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

[Guest parnassus]

+1 from me. Parnassus, I appreciate you taking the time to research and post this information for a layman like myself.

I am not trying to attack Ketchum's study. Everyone should know that about me by now. What I am trying to do is understand who is telling the truth and who is telling stories out of school. It was important for me to hear this about things I have been reading. I hope everyone finds it as informative.

Maybe it can also end the debate in the other thread of why skeptics are a necessity on this board. JMVHO.

Appreciate your thoughts. I am also not trying to attack her study or her. I have attempted only to point out that it has always appeared to me that she was biting off more than she or her lab was prepared for. Who in their job hasn't at one time or another been in that situation?

I could be shown to be wrong. I may be connecting the dots in the wrong order.

On the other hand I have always been suspicious of Paulides. His role is thus far unclear but he and Ketchum seemed pretty tight on that Internet radio program.

Who isn't fascinated by this? Regardless of your beliefs, this is great stuff.

[Guest]

okay, first, be more specific. Like who would you take it to, exactly?

Second, probably this should go on one of the other ketchum threads.

Third, too many capital letters, dude. Sounds angry although I assume it was rather meant to be emphatic.

[Guest ajciani]

At this time, the paper has been submitted, and the editor has accepted it for review. This is not secret information.

The paper has not finished going through the review process, which could be very short, or very long. At the end of that process, the paper will either be accepted for publication, or rejected. It would be premature to say that the paper will be published in journal XXX and then have the reviewers for XXX reject it. The issue isn't where the paper is submitted, but where it finally gets published.

Once the reviewers accept it, things will move very fast. In this digital age, publication could be so fast, that by the time someone involved in the project tells the forum that the paper has been accepted, the abstract and article may already be available online. We might even find out through the morning news, rather than the forum.

Most likely, there will be a couple of weeks between the acceptance and the publication of the final version, so news of the acceptance (and the name of the journal) will probably hit here about a week or two before the news stories.

ed: BTW, what exactly do you think publishing in a high impact journal (or any journal) is all about?

Edited October 10, 2011 by ajciani

[gigantor]

aj,

I wasn't aware the paper had even been finished. Last I heard, it was still being edited.

Also, peer review can take a long time, years in some cases...

Nalajr, welcome to the BFF.

Edited October 10, 2011 by gigantor

[Guest slimwitless]

ajciani posted the following in the "What Journal?" thread. It somehow seems relevant to the discussion here.

At this time, the paper has been submitted, and the editor has accepted it for review. This is not secret information.

[Guest HairyGreek]

Slimmy, who is ajciani and how is this not secret info as I don't recall hearing this directly from Dr. Ketchum? Did I miss something? Between the Erickson Thread, the Sierra Shootings thread (how many of those?), and the other Ketchum thread I am lost. I don't recall any sort of official announcement being made at all in any capacity.

Gah. This topic needs its own wiki...

[Guest ajciani]

A Review of the Information

This is just to review the current status and clear things up, because some people have misunderstood, misconstrued, or distorted the available information.

About the paper and Ketchum's work:

1. Many samples were donated from multiple sources, collected by multiple people and organizations.
   
2. The samples were analyzed by Ketchum in her (commercial) lab.
   
3. No external (verification or proof) testing at another lab has been indicated. Stubstad (given what he knows) has said that this has been a one woman show. Everything has been done by Ketchum herself (except the sample collection).
   
4. We know the paper has been submitted, according to Ketchum.
   
5. According to third hand (since it came through me) information, Ketchum was all set for the conference, and then had to go to Europe (Germany?) to meet with the paper reviewers. She probably had to buy the ticket herself. Meeting the reviewers is highly unusual, and according to the second hand source, the first hand source noted that. The second hand source had no cause to know that such a thing was unusual.
   

About the Honobia presentation:

1. Back in early September, Ketchum, or someone from the conference, indicated that if the paper was not yet accepted, that Ketchum might not appear, or would change the subject of her presentation.
   
2. According to Troy Hudson (the conference organizer), Ketchum was all set to attend the conference a few days before it started, but then was called away abruptly, and called Hudson to quickly film a video of her presentation.
   
3. The video presentation was played at the conference, and the topic of the presentation was the methods which Ketchum used in her work, which would probably constitute about a third of the paper. No results were presented, or were ever likely to have been presented. That is, it was probably wishful thinking that the review might have been completed and paper accepted by the conference date. The video was of Ketchum giving the presentation she intended to give live.
   
4. Hudson's story and the story I heard came from unconnected, independent sources, and back each other up.
   

About Stubstad:

1. Stubstad was involved in the very early stages of the work, and only has 3 sequences for his analysis.
   
2. Stubstad saw that the sequences were self-consistent (nearly identical), and were a near match to one of the earliest human mtDNA lines, but had several mutations which have been unobserved in that line. Three mutations could be as short as 100 generations, or as long as 1000.
   
3. Exactly which part of the mtDNA Stubstad has the sequence for is undisclosed.
   
4. Stubstad has not been in close contact with Ketchum, and has no knowledge of the updated findings.
   
5. Ketchum has said that Stubstad is wrong, possibly indicating that longer sequences from a larger sample set are pointing toward a different answer.
   

