• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum - America's "Bigfoot Professor"

Status
Not open for further replies.
It's like my grandfather used to say. "Drive my truck in reverse to the prom tonight and then watch some arctic cassowary eat a cinnamon barrel tomorrow."
 
Ultimately, the naming of things be they living species or traces of those now gone boils down to clarification and precision of our discourse.

What are we talking about?
This thing.
Wait, this?
No this, the thing established in this publication as Acer saccharum, Turdus migratorius, Anthropoidipes ameriborealis, etc.

It's true that the decision of a governing body agreed upon to hold the authority for naming such things could agree to allow a name for something to be established without passing judgment on the authenticity of that thing as an entity that warrants a name. Attaching a name to one of Houdini's escape acts is not affirmation from any group of experts that Houdini had magical powers.

That subtlety would be lost on the great majority of people accessing Meldrum's ichnotaxon paper.

Next, this was clearly a peer-edited publication, not a peer-reviewed one. In a peer-edited publication, a committee of people work to develop some kind of text or one-off journal volume that incorporates papers from (typically) all the folks who gave some talk at a conference. The editors provide feedback and guidance on copy-editing and somesuch, but they are NOT reviewing for content to make a decision of whether or not the submission warrants publication. That is decided ahead of time: whatever this person submits, we will publish. The final version might look a bit different from the original submission, but there's no question that it will be published.

Obviously that's quite different from submitting your work to a journal and having it go out for review by at least two anonymous peers whose specific task is to determine if the claims made in the paper are supported by the evidence presented in the paper.

Ask Meldrum to submit his work to Ichnos and let's see how Anthropoidipes ameriborealis holds up.
 
Last edited:
The Shrike said:
Ultimately, the naming of things be they living species or traces of those now gone boils down to clarification and precision of our discourse.

What are we talking about?
This thing.
Wait, this?
No this, the thing established in this publication as Acer saccharum, Turdus migratorius, Anthropoidipes ameriborealis, etc.

It's true that the decision of a governing body agreed upon to hold the authority for naming such things could agree to allow a name for something to be established without passing judgment on the authenticity of that thing as an entity that warrants a name. Attaching a name to one of Houdini's escape acts is not affirmation from any group of experts that Houdini had magical powers.

That subtlety would be lost on the great majority of people accessing Meldrum's ichnotaxon paper.

Next, this was clearly a peer-edited publication, not a peer-reviewed one. In a peer-edited publication, a committee of people work to develop some kind of text or one-off journal volume that incorporates papers from (typically) all the folks who gave some talk at a conference. The editors provide feedback and guidance on copy-editing and somesuch, but they are NOT reviewing for content to make a decision of whether or not the submission warrants publication. That is decided ahead of time: whatever this person submits, we will publish. The final version might look a bit different from the original submission, but there's no question that it will be published.

Obviously that's quite different from submitting your work to a journal and having it go out for review by at least two anonymous peers whose specific task is to determine if the claims made in the paper are supported by the evidence presented in the paper.

Ask Meldrum to submit his work to Ichnos and let's see how Anthropoidipes ameriborealis holds up.
Click to expand...


I can only guess that it may be better received if someone like yourself were to make the suggestion to him through an official channel or contact/email rather than myself or one of the other skeptics. He's not likely to do anything for one of us without credentials. (i say this after much experience with Meldrum contact)
 
The Shrike said:
Ultimately, the naming of things be they living species or traces of those now gone boils down to clarification...
It's true that the decision of a governing body agreed upon to hold the authority for naming such things could agree to allow a name for something to be established without passing judgment on the authenticity of that thing as an entity that warrants a name. Attaching a name to one of Houdini's escape acts is not affirmation from any group of experts that Houdini had magical powers.

That subtlety would be lost on the great majority of people accessing Meldrum's ichnotaxon paper.

Next, this was clearly a peer-edited publication, not a peer-reviewed one. In a peer-edited publication, a committee of people work to develop some kind of text or one-off journal volume that incorporates papers from (typically) all the folks who gave some talk at a conference. The editors provide feedback and guidance on copy-editing and somesuch, but they are NOT reviewing for content to make a decision of whether or not the submission warrants publication. That is decided ahead of time: whatever this person submits, we will publish. The final version might look a bit different from the original submission, but there's no question that it will be published.

Obviously that's quite different from submitting your work to a journal and having it go out for review by at least two anonymous peers whose specific task is to determine if the claims made in the paper are supported by the evidence presented in the paper.

Ask Meldrum to submit his work to Ichnos and let's see how Anthropoidipes ameriborealis holds up.
Click to expand...
The magic trick analogy is interesting. His dodgy imitation of a peer review is of course consistent with his dodgy presentations to the rubes and his dodgy representation of the facts in the paper.
Perhaps interestingly, his online CV indicates he has acted as a reviewer for Ichnos. Now, in my field, that’s not an item for a vitae so it seems rather odd to me.
I can only guess that it may be better received if someone like yourself were to make the suggestion to him through an official channel or contact/email rather than myself or one of the other skeptics. He's not likely to do anything for one of us without credentials. (i say this after much experience with Meldrum contact)
Click to expand...
The evidence would suggest that contrary to his statement about encouraging discussion about Bigfoot, Meldrum (not unlike most bleever) is a bitter enemy of those who question his work/income streams.
 
