Bigfoot DNA

[Sonny2]

if the speculation is to be believed, then we are talking about a yet-to-be discovered ancient hominid mating with a homo-sapien and producing a hybridized offspring. How convenient. Not only do you have unidentified dna, you can trace it back to a yet-to-be discovered ancient hominid. Unfortunately, none of this passes the occam's razor test. You should not have to invent a completely undiscovered species of homo-sapien, fathered from a yet-to-be discovered ancient hominid to explain a genetic discrepancy. That's lunacy. If again the speculation is true, and the hokum camp has identified a marker that can not be correlated with current human samples in genbank, then the only conclusion you can reach reasonably is that the anomalous dna is from a human who has a marker not yet cataloged in genbank. You cannot extrapolate that into bigfoot, because you have no type specimen to compare the anomalous dna against. Until you have the type specimen to compare the samples against all you have is unusual human dna. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Show me a body, and then we will talk.

stop making sense!!! You people just stop that!

 

[Hungry81]

[inane aside]
I find it amusing she shares her surname with the main character from the pokemon cartoon.

- Go Sasquatch.

[/inane aside]

 

[LTC8K6]

http://voices.yahoo.com/bigfoot-dna-report-hypothesis-2011-8786601.html?cat=58

Bigfoot DNA Report Hypothesis 2011
Preliminary Results in Mitochondrial DNA May Indicate an Astonishing Relationship Between Sasquatch and Humans

 

[RedRatSnake]

Pretty good read for those like me that need help understanding how this all works.

Until these results are peer-reviewed and published it is difficult to give a definitive critique, but from what is being reported a few things are clear. First, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is unambiguously human. I suspect these samples come from hair, which retains mtDNA but not nuclear DNA (nuDNA). (Mitochondria are the energy factory of cells, likely evolved from primitive bacteria, and still retain some of their own DNA. Nuclear DNA comes from the nucleus of cells and is the main genetic code of the organism.)

The nuDNA also contains human sequences but also unknown sequences. We are told these do not match Neanderthal, other known early hominids, or any known ape. They are simply unknown. So, in short, we have human DNA (not human-like, but human) mixed in with some unknown sequences. Ketchum concludes from this that the samples are from a hybrid between a human and an unknown primate occurring less than 15,000 years ago.

...

Edited by LashL: 

Snipped for compliance with Rule 4.

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/bigfoot-dna/

 

[Castro]

...As someone who doesn't have a background in biology, and who hasn't got the time to read through this massive thread about bigfoot DNA, I was wondering if someone could give me a summary of what is going on from the "skeptic" viewpoint. I heard the bigfoot viewpoint last night and of course this is touted as a major finding and a groundbraking discovery. I have a feeling that some people here would have a different opinion.

Sure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQjgC00qDMo&feature=player_embedded#!

Hope it helps.......................

 

[jerrywayne]

This fellow always amazes: equal measures erudition and bull manure.
http://voices.yahoo.com/bigfoot-dna-report-hypothesis-2011-8786601.html?cat=58

 

[MikeG]

But it was speculation, which here you are fawning over it, and with parnasus are berating him for it.

It was nothing of the sort. I was thanking CWB for his explanation of the analysis of DNA, and particularly the location of SNPs. If you are saying that CWB was merely speculating about this, then we're all in trouble!

Mike

 

[aboman]

@CWB: Thanks for that explanation! I agree her being mislead by Stubstad's statistical wrangling is probably what is going on. I just wondered how hard it would be for her to hoax something (anything!) to have something to present to the footers.

We also had information from Stubstad (via RL) that Ketchum had references to Nephilim in the paper and he advised her to remove those and focus on data without throwing that wild hypothesis in there. This was before he was out of the loop, so it looks like that has been the paper the whole time.

Of course Parn has been putting all this together since the beginning, hat off to you.

 

[calwaterbear]

Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man with little wealth and no fame" (sorry stones, it was ment as a tribute, still rocking it at 70, wow!)Well really, allow me to make a few observations/comments on your posts mr Lord!

David Paulides was on Coast to Coast AM last night with host George Knapp. He talked about this big breakthrough in bigfoot DNA.

"He explained that, as a result of a five year study, his colleague has been able to "unlock a method to get to the DNA itself and how to test for it" within possible Bigfoot hair samples. .

There was no new breakthrough in DNA technology. The ability to get DNA out of hair samples has been a long established method, and favored in many cases because it makes it easier to manage for contamination, as well as the hair itself providing some resistance to DNA degredation.
Ms. Ketchum at some point had developed a new set of panels that sped up DNA analysis in the pet trade, but it would not have any use in this instance, as far as i can tell.
So what Mr. paulides was probably refering to, although clearly he has a basic lack of understanding and grasp of the process, but what he may have been refering to was the fact that they desided to use SNP, and go after statistical variation - as per Stubstand I believe) This is a fairly unusual use of that process, and I do not think there has been any scientific examination of that unusual approach in a case such as this.

