The Ketchum Report

[Guest Tontar]

"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 the her study."

Huh? The skeptics will be hanging from some metaphorical rope? How so? Why is bigfoot stuff always an us against them scenario? Like some hillbilly feud.

If the study is good science, cool, something will possibly result from it. If it is bad science, then it accomplishes nothing, proves nothing, and doesn't pave the way to the gallows for anyone (as in skeptics).

This is always a goose chase of some sort. The paper took forever to come out, and now that it has come out, now what? Not much. Oh, but now there's something else just around the corner, like the Sykes study, which is supposed to vindicate Ketchum's paper? I wouldn't count on it. What about the Erickson video? A tiny little teaser clip that means nothing. The shag doesn't even show a head, nor any actual movement that a balloon couldn't replicate. Where's the standard for evidence? And where is the whole video showing the shaggy getting up and walking and looking like a Wookie? I've head wookie as a description, but the descriptions I've heard sound even more like Ewok, with round, unblinking eyes.

There's no feud going on here, regardless of the characterization. There's a distinct lack of conclusive evidence, and the more stuff comes in, the more ways it ends up being questionable.

Edited February 14, 2013 by Tontar

[Guest njjohn]

I never said he was in a basement. Blog sections usually mean editorials which is purely opinion.They have more leeway to be a little loose with the information. But I wonder how opinion got that the results came back human, non human and failure to sequence from this line from the report.

The resulting sequences ranged from totally non homologous matches, not found in Genbank® after numerous BLASTs (including dissimilar sequence BLASTs) to novel SNPs and even failure to sequence

The novel SNPs are the few single strands of dna instead of the usual double. Nothing in those results say human. And when you make mistakes like that in your reading of it, it means you're rushing through instead of giving a worthwhile analysis. Regardless of his background, he messed up. Doctors do it, mechanics do it, everyone does it. But that is the reason the most important section of his analysis is we need to wait.

Sorry if i gave you the impression that I was questioning the writer instead of what he wrote.

[Guest]

Thanks above for link to the "call for papers'

and this might help...it seems the Zoology Journal was organized under the Scholastica publishing platform..and this link will describe it to you:

http://trackernewsdo...772/scholastica

and i found that info from the above post of the "calls to papers" and then a Google search b/c the specific page had no submission info...and it led to this:

http://webcache.goog...n&ct=clnk&gl=us

If you look at cost to begin a Journal on this platform (didn't the Ketchum site or statement make some claim we follow 'such and such" publishing protocol? - it might have been this Scholastica?..sorry don't want to search! it doesn't matter too much...) it's really cheap.

If so, then it seems that Journal made a call for papers, Ketchum must have submitted (huh? in January 2013? did I get that right?) AND received a yes, passed review in just a few weeks? That seems fast..maybe I am wrong there.

But, the good news I guess is Scholastic has a methodology for review and identifies a pool of reviewers, kind of...but it seems traceable at that level ..and a valid route for any start-up- and I think it is clear this is more than a study, but a start-up company (consider in total the filings in association with the actual paper)...

is Scholastica good or bad, well I don't know... see linked review above...

but, it doesn't explain buying this new filing, Zoology-long name....that it seems is aimed at acquiring that IP...the reviews, and/or reviewers, and control over that...and IMO if those were good, that pool still exists at Scholastica and available to DeNova with just such a "call for papers" (as linked by i think mellisa) - those who had reviewed for Zoology would see this in their inbox and respond immediately, don't you think?

Did I get this right? I skimmed most of it, b/c my knowing changes nothing! But, I see 668 'filings" or "submissions of Journal description" with the Wikitalk...whatever that is (the second link) .... ahead of Zoology, which is supposed to give it a verified "name/description" presence on that website...geez!

Edited February 14, 2013 by apehuman

[Guest]

No you didn't say that njjohn - I was trying to be funny - and failed - again.. :*(

I have no problem waiting a week for what he comes out with next. But, none the less - I am not holding out hope... I wish I could.

[Drew]

Ouchers

http://carlzimmer.com/bio.html

[Guest]

Thanks above for link to the "call for papers'

and this might help...it seems the Zoology Journal was organized under the Scholastica publishing platform..and this link will describe it to you:

http://trackernewsdo...772/scholastica

and i found that info from the above post of the "calls to papers" and then a Google search b/c the specific page had no submission info...and it led to this:

http://webcache.goog...n&ct=clnk&gl=us

If you look at cost to begin a Journal on this platform (didn't the Ketchum site or statement make some claim we follow 'such and such" publishing protocol? - it might have been this Scholastica?..sorry don't want to search! it doesn't matter too much...)