Last edited:
DennyT said:
Perhaps interestingly, his online CV indicates he has acted as a reviewer for Ichnos. Now, in my field, that’s not an item for a vitae so it seems rather odd to me.
Click to expand...
More or less standard for us. I list all of mine. I've reviewed for at least 31 different journals, plus listing actions for groups like IUCN and agencies such as the USEPA and USFWS.

DennyT said:
The evidence would suggest that contrary to his statement about encouraging discussion about Bigfoot, Meldrum (not unlike most bleever) is a bitter enemy of those who question his work/income streams.
Click to expand...
Oh yah. He was practically gleeful when I got doxxed at Capeia.
 
This sentence is so odd for a “scientific paper” (my bold of the oddest part):
It is not widely known that more than 200 footprints have been examined and evaluated, with duplicates and some originals of a significant number of casts housed in the author’s research lab at Idaho State University.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
It is widely known that Dr. Meldrum has a bunch of fake plaster hobbyist castings of fake feet housed in his research lab at ISU however...
 
As scientists ourselves what we come to understand is how a charletan can ensconce himself in acadamia first, then use tenure to promote woo.

It's beautiful in an awful way, how cunning he's been. This difference between a conference paper and peer-review publication... it's deception every inch of the way. Every word chosen in excruciatingly painful weasality.

When he swims across a lake is there a wake of oil left behind, like a putrid sheen?
 
Drewbot said:
Did you know that Dr. Meldrum is in a new movie being funded on GOFUNDME ?

Well at least he is the second picture down in the cast listing...

https://www.gofundme.com/skookum
Click to expand...
So many red flags. It took a few clicks to find it but that movie has been made already, apparently, though it was never properly distributed. It came out of the closet in 2016. That GoFundMe was from 2012 originally. There's one review and it was from a guy who somehow got an advance(?) DVD copy from the writer of the movie. Though I think you can get a final DVD copy directly from them now.

It probably wasn't meant as a comedy, but so far it's nothing but. Firstly, they only wanted $9,500 in the GoFundMe campaign? Yet only got $1,907 total from 26 donors? That's an average of $73 per donor. It's almost as if their GoFundMe page only showed up if you were in a homeless shelter. Seriously, they didn't have that much just amongst themselves? Look at the ******* Film Credits page from the movie's own website, if they got just a dollar from everyone on that page the movie would have been fully funded with enough extra to do Santorini vacations for the film's producers.

Also, the film's actor credits leave a bit to be desired. The lead actor is "the guy" who played a valet for 12 seconds in Beverly Hills Cop 5, or was gonna as that movie was never made. The lead actress won runner-up Soap Princess at the Iowa State Fair. And Don "Jeff" Meldrum plays Dr. Jeff Cameron, a "leading Bigfoot researcher". What a stretch given he pretends to be one in real life too. How much you wanna bet he's the exact same guy in the movie that we've seen over and over again. I'm sure his character has the same 'void of any depth' characteristics he has in his real pretend life. You know, a petty con-man with a PhD who suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect. :wink:
 
DennyT said:
This sentence is so odd for a “scientific paper” (my bold of the oddest part):
Click to expand...

And how can all of his supposed expert reviewers and editors and contributors not have told him not to use
...a significant number...
Click to expand...
In that context??
Of course we know from his previous rubefests that he doesn’t do statistics. But still...this is supposedly a scientific paper. “Significant” isn’t just a throwaway word.
But this is a guy who is teaching future health professionals anatomy of “Bigfoot”!!

Danger, Will Robinson.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
A bleever named Derek Randles was purportedly directed by a timber cruiser to some nestlike structures in remote Washington. These look somewhat like gorilla nests. After dicking around for a while they got Meldrum to come and see, and he sent samples for eDNA. Now we learn that the results show only human. Of course Meldrum is now suggesting it could be a Bigfoot whose DNA is very close to human... a false negative. This is more or less the same subterfuge he used in that Ontario Snelgrove Lake cabin case years ago.
 
Last edited:
jerrywayne said:
The latest interview with Meldrum:

http://www.boisestatepublicradio.or...y-professor-continues-search-bigfoot#stream/0
Click to expand...
Please oh please Brother Don, tell us everything you've learned from your latest missionary work with the Bigfoots. What's that, you haven't done any Bigfoots missionary work in awhile? No problem, just keep telling us the same old BS over and over again then. 350 Bigfoots in Idaho? Sure why not. The scam never gets old. Maybe especially so since it's coming from you, a well respected and well published scientist who regularly if not accidentally "confesses" his Bigfoot idol is also a scam artist named Roger Patterson. :eek:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom