The Ketchum Report

[Guest]

Don't know if this has been posted yet. Critical review of Ketchum's release:

http://doubtfulnews.com/2013/02/ketchum-bigfoot-dna-paper-released-problems-with-questionable-publication/

[Guest gerrykleier]

Where are the people on these boards who submitted samples? What say ye? Are you free to speak now if you wish? Yes or No? If not yet, when?

GK

[Guest Ishcabibble]

I'd +1you Icicle if I could, but I don't think lawyers were ever involved with this travesty. What we have here is a classic case of Puffed Publication. When you have an agenda or idea you want to promote, you either find a slanted journal to publish it or you create your own journal to publish it. Companies, in my area of expertise, have been doing it for years (EOS, ArcNews). The worst part is that after a few years, they start to be accepted as mainstream journals when they are really nothing more than propaganda tools. Denovo is nothing more than a propaganda tool.

[Egump]

I have often thought that at some point soon we would reach the tipping point with respect to the existense of Sasquatch. With better technology in the field and in the labs, supposedly legitimate DNA studies, a number of focused independent groups searching, and even claims of shot specimens, it seemed a breakthrough was near. But the dominos are falling fast and in the wrong direction. It seems Smeja doesn't know squatch from bear. Rick Dyer still lies. And Melba Ketchum has performed sloppy, or worse, fraudulent work. Erickson is still waiting to show whatever goods he has got. Can the Sykes' work really save this mess? Disappointed, but no longer surprised. What's next? Kitikaze prancing around in his PGF suit with Bill Munns' blessing?

[JDL]

Regardless of skeptical opinion, this publication means that the species can no longer be conveniently ignored. There will be more public interest, more money flowing in, and more people choosing to research in this area.

The lights are being turned on and I doubt it will be long before one is captured, killed, or convincingly filmed.

Someone needed to throw their body over the barbed wire so the rest could cross, and MK has done this.

In the long run it will be the skeptics hanging from the rope they're so eagerly collecting and MK will be recognized, if not for the impregnability of her science, for her courage to step forward and present her study.

Edited February 14, 2013 by JDL

[Guest]

@ Ishcabible. I agree that the journal maneuver was bad, very bad. I spotted it right away. It's a tremendous commitment to make. Are they really going to be an open-minded journal and offer peer review for other papers? Or is it just a spin off that will be jettisoned for destruction once the SGP gets legs or dies treading water?

I can understand the frustrations of not being reviewed and published but to create your own journal and then to say, 'see it's published', comes across as a childish protest.

Others have argued for the release of a white paper. That would've been the preferred route to take.

The project has had terrible PR and oversight. It makes you wonder who really is in charge of PR and marketing?

My answer is that it is Melba. I get the sense that she struggles with delegation and has her hands in too many pies. In doing so, she has undermined her own ambitions for the project. She has also become too emotionally attached to the project and this shows through her clinging like a child to content produced for the project. I mean to say this in the most respectable way but I believe that her ego has gotten the best of her and has misguided her through the process.

It is a mess.

But I believe that it tells a story. They need to stop clinging to it like a precious commodity and let it loose to fix this thing.

[Guest]

Somewhere in this thread I was ridiculed for stating she went overboard on the study. I said step 1 is prove they exist. Step 2 is show us what they actually are. Seems the agenda of Paulides to prove the "old guard" wrong got in the way of good science. Maybe Sykes will get it done as I stated.

Speaking of Paulides. Where the hell are the rest of the players on team Melba? They letting her fall on the sword and plan to keep their distance or what? We need comments and info from these known Nda folks- Erickson, Paulides, Derek, Smeja, Pfohl, Brisson, Hadj-Chik, Bindernagel, Meldrum, bfro stance, etc...Mainly want to hear from the Erickson camp folks. Meldrum and the bfro ape camp should be out and all over this thing in defense.

[Guest SquatchinNY]

It's true that Ketchum found the mother DNA human and the father DNA unknown, right?

[bipedalist]

@ Ishcabible. I agree that the journal maneuver was bad, very bad. I spotted it right away. It's a tremendous commitment to make. Are they really going to be an open-minded journal and offer peer review for other papers? Or is it just a spin off that will be jettisoned for destruction once the SGP gets legs or dies treading water?

I can understand the frustrations of not being reviewed and published but to create your own journal and then to say, 'see it's published', comes across as a childish protest.

Others have argued for the release of a white paper. That would've been the preferred route to take.

The project has had terrible PR and oversight. It makes you wonder who really is in charge of PR and marketing?

My answer is that it is Melba. I get the sense that she struggles with delegation and has her hands in too many pies. In doing so, she has undermined her own ambitions for the project. She has also become too emotionally attached to the project and this shows through her clinging like a child to content produced for the project. I mean to say this in the most respectable way but I believe that her ego has gotten the best of her and has misguided her through the process.