If so, then it seems that Journal made a call for papers, Ketchum must have submitted (huh? in January 2013? did I get that right?) AND received a yes, passed review in just a few weeks? That seems fast..maybe I am wrong there.

But, the good news I guess is Scholastic has a methodology for review and identifies a pool of reviewers, kind of...but it seems traceable at that level ..and a valid route for any start-up- and I think it is clear this is more than a study, but a start-up company (consider in total the filings in association with the actual paper)...

is Scholastica good or bad, well I don't know... see linked review above...

but, it doesn't explain buying this new filing, Zoology-long name....that it seems is aimed at acquiring that IP...the reviews, and/or reviewers, and control over that...and IMO if those were good, that pool still exists at Scholastica and available to DeNova with just such a "call for papers" (as linked by i think mellisa) - those who had reviewed for Zoology would see this in their inbox and respond immediately, don't you think?

Did I get this right?

THANK YOU !!!!!!!! LMAO. I was hoping someone would check that out. I posted it also because I was curious about the "call for papers"... I will wait to hear what others have to say - this isn't my field of knowledge.. I was hoping someone would come along and explain this.

[TimB]

Cotter, the list of co-authors and their institutions is well-publicized. Anyone can look them up and shoot them an email. When I saw the list it was pretty clear what their involvement likely was. It's typical to add people who did testing for you as a minor author. Three of the authors are MK's employees who likely assisted with processing the samples and whatnot. Again this is normal. The old articles on which MK herself was listed as a minor co-author likely did so because she performed testing for them.

So there's nothing nefarious about this at all, but people shouldn't read too much into it either. I have a lot of issues with this report but this isn't one of them.

Surely you don't think these co-authors actually helped write the paper?

Your use of the word "clear" or "clearly" indicates your opinion you are portraying as obvious fact. A lot of JREF "critical thinkers" use that ploy to jump over the holes in their logic.

Tim B.

[Cotter]

Theagenes - no I don't think that the co-authors listed actually wrote part of the paper.....anymore....b/c of your comments and some of the work some JREF'ers have done. With that said, I think the term co-author implies that they DID indeed author (write) some of the paper, and most folks (including me) that do not have an extensive background in peer reviewed papers would assume that. So when someone says 'she listed the labs that did sequencing as co-authors', there is a inference that can be made that DMK was being dishonest when listing them. However, as you pointed out, in peer reviewed publications, this is normal. I appreciate that, but highly doubt that little bit of information will be included as the co-author findings make their rounds. See why I wanted to clarify that?

Melissa - agree, agree, agree - I just want the issues being scrutinized REAL issues (which there are plenty of at this point), not issues that serve an agenda and may actually be non-issues.

Why is bigfoot stuff always an us against them scenario? Like some hillbilly feud.

^^ Nice....perhaps it's b/c there are folks on both sides that are willing to fabricate things such as trackways so they can make the other side look like fools? Maybe there's some resentment in there. Your thoughts on the matter? I wouldn't really know as I haven't done anything of the like I described.

[Guest Theagenes]

Njjohn, you're cherry-picking. Some gene sequences were human, some were some novel, and some didn't amplify---just as John from Ars Technica stated.

Speaking of the Ars techinica piece, I want to emphasize something that I think got lost in the shuffle.

In the report MK notes how unusual the "steak" is so she submitted the sample for examination under an electron microscope and the results were very interesting:

"Figure 12, panel A, shows long double stranded DNA up to 15-20 kb, but some of the DNA also comprised smaller fragments. In addition (Figure 12, panel , most of the DNA showed clustering of material along the length or at ends and were typical of disordered single-stranded segments. There were also frequent single-stranded gaps and single-stranded ends which were not observed with the degraded human DNA control sample (Figure 12, panel C). Occasionally, with the single-stranded ends, a backfolding was observed that is typical for unspecific base pairing that can occur in the absence of treatment with formaldehyde glyoxal or elevated temperatures​70-74​."

