a body or part thereof" but I thought it sounded pedantic. I guess I need to keep using that to avoid confusion.

A drop of drool isn't a type specimen without the science. So more science applied to that "is" progress, No?

If the drool is analyzed and comes back as "bear" then no, it hasn't advanced the science of bigfootery. If it comes back as "bigfoot", then it has advanced the science from 0 to 1. I don't see middle ground or "progress" to be made in the discovery of a new species. Either it is or it isn't; you can prove it or you can't. The way you prove it is by demonstrating that you have a piece of it.

It is not true that we must have a full specimen to examine before we can prove that we have a new species in our midst. If DNA samples can be demonstrated to indicate a creature that is in the clade including the extant hominins - but is diagnostically not one of those extant species - then we have proof of some kind of undescribed hominin out there, and the logical conclusion is that this creature is on some level the source of reports of bigfoot-type creatures. If the results are muddier then that, e.g., the DNA signature is not clearly separable from modern Homo sapiens, then that DNA would not be sufficient to prove the existence of such creatures.

[Wheellug]

.. but.. how could it come back as 'bigfoot'? Would it not come back as 'Unknown'? or 'similar' to something? (just guessing at similar)

Nothing at this point should come back as 'bigfoot' until there is something accepted... or something like that...

[southernyahoo]

You are correct wheellug. The term "bigfoot" doesn't necessarily carry a finite definition. So a new hominin proven wouldn't necessarily prove that someones concept of bigfoot is also proven.

While saskeptic has a point that either you can prove a new hominin or you can't, the proof doesn't come without the science, so the process in it's application is progress to me because it brings some resolution one way or the other.

Ideally, the Ketchum study should have had samples submitted from every organization out there, with every possible sample vetted and tested. People who have the suspected evidence should be willing to put it on the line. If all those people failed to hit on something then alot of people could put their interest to bed.

Maybe the new Sykes study will collect few more holdouts who feared that they only have one shot at proving the creature or lose the scientific communities interest forever. This might be true, I don't know, but what I do know is there simply is no hoaxing biological evidence.

[Guest]

You don't need science to prove bigfoot. You just need a truck, a well-placed bullet, a person asking "Hey what's that?" when their shovel knocks into a rather large femur, etc.

Ketchum et al. are apparently using science to try to prove bigfoot. That's fine too, but unless the samples they're working with actually came from bigfoots - and they can prove that - then there's no getting "almost there." It's not like mountain gorillas or okapis or saolas were "almost proven" and then the science advanced to the point at which they were. There shouldn't be anything else that we'd need to learn how to do to prove bigfoot. We'd just need a piece of a bigfoot and application of techniques that science has already developed.

[Guest]

Good "real" evidence will instantly speak for itself.

I strongly disagree. Yes, everybody and their brother can see and accept it if someone got lucky and roadkilled one with a semi. No one denies that.

But there is a plethora of pieces of extremely good evidence that requires professional analysis and explanation for the lay person, such as Fahrenbach's track size distribution paper, the anatomical analyses of cast tracks and body impressions by Meldrum, et al, and so forth.

What makes these pieces of evidence so powerful, when properly explained, is that they utilize extremely esoteric technical data that Joe Sixpack the Hoaxer is probably not even aware of, let alone understand. Therefore if those technical details argue consistently for a living creature as the source of the data, the probability of hoax drops to virtually zero.

You don't need science to prove bigfoot. You just need a truck, a well-placed bullet, a person asking "Hey what's that?" when their shovel knocks into a rather large femur, etc.

That limits you to just a narrow range of potential avenues of proof, and is why we don't as yet have the species documented.

Ketchum et al. are apparently using science to try to prove bigfoot. That's fine too, but unless the samples they're working with actually came from bigfoots - and they can prove that - then there's no getting "almost there." It's not like mountain gorillas or okapis or saolas were "almost proven" and then the science advanced to the point at which they were. There shouldn't be anything else that we'd need to learn how to do to prove bigfoot. We'd just need a piece of a bigfoot and application of techniques that science has already developed.

And the DNA is that "piece of a bigfoot".

[Guest]

Mulder is right, the DNA would be that evidence, that "piece " of body. DNA of a living unknown hominid, or primate even, in North America, is proof. To argue about it, is simply an argument against what to name it. If you don't accept it as proof, then that becomes a personal problem, not a scientific problem.

[Guest]

That limits you to just a narrow range of potential avenues of proof, and is why we don't as yet have the species documented.

What is limiting about proving bigfoot the same way all the other species have been proven? If bigfoots are real, then there is no reason one couldn't be about to embark on a new career as a Peterbuilt hood ornament right about . . . now.

And the DNA is that "piece of a bigfoot".

Well your "is" strikes me as wildly premature, but I am - and always have been - on board that the DNA could be the first definitive piece of bigfoot described.