As a result of this development, Paulides said, the findings indicate that Bigfoot is a "very unique homo sapien" species and that part of the DNA is "nowhere in the billions of documented DNA ever seen." actually reveals that they are "thinking, breathing, intellectual people that are quite different" from humans.".

OK here is where he goes way off the tracks, and reveals his lack of understanding of DNA and DNA databases. nowhere in the billions? Huh? where did they find billions of DNA samples? does Mr. Paulides even know what a Billion is? As Parnassus has already indicated, there is about 5 million sequences in gen bank, and they are no where near whole genomes, most of them are tiny sequences of individual variants of a few genes.

And one more point - how is it that the DNA can tell Melba that this is a thinking intelectual people? does she have a marker for the "thinking" gene? or the "intellectual " gene?

I followed the thread here about the Patterson tape for quite a while and I am reasonably interested in bigfoot stories, but I hvaen't been following the DNA angle at all. As someone who doesn't have a background in biology, and who hasn't got the time to read through this massive thread about bigfoot DNA, I was wondering if someone could give me a summary of what is going on from the "skeptic" viewpoint. I heard the bigfoot viewpoint last night and of course this is touted as a major finding and a groundbraking discovery. I have a feeling that some people here would have a different opinion.

 

[Sonny2]

does she have a marker for the "thinking" gene? or the "intellectual " gene?

Well, Cal, you just explained a whole bunch of things, especially why some people still believe in Bigfoot after no real evidence.

 

[Zippy Omicron]

Hello Everyone.

Thought I would drop in on this interesting discussion.

RE: Jodie, I think (I could be wrong) that the place you saw about the "Scientific White Paper" is actually on David Paulides' blog on the NABS website (he has a link to it in the first entry on the main page, I think). Since I am new, I cannot post the URL link. But he mentions it there in discussing Melba’s alleged paper.

RE: Considering that Paulides is not a scientist, I don't really know what he means by a "Scientific White Paper"--lack of definition bothers me.

RE: Putting out a press release, talking about the conclusions of an un-published paper, allegedly "still in review," yet not providing the name of the journal--this smells wrong to me, and based on my own experiences, this is not standard operating procedure. If one can talk about the results, then one can explicitly mention the journal’s name. Usually press releases that discuss conclusions in as-yet-to-be-published paper usually tell the reader of the press release what journal it is going to appear in. And the press releases usually also mention the main co-authors' names too...it happens in physics papers and chemistry papers and biology papers announcements (if my memory serves).... I am also bothered by the fact that this alleged “News of the Century” wasn’t okayed for publication in say, Science, or Nature, or a host of US or European-based journals. If the data was actually the kind that is being rumored, any journal would have jumped on this…(keeping in mind that the data was acquired, tested, etc. correctly) And apparently that did not happen here. That is a red flag to me. A humongous one.

RE: Russian journals. Back in the 1990s, I had co-authored a scientific paper (with a Russian named Valentina Markusova, an information scientist in Moscow) that appeared in Piroda (Nature). I dimly remember that I had to make a request of the journal (via fax from my place of work in Philadelphia at the time) to ask that they consider the co-authored article for publication, and subsequently my co-author dealt with any requests for corrections or text elucidations (that I also went over, if memory serves) that the editor requested. That took roughly one year at the time from submission to publication. I would urge caution on castigation of the Russian publication this Melba-inspired article might appear in, until we are absolutely certain what serial it is going to appear in. If it would appear in a Russian Academy of Sciences publication, that is one thing; however, if it is going into some “Journal of Cryptozoology” type of periodical, well then…. There is “peer review,” and there is “peer review” which isn’t worth a three-dollar bill….

RE: I like the idea of hidden animals, but I also like the idea of hidden animals being investigated properly. Sasquatchery (at least to me) seems to be presently one part appropriate desire to acquire new knowledge, and 19 parts flim-flammery, mountebank-ness, and bogus-ness. That makes me cringe.

RE: Robert Lawson (I don’t know if we are allowed to mention his name directly or not). While I find his writings/”reportage” confounding on his personal blog, I think that he is actually accurately telling what is going on in the Faith-Based Sasquatchery Community. Not that the claimed data itself is accurate, but what the Community is thinking and doing I think he is accurately reporting. I suspect he does have good contacts—it’s just that the data the contacts have leaves a large chasm between verifiable evidence and magical thinking etc…

Now you have my first major posting.

 

[The Shrike]

Now you have my first major posting.

It was a good one, Zippy. Welcome to the JREF.

You've addressed several of the issues that some of us have been describing from the get-go. There is a 300+page thread at the Bigfoot Forums on "The Ketchum Report." That thread started in July 2011, but the work (if there ever really was any) began well before that.

Though there have been lots of twists and turns along the way, the basic claim seems to be the same: Dr. Ketchum claims she's got bigfoot DNA figured out and all will be revealed in a paper . . . soon.

 

[Castro]

Jeff shot back. This is not going to end well...

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

It was nothing of the sort. I was thanking CWB for his explanation of the analysis of DNA, and particularly the location of SNPs. If you are saying that CWB was merely speculating about this, then we're all in trouble!

