Dr. Melba Ketchum Schedule To Speak About Sasquatch Dna On October 1, 2011

[Guest Kat]

Personally, I think Ketchums 'paper' was rejected by peer review and she had to re-submit. It's JMO, but the whole story is startin' to smell bad. I no longer anticipate a 'Big Discovery' I thought might actually happen a few months ago, anyway. Just sayin'.

[Guest slimwitless]

Well Kat, I'm not clairvoyant but my not entirely uninformed opinion is that they're going back to fill in some holes. Whether this is part of a formal rejection or simply a request for clarification, i have no idea. I'm surprised anyone thinks a paper likely suggesting a new species of hominoid would sail through peer review. I would think this would be especially true for a paper devised (seemingly) without any active participation from academics specializing in related disciplines.

Just my two cents (adjusted for inflation).

[georgerm]

Did Ketchum make her announcement? Can someone fill in the details?

[Guest Forbig]

It's not over until it's over.

I still remember back years ago when I thought Bob Heironimus put an end to Patty.

[Guest]

Slim- Do we know that she didn't include any academics from other related disciplines? Without knowing exactly why she needs thiose NDA's it would be hard to say who would really be appropriate to include. All I know is the supreme court says you can not file a patent on naturally occurring DNA. However, if you were trying to develop a process that looked more deeply into the sequencing then you might have something.

I can see all kinds of commercial applications for something like including identifying disease processes that are linked to genetic predisposition, as was supposedly insinuated by Paulides according to Jerry, who attended the conference. Maybe that is what is taking so long, I don't know.

I can see how those samples and other known control samples would have to be submitted and resubmitted several times to make sure the knowns matched the GenBank profiles, but with more details, if what she is working on is a more detailed method for identification. That would be a good indication that the unknown specimens were truly an unknown something. I think that's about all she could definitively say, but I'm just guessing.

[Guest HairyGreek]

Sounds like the clairvoyants suddenly know exactly what is happening and why.

Sounds to me like you are upset people have an opinion on the matter. It's no big deal Bi. With the exception of a couple of jokes, those of us playing "clairvoyant" aren't accusing her of being disingenuous. Just people talking. Slim and I have come to her defense in the past. We are just considering the possible whys...we have fully stated it is all baseless conjecture.

Even if Parn's joke was a serious dig to him, it was just good timing to the rest of us.

Red Red Red, This is the "first" big study involving PHD's and suspected BF DNA. It's a win for bigfoot research, even if you can't see the end result yet. There will be samples that don't pan out with this, but if BF is out there and we aren't waisting time posting here, this is a good way to prove it.

I totally agree with this. It is precedent setting and exciting if/when it goes through. On the other hand, you can't blame Red for raising an eyebrow. Not everyone can stay hopeful after 40 years of frustrations of all shapes and sizes. It is almost like this is the only way to get anyone's attention anymore..."Wait, look! Now we have DNA!! Better than a blobsquatch! Don't walk away!"

I don't think anyone is wasting their time here in any way shape or form personally.

Edited October 2, 2011 by HairyGreek

[Guest Forbig]

So Ketchum dodged the conference but put up a guest video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4xB38CbjaM

It was the Sasquatch steak video

Edited October 2, 2011 by Forbig

[bipedalist]

...."Wait, look! Now we have DNA!!...Don't walk away!

More like, "Wait, look! Now we have an NDA!! "You can walk away, but if you squeal they'll be Hell to pay"

[Guest]

I saved my ten bucks and just hung around out front talking to Driveroperator and Darkwing. Bought a jumbo corn dog and a bottle of Sioux City Sasparilla and got $3.50 change back

[Guest]

The check is in the mail.

Maybe they will pay the rent eventually, but personally I don't want to hear more from them until they are ready--really ready--- to go public within the week. They have taxed public patience enough. They are only eroding their integrity and believability at this point, making themselves look worse and worse.

[southernyahoo]

Kings, You should consider that It is not Ketchum and her team that is completely responsible for raising all these expectations, they are not the ones here parading promises. Dr. Ketchum has admitted to doing testing on a wide range of samples and is attempting to publish on it. She says her skepticism is greatly diminished based on her results. It's this community that can't help but try to raise expectations by begging her to make appearances, be a guest on talk shows, starting thread after thread about the projects and DNA, people like Lindsey and Stubstad leaking info and posting speculative, premature assumptions is far more responsible for all the hype.

