Bigfoot DNA

[jerrywayne]

Seems that our skeptical camp is divided on the issue of the motivation (and even reality) behind the "DNA paper." One side has it that Ketchum and company are manifesting a hoax for profit. The profit is being made by soaking a wealthy financier and will be made off future film and book printings. In this scenario, the DNA paper may or may not exist. If it exists, it is a scam meant at first to placate the conditions set up by the wealthy backer, and then set up to fail in order to make a plea of bias against the scientific community so to create interest and portray a martyrdom.

The other skeptical scenario is that this entire endeavor, from wealthy backer to promoters to the DNA lab owner to the Bigfoot sample providers, etc., all are committed true believers in the existence of Bigfoot and live and breath in the rarefied air of the pro-Bigfoot bubble known as the Bigfoot community. In this scenario, nothing about this is radically different than Green and Dahindren on the road declaring Wallace's artifacts as sasquatch tracks, Meldrum seriously considering Freeman's artifacts, Sanderson seeing a real animal under a carny's ice, Bindernagel decrying lack of "discovery" in contemporary science, etc. In other words, the story of the DNA study is a story of the faithful leading the faithful; More faith than overt deceit.

We will see how it all plays out.

 

[Sonny2]

More likely, the dog ate my Bigfoot...

Ketchum is truly delusional...or a scamster. Or maybe both.

 

[RayG]

The journal just has to have the guts to go where no journal has gone before.

But isn't that what scientific journals normally do -- go where no journal has gone before? Or build upon existing knowledge?

RayG

 

[calwaterbear]

Jerry,
I appreciate you keeping up up to speed on melbas ramblings. this now gets real interesting because this statement contradicts some of her earlier statements, and IF ACCURATE (notice I said if!) it means myself and others were indeed wrong in our suppositions about what she had done (if again, she actually did anything). She has put herself into a very tight box with these claims!

Ketchum's latest:

"I. Our science is overkilled beyond reason. After all they accepted a new species of monkey (below) with less than 6.8 kilobases of sequence. Our mito alone
is 16.5 Kb on the samples. Our nuclear is 3 genomes from three individuals and is 3 Terabytes of data and billions of bases plus a lot of other testing and disciplines. We also used blind studies. I don't care what anyone says, we have this nailed and it will come out. The journal just has to have the guts to go where no journal has gone before. I personally believe that they will do it."

1. species of monkey ..... she neglected to either state or understand that the sequence for that monkey was only part of the scientific discription of a new species, morphology, type speciemns measurements etc all went into that discription. The reason it is a short piece of DNA - well we typically do not use a whole genome in a new species discription. when I do it, i typically deposuit 3 gene sequences, because those 3 are completly instructive and differentiating. (PS all human mitochondria are about 16,500 BP long - so that number matches up with her claim)

2. 3 terabytes..... So she is clearly identifying that she has the complete genomes, the whole sequence. I had assumed based on previous posts she made, that she was using SNPs, but here she rules that out!
IF - notice ABP - I said IF! in CAPITOL LETTERS no less! she in fact has these genome sequences, as soon as she made that data available it would be examined very closely looking at every gene sequence. There are so many sequences that are human only, has she looked at those? what secrtions is she pulling her unknown hominid from.

The release of this data would completely cement Melba into the scientific hall of fame. The question is - which wing? would she go in the wing with George Hull, Charles Dawson, Paul Kammerer, Pons & Fleishman, and Manuel Elizonde. or will she go into the wing with people like Carl Lynn, C.H. Merriam, J. Grinnell, et ad infinitum.
NOTICE I SAID ReLEASE OF THESE DATA, AND WOULD! (some people here apparently misunderstand the points i am trying to make.

3. Guts to go.....
Complete and utter Bovine scatology

CWB

 

[clayflingythingy]

Seems that our skeptical camp is divided on the issue of the motivation (and even reality) behind the "DNA paper." One side has it that Ketchum and company are manifesting a hoax for profit. The profit is being made by soaking a wealthy financier and will be made off future film and book printings. In this scenario, the DNA paper may or may not exist. If it exists, it is a scam meant at first to placate the conditions set up by the wealthy backer, and then set up to fail in order to make a plea of bias against the scientific community so to create interest and portray a martyrdom.

I believe this is the most likely scenario. It's been great fun dropping in on the Ketcum thread at BFF. The bleevers are going nuts.

 

[River]

I thought Steven Streufert did a good job summarizing the events so far with this Ketchum fiasco. Clickyclicky.

 

[mikeyx]

More likely, the dog ate my Bigfoot...