It is a mess.

But I believe that it tells a story. They need to stop clinging to it like a precious commodity and let it loose to fix this thing.

Yah, a private monograph or even open source, with an extended abstract for free and cost for the larger product I think would have worked some better.

Now it becomes a transparent task to see if other journal activities result in submissions or NOT.

Still with the eyes on the prize, the push is on for somebody to pick apart the sections and science/data of the article point by point not in the wholesale whitewash we so frequently see with the prospectors done who haven't read it.

As for the falling on the sword, I think the jury is out but hopefully somebody has done an analysis of several of the same samples, maybe Sykes.

As for the "ape-camp" comments above: I think it would be more interesting to see what the rest of the "NABS/Paulides" team has to say about this and such ...... another blog at NABS perhaps but sounds like they have rallied to the sound of the cash registers to date. Ketchum camp crickets is a little odd but it is early yet. But as Team Ketchum it seems like they are sticking tight like "yeti glue".

Maybe things will heat up. Where is our own southernyahoo in this outbreak?

It is still early yet, perhaps redemption will come in the series of papers that will follow? Or in a few positive critiques among the science community?

Edited February 14, 2013 by bipedalist

[Guest]

.

An interesting comment posted on the 'doubtful news' blog:

Eejeb22 on February 14, 2013 at 12:25 AM

I think a lot of the commentary is missing the larger point of what is going on here and I personally believe this should be picked up by larger news sources. However this turns out, it is a big deal.

It is obvious to state that if this scientific paper is legitimate (and I am definitely not saying it is) then we have a discovery that will rock science to its core.

If this paper turns out to be a hoax by failures to properly analyze DNA evidence then there is an enormous issue with the eleven scientists who put their name on this paper. These are forensic scientists who have had their findings in DNA used in criminal cases. These DNA labs (especially for the ones in Texas) have put people to death through their findings. If you can firmly state that these scientists published false data through pure incompetence what does that ask of our judicial system which considers DNA evidence the nonpareil? What other mistakes or sloppy science are they producing?

If this paper turns out to be a deliberate hoax then the issue becomes an enormous credibility of character conundrum. If these forensic labs are willing to falsify evidence for the sake of profit then what else have they falsified? This would bring into question every verdict that has utilized evidence from these respective labs.

I would just keep this in mind as this unfolds. If the mentality is simply “bigfoot does not exist, therefor lets pick apart this paper!†you are not fully analyzing the context. I would just hope the expectations put on this paper are equal to those put on any other scientific paper that is making a specific claim. It might possibly be a mix of good science and poorly conceptualized conclusions? It could be many things, but whatever the outcome is, this is significant.

http://doubtfulnews....le-publication/

Edited February 14, 2013 by Oak

[bipedalist]

Yep, she is right in somebody has to take it apart piecemeal and put it in context as at least one blogger did partially, to get these folks out of the cheerleading row and into the pressroom and spotlight of investigative journalism.

[Guest gershake]

Did this go down differently than I expected? Absolutely.

Is the person who designed the SGP website absolutely terrible at marketing? Yes.

Do I still think her paper has the goods? Yes, although this mess has definitely lowered my being sure. There are several problems with the way she presents her data (for example the way she has worded her conclusions) - if there are problems with the data itself, no one can know yet.

There are several possible ways this is going to end, and I don't know which route it will take:

- Experts at nuDNA genome sequencing are going to review the paper and publish their analysis. This is the best thing that could happen. Either they'll vindicate her, or prove that this whole thing is a fraud or at the very least sloppy science.

- No nuDNA genome sequencing experts will care enough to analyze the paper on more than a superficial basis. I fear this is pretty likely.

- The Kentucky project is going to publish their HD video documentary. This would not per se vindicate the Ketchum project, but it would definitely get the ball rolling and make this worldwide news. I don't know why they would NOT publish it, but they haven't done so far and I hope they will soon.

[Guest Theagenes]

It's true that Ketchum found the mother DNA human and the father DNA unknown, right?

She found 16 different "mothers" or more properly mitochondrial "Eves" out of the 20 samples she did a full mtDNA sequence on. And these weren't rare ancient "Cro-Magnon" haplotypes. They are common mostly European types. They are the types that most of us on these boards would fall into.

Those of you that have followed the discussion and speculation on this topic here for the last few months should realize the implications of this. If she had one or maybe two haplotypes (preferable a Native American type or at least one associated with east Asia) she could have made an argument that there was a hybridization event prior to prior to BF migrating to N. America and that all the BF females had the human mtDNA. I have tried on numerous occasions in this very thread to come up with possible (if implausible) scenarios to account for her hybridization theory.