About mtDNA:

1. After ruling out the known, non-human and non-bigfoot samples, if the samples remaining provide self-consistent DNA that is unknown primate, or is human-like but from an unknown family branch, then the existence of bigfoot is essentially proved, as there could be no other source for the DNA.
   
2. In the total mtDNA sequence, the human-to-human difference can be as large as a couple hundred base pairs. Bigfoot mtDNA will show less divergence to some humans, and more to others, if bigfoots are human or near human. If bigfoots are non-human, then the mtDNA could have several hundred to a thousand differences.
   
3. The length of a "tick" in the mtDNA genetic clock has not been well established. It appears that mtDNA can recombine, just like strands of bacterial DNA, and paternal mtDNA can enter into the mix (it isn't all inherited from mom). What we thought we knew has been thrown into the air, yet again. For example, modern human lineages may only be about 6,000 to 8,000 years old. Obviously, we know humans have existed longer than that, but there was a massive migration that occurred around 6,500 years ago, so it is conceivable that a human family exploded out across the globe, and replaced the genetic distribution which existed at the time. What this means, is that bigfoots might have split from the human population only a few thousand years ago, if Stubstad is correct. This would be a wonderful explanation for the hairy giants which are described as living among us in the biblical texts. Then again, it could be us who split from them.
   
4. Building on the above, it has been found that mtDNA mutation rates can be 100 times greater than were previously thought (in worms and insects). The date of our hairless ancestor was set as 2,000,000 years ago by lice mtDNA, but now, our hair loss could have been as recent as 20,000 years ago.
   

[Guest ajciani]

I don't recall any sort of official announcement being made at all in any capacity.

Ketchum announced it in some blogtalk radio interview. I think it was back in June or July.

[Guest ajciani]

As I recall, Ketchum announced that the paper was submitted, during an interview back in July.

Yes, review can take a long time, but I have never had it take longer than two months (which included an authors response to the first review, and review by a second reviewer). Most of my papers have been reviewed very fast. If late July was the submission date, then I expect that the review should have been finished by the end of September, which is when Ketchum was summoned to Europe, as my source indicated.

I can only think of two scenarios:

1. Ketchum was summoned by the reviewers, to make certain the paper isn't all BS.
   
2. The reviewers recognized some of the genetic patterns in Ketchum's paper from their own work, and want to know if Ketchum is somehow hoaxing them with their own, undisclosed results, or if she actually has contemporary DNA which matches their paleo-DNA.
   

[gigantor]

Forgive me, I guess I missed it. Summoned to Europe? what's that about?

[BobZenor]

That hairless gene in lice relied on the highly dubious notion that lice couldn't make it from the groin to the head because of bare skin. I guess humans were never supposed to have laid next to each other. There would be no way to know that human ancestors got that lice from gorillas. We could have gotten it from some other hominid that got it from gorillas. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the mutation rate were seriously off for insects but they don't have all the dated archeological and fossil evidence supporting the dates. We have modern human remains in North America dated to about 13,000 years ago and Australia much older. I don't think the MtDNA evidence for the clock could be that far off. It would be easy to prove with known human lineages if it were true. You really get into trouble with the fossil record and chimps. They have tried to stretch the fossil record to account for bipedalism. That would dramatically shrink it and bring Chimps much closer than probably habilis.

Even if it were true, it wouldn't necessarily have any relevance since it should just indicate when the hypothetical sasquatch ancestor mated with a modern human female. It wouldn't say anything about the nuclear DNA. That is what we need to find about to know if this is something to get excited about. If it is modern human as recently as that, this isn't going to mean anything. There is no way they are going to overturn conventional wisdom and all that established evidence to account for a bigfoot that is essentially a modern human. It is about the same amount of time that dogs made a similar genetic transformation but I hope the nuclear evidence isn't suggesting that. The paper would be very disappointing if that were the case and it would be very hard to prove anything without a body.

[Guest BuzzardEater]

Has any one contacted Dr.Meldrum since the conference date?

[Guest]

This comment alone appears to sink your story about what Troy has said, AJ, they had a video in mind well over a month in advance. Arla is in tight with Troy, she knew what he knew.

[Guest slimwitless]

This comment alone appears to sink your story about what Troy has said, AJ, they had a video in mind well over a month in advance. Arla is in tight with Troy, she knew what he knew.

That FB comment doesn't necessarily mean they already had a video. It could very well mean they agreed to make a video if Ketchum couldn't attend. I don't see a problem.

That said, I'm not aware of any blogtalk interview with Ketchum in June or July. It doesn't mean there wasn't one though (a link would be appreciated). BUT...what aj said isn't inconsistent with Ketchum's enthusiastic comments from July, including "It won't be too long now and then all will know what I know and all of this drama will be concluded" and "Thank you for the kind words. I repeat, you will not be disappointed by my team and our efforts!" There were also very enthusiastic sample providers making public and private comments around this same time frame. FWIW

[Big Stinky]

While we are on this topic does anyone have a list of potential journals that this may be published in. Would it be a general science journal (Scientific America) or a highly specialized one ( Am. J. of Medical Genetics).

thanks

Edited October 10, 2011 by Big Stinky