Ketchum is truly delusional...or a scamster. Or maybe both.

Its become a feeding frenzy, most of the footery world are attacking her, and calling BS where it lies. On facebook her supporters are embarrassing themselves, and in the blogs, all the name brand footers seem to trying to defend the status quo, I call them the wait and see camp. Its a very convenient camp because you dont take a position so you dont sink either way.

She may or may not have these fringey beliefs but the timing of her actions always seems to be just perfect to tank the study.....

The revelation she's just a cat vet
The nifflehimer commetaries
Or squatchy carnal relations

Its not that far fetched that she was a plant to tank the study from the beginning and if that were so, she's making a grand exit and the followers to sucking it up magnificently.

 

[StankApe]

50 pages? that's just silly!!! No way any legit "esteemed PHD's (as she put it)" would sign on to a paper that was 50 pages long . I see no way a legit journal would publish it either! Even if the data was legit, it would be sent back by the editor before peer review with a "pare this down to the low teens would you?".

It's a monthly/quarterly journal, not the encyclopedia of taxonomy!

 

[GT/CS]

Maybe the whole thing is some college kid's doctoral experiment.

 

[DennyT]

The meat of the George Knapp interview, at La Scala in Las Vegas:

...
It happened more than two and a half years ago ...
... Two seats to my left was a former cop turned author and Bigfoot researcher named David Paulides. And to my right was Dr. Melba Ketchum, a DNA researcher ....

The only reason I am able to say anything about the study is that Dr. Ketchum unwisely responded a few weeks ago to a spurious report from a Russian scientist about the findings. Ketchum confirmed that she has overseen the analysis of dozens of hair samples collected at the sites of alleged Bigfoot sightings....

Here is what I can say legally, now that Ketchum has lifted the cone of silence: Scores of hair samples were sent to a dozen well-respected DNA labs across the country. The people at the labs weren’t told anything about the samples. They performed DNA analysis in the blind, then sent the remarkable findings back to Ketchum....The results are unequivocal:...
It seems clear that the only new info that Knapp is telling us is that he met with Ketchum and Paulides, together, in person, at an upscale restaurant in Las Vegas, in early 2010. He tells us nothing about that meeting; from what he says, I would assume he signed one of Ketchum's NDAs.

Ketchum got into her association with Paulides and Stubstad at the end of 2009, and went public in August of 2010. This would fill in the time a bit, as well as document the relationship between Paulides and Ketchum.

 

[Jodie]

Kind of like a habituator that happens to know how to sequence DNA, now that's a winning combination right there.

 

[calwaterbear]

ABP. allow me to briefly comment on a few of your statements

Logical fallacy of begging the question. You just assumed that bigfoot exists in order to "conclude" DNA analysis is useful in defining its existence. .

I believe you must have misunderstood my original post. the whole tenor of the post was designed to point out the true value of DNA as a scientific tool, as opposed to stories, eyewintess accounts, plaster casts, blobsquatch photos, ambiguopus sound recordings etc. Not only for that fact that it is easily verifiable, and it contains so much information about physical characteristics and evolutionary histories, but it also can address your next question (I think, It seemed to be clipped and i'm not sure i completely understand your whole point - but I'll take a shot at it. )

Please tell me: do you consider the collection of specimens to have been conducted in accord with any kind of scientific integrity/rigor? Comparable to the Denisovian finger and tooth you used as a supporting example? Give us the examples that are comparable please, so that we can evaluate the claim. Thx..

You are correct that they have not been collected with any kind of scientific rigor. but you seem to miss the point i have tried to make here in the past.
DNA is unique in that it provides it own provenence. If a sample comes back bear, or yak, or coyote, or cow, or human, etc, well thats what it is! It makes no difference how believeable or unbelievable the story is - it is what it is! As soon as it comes back a previously identified species, it immediately calls BS on the background story, and the deliverer of such story!

Now, Lets just imagine the unimaginable, lets say that the sample does come back as primate, somewhere near human, that does not, in itself, prove anything - for exactly the reasons you raise - about lack of scientific rigor. however, what that finding would do would be trigger a large scale scientifically designed, well funded, open , complete and honest search by well qualified, experienced knowledgable biologists and anthropologists. So you are right an unprovinanced sample would not prove BF exists, but because of the factual information that DNA contains, a sample shouting unknown primate would trigger a huge scientific response.


Bottom line - i think we have a major disagreement as to the value of DNA as a scientific tool. you write

Don't overestimate what the passing DNA fad will or will not accomplish. .