Mike

It was full of speculation like this:

it seems pretty far fetched to me

As are a lot of his very informative posts - and demonstrates your tendency to try manufacturing this straw man about needing "evidence" before making any claims is just as silly for its over-reaching. Parn called this correctly long before you got here.

Hey Zippy welcome to JREF. Mike will say you are speculating.


Merldumb looks extremely contemptuous. It's always so interesting when one charletan calls another one for what they are. It goes against his "ape" theory. Maybe if the DNA sequence demonstrates a mid-tarsal break he'll change his position.

 

[Sonny2]

Welcome Zippy and thanks for the info.

Jeff shot back. This is not going to end well...

Not surprised Medrum is keeping his distance from this one - his response from Castro's link above:

"The press release was frankly premature and unprofessional given the lack of any published reviewed results...the spokesperson did inform us that they were in regular communication (psychic?) with sasquatch, and that they (the sasquatch) were enthusiastic about the study and the press release, and are completely supportive of Melba's project...[That being the case, one could ask why one or two of them (the sasquatch) doesn't just come forward and hold their own press conference.]"

My respect for him just went from zero to about a ten on a scale of 100.

 

[GT/CS]

welcome zippy and thanks for the info.



Not surprised medrum is keeping his distance from this one - his response from castro's link above:

"the press release was frankly premature and unprofessional given the lack of any published reviewed results...the spokesperson did inform us that they were in regular communication (psychic?) with sasquatch, and that they (the sasquatch) were enthusiastic about the study and the press release, and are completely supportive of melba's project...[that being the case, one could ask why one or two of them (the sasquatch) doesn't just come forward and hold their own press conference.]"

my respect for him just went from zero to about a ten on a scale of 100 1000.

ftfy

 

[RedRatSnake]

This is on Yahoo ~

So, how do Ketchum's claims hold up under scrutiny?

The Houston Chronicle's Eric Berger does some unraveling of Ketchum and the claims she made in the news release.

For starters, Berger notes that while Ketchum has 27 years of genetic research experience during her career as a veterinarian, her company, DNA Diagnostics, has received an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau.

But more important, Ketchum has not allowed scientific peer review of her findings.

"That is a massive red flag. Real research scientists almost never preannounce their research findings," Berger writes. "In effect she is using the mantle of science to confer credibility on her discovery, without actually deserving the credibility."

And finally, where exactly did Ketchum get her DNA sample? After all, if she was working from a reliable source, that alone might be the real story because no physical evidence of Bigfoot exists on record.

As it turns out, Ketchum says her DNA sample was obtained from a blueberry bagel left in the backyard of a Michigan home that, according to the owner, sees regular visits from Sasquatch creatures.

In other words, it seems likely that the legend of Bigfoot will remain more myth than reality for the foreseeable future.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/scientist-claims-sequenced-bigfoot-dna-190947582.html

 

[Castro]

...My respect for him just went from zero to about a ten on a scale of 100.

I'm not sure that Meldrum deserves anything for defending his status inside bigfootery.

 

[SuperFly]

For starters, Berger notes that while Ketchum has 27 years of genetic research experience during her career as a veterinarian, her company, DNA Diagnostics, has received an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau.

You might google "BBB scam" for some additional research about the practices of the BBB. Most small businesses aren't members for a reason, and their ratings do suffer for it. The whole "F" rating by the BBB thing is a red herring.

But more important, Ketchum has not allowed scientific peer review of her findings.

"Not allowed" peer review? I wonder where the "journalist" came up with this claim? If the "journalist" bothered to read the press release or contact Dr. Ketchum I think they might see this as an over reaching statement.

All that being noted, until said paper is published we really don't have much to go on, and it does seem that journalists are getting lazy with their coverage of the "echo effect" about this story. It would be nice to see a reputable journalist actually put some research into the story and uncover some facts for us.

 

[Resume]

This is on Yahoo ~

So, how do Ketchum's claims hold up under scrutiny?

The Houston Chronicle's Eric Berger does some unraveling of Ketchum and the claims she made in the news release.

For starters, Berger notes that while Ketchum has 27 years of genetic research experience during her career as a veterinarian, her company, DNA Diagnostics, has received an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau.

But more important, Ketchum has not allowed scientific peer review of her findings.

"That is a massive red flag. Real research scientists almost never preannounce their research findings," Berger writes. "In effect she is using the mantle of science to confer credibility on her discovery, without actually deserving the credibility."

And finally, where exactly did Ketchum get her DNA sample? After all, if she was working from a reliable source, that alone might be the real story because no physical evidence of Bigfoot exists on record.

As it turns out, Ketchum says her DNA sample was obtained from a blueberry bagel left in the backyard of a Michigan home that, according to the owner, sees regular visits from Sasquatch creatures.

In other words, it seems likely that the legend of Bigfoot will remain more myth than reality for the foreseeable future.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/scientist-claims-sequenced-bigfoot-dna-190947582.html

"And then there was the blueberry bagel, that's where I had them. Through geometric logic I proved there had to be a bigfoot . . ."