I admire Dr. Regal's stance...this is a historical, social and psychological phenomenon, not a scientific one. I read his "eggheads" book... ok most of it. Writing history as it happens is in some ways more difficult than writing it many years after it happens. This is doubly true when dealing with a populist belief system. The signal to noise ratio is very small. Regal has also written about aspects of creationism. This is difficult stuff.
I would be willing to bet that he has spent thousands of hours on researching and writing about the bigfootery belief system and its advocates. Yet, because of the thousands of reports, legends, tales, myths, videos, statements, anecdotal "research" "studies", claims, websites, blogs, boards, images, organizations, shifting allegiances and changing attitudes, newsletters, radio interviews, pseudoscientific "reports," Facebook, Twitter, television programs, and other publications (not to mention rumors and "inside baseball" secret squirrel type 'knowledge'), it is manifestly impossible for him (even with his students) to even get his arms around all of what is claimed to be the "body of knowledge", for lack of a better expression (Not to mention the massive lack of internal consistency and the issues of reliability of each source and outright hoaxes). And, he must try not to offend anyone.
As a result, any "bigfoot" writings by Dr. Regal, even when limited to an isolated subject like Dr. Ketchum's study, are prone to inaccuracies, omissions, contradictions, misstatements, over-generalizations, simplifications, political correctness, straw men fallacies, unreliable sources, and other "errors." Writing a book about bigfootery is the equivalent of trying to walk from Red Wing to Bettendorf on the backs of greased pigs while blindfolded.
In practical terms, at present, there is no achievable historical (let alone "scientific) "truth" about bigfootery. Kudos to Regal for his efforts to at least note the salient issues.