In my view, and my experience DNA has incredible breadth and power in so may ways it is mindboggling. It adds power and confirmation to our field studies, it confirms or questions our Taxonomy, it validates or questions our population genetics, it changed our court systems and criminology practices, it changes the medical field, it changes and enhances just about any aspect of biology, anthropology, medicine, you name it. I think it is a fad - like automobiles were a fad. Ask Connestoga wagons how that fad worked out for them. And TV was a fad, and telephones were a fad, and computers were a fad, go back and look at history, there are whole industries that were burried by new "fads" that they ignored.
Respectfully
CWB

 

[DennyT]

I have to clarify my prior post, primarily because of the misplaced quote limits and the mod status of this thread. My bad...shouldn't try to post from my phone.

what happens in Vegas, doesn't stay in Vegas.

The meat of the George Knapp piece seems to be that he had dinner with Paulides, Ketchum and an unnamed Las Vegas microbiologist at La Scala in Las Vegas in early 2010, and she used the word Bigfoot or Sasquatch in ThePaper:
Quote:

...
It happened more than two and a half years ago ...
... Two seats to my left was a former cop turned author and Bigfoot researcher named David Paulides. And to my right was Dr. Melba Ketchum, a DNA researcher...Before I was allowed to see any of the key research material, I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement.....Her initial draft of a scientific paper unwisely referred to the existence of a Bigfoot-like creature, and she was certain the information from her study would receive a fair hearing from the scientific world. My friend the microbiologist gave her the sad-but-true news that no mainstream science journal in the world would ever publish a paper, or allow for an honest peer review, of any paper that mentioned Bigfoot or Sasquatch by name.

Apparently, nothing else in the piece represents anything other than Knapp's seemingly inaccurate paraphrasing of Ketchum's recent statements:

The only reason I am able to say anything about the study is that Dr. Ketchum unwisely responded a few weeks ago to a spurious report from a Russian scientist about the findings. Ketchum confirmed that she has overseen the analysis of dozens of hair samples collected at the sites of alleged Bigfoot sightings....

Here is what I can say legally, now that Ketchum has lifted the cone of silence: Scores of hair samples were sent to a dozen well-respected DNA labs across the country. The people at the labs weren’t told anything about the samples. They performed DNA analysis in the blind, then sent the remarkable findings back to Ketchum....The results are unequivocal:...Half of the DNA in the samples is simply unknown.

According to Stubstad, the approximate date of the Las Vegas dinner, early 2010, was only a few months after Ketchum got into her association with Paulides and Stubstad at the end of 2009, and somewhat before she went public with the bigfoot DNA claims in August of 2010. This helps to fill in the timeline and document the relationship between Paulides and Ketchum.

 

[Jodie]

But all hair will provide is mtDNA, how is human mtDNA remarkable?

 

[MikeG]

Jodie, a few minutes on dog-pile (I'm shunning google until they pay their taxes) reveals that it is possible to extract nuDNA from hair. It isn't easy, and it can be degraded or incomplete, but it is possible.

Clearly, I have no idea about this. I am just passing on what I read.

Mike

 

[Jodie]

I thought it had to have a root ball or skin attached to it, even if it is only a microscopic piece of skin.......

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

I believe you must have misunderstood my original post.

I don't think so. Our exchange has nothing to do with the scientific value of DNA analysis as applied to real beings.

It has no decisive value in the bigfoot arena for one reason you admit to: that you cannot prove a negative.

But the one you don't see is that 'footery will live on after the DNA fad is over in 'footery. DNA is not a fad to science. It is the current fad in footery. This is where your understanding falls short, not because you lack intelligence but quite the opposite, you are too accustomed to working with intelligent, honest people:

but you seem to miss the point i have tried to make here in the past.
DNA is unique in that it provides it own provenence. If a sample comes back bear, or yak, or coyote, or cow, or human, etc, well thats what it is! It makes no difference how believeable or unbelievable the story is - it is what it is! As soon as it comes back a previously identified species, it immediately calls BS on the background story, and the deliverer of such story!

Two things - I don't need DNA to call B.S. on their background stories and neither does anyone else with a lick of sense. Of course these samples will come back yak or bear or human or inconclusive. And what you fail to extract from the history of 'footery is that it will make no difference to them.

Edited by jhunter1163: 

Edited for moderated thread.

Maybe I can direct your attention to the matter since you don't seem to "get it". Are you familiar with the work "When Prophecy Fails"? What was the point of this work? How is it relevant here?