For MK this is further evidence of the "steak" DNA's non-human appearence. John Timmer from Ars Technica has a different interpretation:

"And electron micrographs of the DNA isolated from these samples show patches of double- and single-stranded DNA intermixed. This is what you might expect if two distantly related species had their DNA mixed—the protein-coding sequences would hybridize, and the intervening sections wouldn't. All of this suggests modern human DNA intermingled with some other contaminant."

Now keep in mind that this guy has no idea what the "steak" is or what it's back story is. And yet he's suggesting that these results that she finds so unusual are the result of human DNA contaminated by another animal. His suggestion:

"The authors' description of the sequence suggests that it's human DNA interspersed with sequence from some other primate—hence the interbreeding idea. But the best way to analyze this would be to isolate the individual segments of non-human DNA and see what species those best align with."

Now, if that were done, what do think the odds are that this non-human DNA would come back as "bear."

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/bigfoot-genome-paper-conclusively-proves-that-sasquatch-is-real/

[Guest]

As always Theagenes - I think you're spot on. I wish I could plus 1 this post.

Yeah - it let me finally !!!

Edited February 14, 2013 by Melissa

[Guest Tontar]

Nice....perhaps it's b/c there are folks on both sides that are willing to fabricate things such as trackways so they can make the other side look like fools? Maybe there's some resentment in there. Your thoughts on the matter? I wouldn't really know as I haven't done anything of the like I described.

My thoughts? That there seems to be some sort of animosity that is mostly one sided, aimed at those people who tend to require reliable and reproducible evidence before proclaiming that something "is". Whether that's proof of A, B, or C (whatever the "is" is) shouldn't matter that much. Evidence that is incontrovertible prior to belief and proclamation. Is there proof? Is there resentment? You tell me. In the mean time, the reviewers of this paper are not trending towards confirmation of the desired results or pre-release conclusions. This paper does not seem to be indicating proof. Nor has the snippet of a video.

[Guest crabshack]

https://twitter.com/...809169097453568

Ouchers

http://carlzimmer.com/bio.html

lol, false is his religion

The notion that all of life is genetically connected via a vast phylogenetic tree is one of the most romantic notions to come out of science. How wonderful to think of the common ancestor of humans and beetles.

[Guest Theagenes]

Theagenes - no I don't think that the co-authors listed actually wrote part of the paper.....anymore....b/c of your comments and some of the work some JREF'ers have done. With that said, I think the term co-author implies that they DID indeed author (write) some of the paper, and most folks (including me) that do not have an extensive background in peer reviewed papers would assume that. So when someone says 'she listed the labs that did sequencing as co-authors', there is a inference that can be made that DMK was being dishonest when listing them. However, as you pointed out, in peer reviewed publications, this is normal. I appreciate that, but highly doubt that little bit of information will be included as the co-author findings make their rounds. See why I wanted to clarify that?

Sure, I got you. But in truth what was glaringly absent is a second or third author that did make substantitve contributions. That was a little surprising. When the number two spot went straight to one of the testing labs and not an academic (whom I would have thought she would have enlisted to help her with the writing at least) that did raise an eyebrow. Heck, I would have expected some one like Burtsev or the like in the number two spot. (even better would have been Bindernagel or Hadj-Chikh), but it seems she preferred to go it alone and we're seeing the unfortunate result of that.

[Guest njjohn]

Theagenes - nope, you're right I overlooked an earlier line that did mention that. Wouldn't you then remove those samples and run the tests on the unknowns, which is what she did?

I agree again that the work on the paper itself is sloppy, but someone's going to test this once they get the data. Even the Smeja info is interesting. Suggesting and proving are two different things. I'd love to see the individual reports for each sample and go through which ones were discounted and which ones remain unknown.

[Guest Llawgoch]

Llawgoch....I've no information or understanding of Mr. Sykes' expectations. If you can refer me to any source that would shed light on those, I'd be quite grateful. Thanks.

It was all over the initial reports.. He'd LIKE to, but he doesn't EXPECT to.

eg

http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/big-foot-genetic-testing-120522.htm

""I'm challenging and inviting the cryptozoologists to come up with the evidence instead of complaining that science is rejecting what they have to say," said geneticist Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford."

"While Sykes doesn't expect to find solid evidence of a yeti or Bigfoot monster, he says he is keeping an open mind and hopes to identify perhaps 20 of the suspect samples. Along the way, he'd be happy if he found some unknown species. "