But 100% of the mtDNA came back fully modern human with 16 different human female lineages? From a wide variety of different haplotypes? Mostly from Europe? How do she explain this? Again, here is the relevant passage quoted directly from her paper (and fully within the bounds of fair use):

All 16 haplotypes from 20 completed whole mitochondrial sequences and 10 partial mitochondrial genomes have indicated 100% homology with human mitochondrial sequences without any significant deviation. Of the 16 haplotypes, most were European or Middle Eastern in origin. African and American Indian haplotypes were also observed. Those samples that did not give enough viable sequence to obtain a complete genome usually yielded sufficient data to delineate a haplotype from the mitochondrial hypervariable region or at least a human HV2 sequence. With the wide variety of haplotypes in the study and especially with the majority of the haplotypes being European or Middle Eastern in origin, migration into North America by these hominins may have occurred previous to the migration across the Bering land bridge. This previous migration is supported by the Solutrean Theory​41-42​​. Three phylogenetic trees were subsequently constructed using the mitochondrial sequences obtained from samples 26, 31, and 140 using sequences generated at Family Tree DNA (Supplementary Figures 1, 2, 3). The trees were consistent with human mitochondrial sequences in Genbank®. Given the mitochondrial DNA results across all samples, nuclear genome testing was undertaken in order to address paternal origins of the DNA samples.

I challenge anyone to make sense of this passage. It is gibberish. What is she even saying? The dubious Solutrean hypothesis (that Cro-Magnon Solutreans crossed the Atlantic ca. 20-15kya) is based on similar spear points found in Europe and N. America. Is she saying that the Solutreans who are responsible for not only those advanced spear points, but also the amazing cave paintings at Lascaux and elsewhere are actually BF and that they crossed the frozen Atlantic in boats? Or that the Solutreans were made up of a multitude of different mtDNA lineages and crossed the Atlantic to mate with BF over here, but the only females that survived are those that are descended from human-BF mating---no pure BF females survived?

Or is it more likely that she has DNA samples from 20 modern North American humans? You tell me.

Some of you keep holding out for some qualified experts to coming riding in to save day, but yet many of you haven't bothered to buy the report yourselves. Let me be as plain as I can be. I am a professional archaeologist and anthropologist with a federal agency that would be directly responsible for dealing with this creature should it prove to be real. I lean to the skeptical side for sure, but am very much open to the possibility that BF is real and I'm fully supportive of legitimate efforts to get to the bottom of this mystery.

I am the target audience for this paper. I am exactly the type of person this study was supposed to convince.

On the mtDNA portion of her paper I am a qualified expert. And unlike most of you I coughed up the money and bought the paper read it. I didn't ignore it like many of you claim us elite scientists always do. I read it and I found it to be incredibly underwhelming. The mtDNA portion and her explanation of the wide variety of haplotypes is well-within my area of expertise and it is garbage. Not just far-fetched or poorly argued---it's garbage. Superficial, wikipedied garbage.

I'm sorry to be so blunt. There is no way that this portion of the paper would have made it through any legitimate peer review process intact. Maybe there's something magical in the three nuDNA samples but her case wasn't very convincing---at best it seems inconclusive. On that portion I'll reserve full judgement until some of the genetics experts weigh in, but based on the rest of the paper it does not look promising at all. I feel really bad for those of you who put so much of their hopes into this and thought it would bring vindication, but this was clearly the wrong horse to back.

[Guest]

I took my chances against my computer warnings and proceeded on the genome website. Clicked on submitters and discovered the ones we heard from most are only a few of the folks listed. I expected more anonymous submitters. There are lots of folks who should step up and be heard. One would assume if a person submits a few dozen samples, they might have a pic or two laying around. Team Melba and groups need to flood the media with any visual evidence they have right now. Especially Erickson, what's the delay? Any bfro private pics etc should come out. If a skeptic (even me) sees the short Matilda clip as the only visual evidence, of course they will blow it off. Footage was supposed to be better than pgf!

At the very least, there should be hairs and material left so if a university or lab wants to test it, Melba can distribute so they can see for themselves.

And yes, seeing Mary Green and Janice Carter as submitters was a shocker. But I did nor see Todd Standing. That was surprising since he was linked to Erickson earlier.

[Guest mitchw]

One wonders what angle journalists and their editors will take with this story. If they go with 'bought a journal to self publish,' then the general public will snort. If the angle is 'it passed peer review at a respected journal that was too chicken to publish,' then you've got a juicy story. Whatever, I don't see how journalists have enough time to digest the paper itself, so Ketchum and her PR person will have a lot to do with shaping the story.