I agree with slimwitless that, a paper like this is not going to just sail through peer review, it will have a review that is as critical as you'll ever see in science. It is for this reason that I remain patient, and accept her reasons for staying home to work with the process.

[Guest Forbig]

The check is in the mail.

Maybe they will pay the rent eventually, but personally I don't want to hear more from them until they are ready--really ready--- to go public within the week. They have taxed public patience enough. They are only eroding their integrity and believability at this point, making themselves look worse and worse.

From what I hear I still believe it is going to happen and I am not giving up hope just yet. It sounds like they are still working on it so I wish the best of luck to them.

to be continued. . .

[Guest slimwitless]

Slim- Do we know that she didn't include any academics from other related disciplines? Without knowing exactly why she needs thiose NDA's it would be hard to say who would really be appropriate to include. All I know is the supreme court says you can not file a patent on naturally occurring DNA. However, if you were trying to develop a process that looked more deeply into the sequencing then you might have something.

I can see all kinds of commercial applications for something like including identifying disease processes that are linked to genetic predisposition, as was supposedly insinuated by Paulides according to Jerry, who attended the conference. Maybe that is what is taking so long, I don't know.

I can see how those samples and other known control samples would have to be submitted and resubmitted several times to make sure the knowns matched the GenBank profiles, but with more details, if what she is working on is a more detailed method for identification. That would be a good indication that the unknown specimens were truly an unknown something. I think that's about all she could definitively say, but I'm just guessing.

Jodie, we don't know...which is why I added the word "seemingly". If there are multiple PhDs involved, then hopefully some of them are pure research scientists. I just fear there could be real biases at play here. If you don't have a heavy hitter on the team, it's going to be more difficult to make an extraordinary claim IMO. It does seem to be the case that certain samples are being tested multiple times - a surprising number of times even. I think that's likely a good thing. Maybe they want to see specific genes sequenced. Maybe it's to rule out contamination or just double-check an incredible result. Who knows? Maybe she's working up the full genome. (And no, that's not my domain). I do think she's looking at some kind of commercial application.

In any case, I don't get the sense anyone is throwing in the towel - quite the opposite actually. Keep in mind, researchers at CERN conducted their faster-than-light neutrino experiments for three years before revealing their results. Yeah, they managed to keep it pretty quiet but then I suspect they had a far less enthusiastic following.

[Guest]

If that is the case, what she might have thought would be a relatively short term project turned into something else much more complicated, maybe for the better. The time frame doesn't bother me as much as it does some folks. It only makes sense that there is much more to this, otherwise, I can't think of another reason for requiring all of these NDAs.

[Guest ajciani]

If you don't have a heavy hitter on the team, it's going to be more difficult to make an extraordinary claim IMO.

I know Saskeptic has denied this many times, but names do help get things published. If you have a good name, you can get the worst junk science published in the best journal with little effort. If you have no name, but have very good research that some big name reviewer doesn't like, then you may get rejected and end up basically calling the "big name" reviewer an incompetent.

In the case of Ketchum, I could very easily see her having to write a response to the editor that basically says the reviewer didn't read her article and doesn't know the science involved, because I do think the reviewer would dismiss it out-of-hand.

In any case, I don't get the sense anyone is throwing in the towel - quite the opposite actually. Keep in mind, researchers at CERN conducted their faster-than-light neutrino experiments for three years before revealing their results.

I would suspect they got those results less than three years ago, and rushed to publish them. They are also VERY probably wrong. They are only alleging a 0.06 microsecond deviation in a 2430 microsecond trip; that's a difference of only 0.0025%. It isn't even measurable with the equipment they have. It was probably some big name schools, who were too full of themselves to trust the data than to inspect how such a consistent error could have occurred. This sort of thing happened once at Fermilab when the CDF project announced quark substructure (edit: I would add that the no-name schools also noticed the same anomalous data, but they tracked down the error instead of putting egg all over their faces).

Dr. Ketchum's equipment is probably more than capable of accurately producing the results she is reporting, the samples are definitely diverse enough to provide statistical significance, and probably large enough to rule out contamination.

Edited October 2, 2011 by ajciani