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Jeff Meldrum on NPR's Science Friday

Beleth

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Beleth
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Dec 10, 2002
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I thought about posting about this, but you beat me to it.
I too was very disapointed. In fact, it put me in a foul mood for an hour or two.
I'm a big fan of NPR, especially "Science Friday", but that interview was a joke. Let me know what you write to them.
 
To: scifri@sciencefriday.com
Subj: Bigfoot and Jeff Meldrum

 Dear Mr. Flatow and the rest of the Science Friday team –

 I was aghast when I turned on the radio during my lunch hour today and found, instead of Science Friday, something that could only be described as Pseudo-Science Friday. I am of course referring to the interview of Jeff Meldrum about his new Bigfoot book.

 It might raise a few eyebrows that a professor uses his tenured position to investigate Bigfoot. It’s perfectly natural that such an author would want to use a radio show such as yours to promote such a book. I have no real problems with those events. The problem that I have is that you allowed the latter to happen.

 Footprint-shaped dents in the ground and anecdotes stretching back generations are not at all what science is about. Evidence is. It is a testament to the NON-existence of Bigfoot that, after all these years, such a romanticized notion has never turned up a single hard piece of evidence. Not a single corpse, not a single hair, not a single bone, not a single fecal sample. Nothing. There is the same quality of evidence that Bigfoot exists as there is on my living room table on Christmas, with the half-eaten cookies and the half-drunk glass of milk, that Santa Claus exists.

 I ask you to consider restricting the show to actual scientific stories, such as the wonderful segment on the London cholera epidemic, in the future.

 Regards,
<my real name>
 
Meldrum claims to have fecal and hair samples of a Bigfoot. Obviously, the correct thing to do is not let anyone else test the samples, write a popular book, and promote said book in the popular media.
 
Beleth said:
To: scifri@sciencefriday.com
Subj: Bigfoot and Jeff Meldrum

 Dear Mr. Flatow and the rest of the Science Friday team –

 I was aghast when I turned on the radio during my lunch hour today and found, instead of Science Friday, something that could only be described as Pseudo-Science Friday. I am of course referring to the interview of Jeff Meldrum about his new Bigfoot book.

 It might raise a few eyebrows that a professor uses his tenured position to investigate Bigfoot. It’s perfectly natural that such an author would want to use a radio show such as yours to promote such a book. I have no real problems with those events. The problem that I have is that you allowed the latter to happen.

 Footprint-shaped dents in the ground and anecdotes stretching back generations are not at all what science is about. Evidence is. It is a testament to the NON-existence of Bigfoot that, after all these years, such a romanticized notion has never turned up a single hard piece of evidence. Not a single corpse, not a single hair, not a single bone, not a single fecal sample. Nothing. There is the same quality of evidence that Bigfoot exists as there is on my living room table on Christmas, with the half-eaten cookies and the half-drunk glass of milk, that Santa Claus exists.

 I ask you to consider restricting the show to actual scientific stories, such as the wonderful segment on the London cholera epidemic, in the future.

 Regards,
<my real name>
Click to expand...

Good job!

I download the podcasts. I was going to listen to the interview again, in case I missed something. Guess it was as bad as I thought it was.
 
Listen to the program again and go to the second caller at 15:00. Greg in San Francisco recalls an eyewitness account. He saw what was "clearly a Bigfoot creature" that climbed a hill towards him, hid behind a tree and then slowly walked away in daylight. Greg sounds articulate, credible and certain. He even points out an obvious difference in the way his BF looked and walked as compared to the Patterson-Gimlin film subject. But Greg confidently states that the BF was 9-12 feet tall. Look at something that is this size, and try to imagine a bipedal ape this big. It's incredibly large.

Again, what strikes me is Greg's articulated detail, conviction and seeming credibility. My opinion is that Bigfoot does not exist. I think that people like Greg are those that provide other people with the belief that this creature is real. Either Bigfoot definitely does exist and is 9-12 feet tall, or Greg is wrong and apparently credible witnesses are not credible.

Meldrum then comments on Greg's sighting and offers no skepticism. He suggests that variation (as between the P-G subject and Greg's BF) is to be expected with a natural animal. He makes no mention about the height. I guess we are to believe that a 9-12 feet Bigfoot is not to be questioned as being incredible.

How could Greg have mistaken any other creature for the BF that he describes? I think that Greg is playing a game with the world and is telling a lie. What do you think?
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Meldrum claims to have fecal and hair samples of a Bigfoot. Obviously, the correct thing to do is not let anyone else test the samples, write a popular book, and promote said book in the popular media.
Click to expand...
Exactly.
 
What seems unfortunate to me about Meldrum's research and submitted papers is that he is apparently not focused on how a range of scientific disciplines could work towards discovering if Bigfoot is a real animal... but instead, he seems interesting in describing Bigfoot as an animal from the proposed Bigfoot evidence on hand.

It's like a scientist is putting the cart before the horse. Shouldn't Meldrum use all human capacity and funding to determine if this creature exists before talking about its tendons?

Is there anything in the world that could demonstrate that Bigfoot is not a real creature and instead is a human myth?
 
Dr. Meldrum: Initially, it was Patterson's appearance in the Spokane Coliseum to show his documentary and film footage, followed by an article in National Wildlife Magazine. I read quite widely on the subject as a youngster ( I learned world geography through Sanderson's tome).
Click to expand...

Meldrum was a bigfoot believer from childhood. He claims to have gotten completely out of touch, but to have gone and seen Patterson and his film means he was a believer and strongly influenced by PGF when he was young.
 
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