Now, Lets just imagine the unimaginable, lets say that the sample does come back as primate, somewhere near human, that does not, in itself, prove anything - for exactly the reasons you raise - about lack of scientific rigor. however, what that finding would do would be trigger a large scale scientifically designed, well funded, open , complete and honest search by well qualified, experienced knowledgable biologists and anthropologists. So you are right an unprovinanced sample would not prove BF exists, but because of the factual information that DNA contains, a sample shouting unknown primate would trigger a huge scientific response.

If I understand your assumption this is precisely the logical fallacy of begging the question. This is a skeptic board, and you have to meet the standards here for presenting arguments. Logical fallacies don't make the grade.

If you mean a hoax, where the DNA has been tampered with somehow or a unique culture of people has been sampled or something then legitimate scientists are going to do the logical thing first, which is to ask for access to the samples and not undertake some costly wild goose chase. I have refereed funding requests and something that idiotic would not pass the first round of review with any respectable scientific funding agency.

Bottom line - i think we have a major disagreement as to the value of DNA as a scientific tool.

Not at all. It is the most exciting thing to have happened in real science EVER, in my humble opinion. But it has no decisive probative value for the tooth fairy or leprochauns or any other mythical thing.

 

[AttorneyTom]

There is no such thing as BF.

 

[DennyT]

One of Ketchum's principal sponsors (and a source of some of her key specimens) seems to be a Canadian businessman named Adrian Erickson, who has a website related to his quest for "bigfoot":

My first sighting occured in 1959, when I was seven years old and several encounters followed throughout the next few decades. However August 2001 was the pivotal point in my life when a sasquatch crossed the road in front of me driving through the Canadian Rockies and I made the decision to find out all I could about these magnificent creatures.

Erickson apparently acquired property in KY and TN, and possibly elsewhere, where habituations of a number of "bigfoots" were reported. The TN property was occupied by a woman named Janice Carter (Coy), who was the subject of a book written by a Mary Green, entitled Fifty Years with Bigfoot. In 2007, Mary Green released a statement about Carter.

Information on Jan Carter
December 21 2007 at 5:43 PM

To all bigfoot researchers worldwide:

I have been thinking about posting my specific reasons for disassociating myself from Janice Carter and anything to do with her except for the book we published as co-authors.

I am also currently debating whether or not to make public the many video recordings of personal interviews with Janice and Lyla Carter made during the year of 2002. There are a few chapters in “50 Years with Bigfoot” that contain verbatim the recorded interviews (word for word). I also have many video cassettes of these very same video recordings of the interviews plus some cassette tapes only of other interviews with her by me.

...

Edited by LashL: 

Snipped for compliance with Rule 4. Please do not copy & paste lengthy tracts of text from elsewhere. Instead, quote a short passage and cite a link to the source.

At the Kentucky site, the owners had reported feeding pancakes to "bigfoots." This is supposedly supported by a video. It is said that as soon as the owner moved off the property, so did the "bigfoots." Erickson employed a man named Dennis Pfohl and a PhD in ecology from Princeton, named Leila Hadj-Chikh, to gather evidence of bigfoot; she lived there from late 2005 through 2008. One product of this work was a supposedly HD video of one or more "bigfoots." This video is supposedly to be released at the time of publication of a DNA paper by Ketchum.

More from the Erickson website:

Through the years the Erickson Project has collected and funded testing of a number of Sasquatch DNA samples from various geographical areas of North America at a variety of DNA labs in Canada and the United States. Even though the results of those mitochondrial tests all came back human, namely 'Eastern European' Adrian Erickson and Dennis Pfohl were convinced that the samples were from Sasquatch and not 'contaminated' by humans.

When yet another scientist related to Erickson that a different sample tested at the University of New York (one of the labs the Erickson Project had also used) also came back as 'Eastern European' the scientist dismissed it as human. At that point however, Erickson knew he was on the right track and needed to test further. He contacted and started to collaborate with Dr. Ketchum and provided her with his samples and the previous DNA results in order to continue testing. As the study expanded Erickson supplied much of the initial funding of Dr. Ketchum's study which was more in-depth and involved nuclear DNA. This study was completed after five years.
The Erickson Project is a contributor of six Sasquatch DNA samples to Dr.Ketchum's study, all from diverse areas, one of those samples was used to sequence a complete Sasquatch genome in Dr. Ketchum's study. Specific information on the role of The Erickson Project will be released when her manuscript is published; this will be posted on this website.

Shorter version: he just couldn't believe that the DNA was that of a plain ole human bean of eastern European extraction, which would mean that he had been played.

 

[DennyT]

^On further research, it appears that the Carter farm was sold to people named Philpot. The various internet posts on the subject give conflicting information, so I cannot state for certain at this point what part Janice Carter and her "bigfoots" played in the Erickson efforts.