Latest Bigfoot "evidence"

[LTC8K6]

Days old blood that's been out in the weather is probably a horrible source for DNA.

 

[GT/CS]

Why don't you tell us? If you can't tell us, why bring it up?

Because that's exactly what 'footers do to look important.

 

[OntarioSquatch]

The DNA on the boots turned out to be bear (this is from Sykes). It's doubtful Sykes would go down the rabbit whole given his past achievements in the science community, but I guess it's possible . He's shown a lot of interest in Bigfoot DNA and I suspect the end result will somehow be money made from Bigfoot

 

[eerok]

When I am mistaken I will admit it.

You haven't so far, and you've been wrong most of the time.

 

[LTC8K6]

Yes, I have heard the bear conclusion. If Smeja's boot sample was part of the project, why release those results and no others?

 

[Jodie]

Based on my own quasi reliable sources, Sykes hasn't found anything unusual about the samples. I don't know why the footers would get all excited unless someone claiming a greater connection with Dr. Sykes than actually exists is, once again, whipping it up for whatever personal reasons one would have to do that.

 

[EHocking]

It sure would.

It would be hilarious if the DNA fits in a spot where the primate couldn't possibly be like bigfoot.

What I find hilarious is that we have a lay person (who's entire knowledge of DNA is being gleaned on the run by Google searches) telling a scientist (who uses DNA samples in his work to identify and name new species) how DNA samplying and typing works.
Oh, and that scientist is doing it wrong.

A perfect example of Bigfoot Science^[TM], indeed any Bleever Science^[TM].

 

[Dinwar]

Days old blood that's been out in the weather is probably a horrible source for DNA.

Definitely. There are (comparatively) few cells that include nuclear DNA, and there's absolutely no protection for them. Teeth are far superior. Hair is better. And even if you get DNA from the boot, how do you prove it's from that particular source of blood? I've probably got enough DNA on my boots right now to build half an ecosystem (hiking in the desert does that to boots). I defy anyone to separate all the various bits and pieces of DNA on my boots and tell me which came from blood and which from sheep poop.

ChrisBFRPKY, I am absolutely not surprised that you refused to admit error. That said, you ARE in error on what provides the best DNA sampling. Demonstrably. As in, I demonstrated it. Your refusal to admit you were wrong undermines pretty much everything you've said about honesty and integrity of anyone (and that's about all you've spoken about in regards to those who disagree with you). At this point, it's not unreasonable for us to conclude that either any evidence will be taken by you to support your pet hypothesis, or that you'll refuse to acknowledge the validity of any contrary evidence (that's what you're doing now, so you'll probably do similar in the future).

In other words, you've completely destroyed your credibility here. You don't know the subject, and you refuse to learn.

No, when one makes such claims it is either from a lack of education in the field or complete incompetence of the subject. There is no third way.

Sure there is. You simply refuse to consider it. The third way is that YOU, ChrisBFRPKY, are wrong, not us. There's no shame in this, by the way--when I call you ignorant, it's a statement of fact, not a moral judgement (your stupidity--your willful refusal to acknowledge facts--is another matter, but that's not something very relevant to this thread). I'm ignorant about any number of things. My go-to example is electricity--I know the basics, enough to do home wiring jobs, but have no clue how the heavy physics works. If you'd admit your ignorance and errors, it'd be a non-issue.

Also, I love how your references are supposed to automatically trump our references, which at this point include laws, scientific publications, well-known biological facts, and the personal experience of at least three scientists. Sorry, but the real world doesn't work that way. The facts are in our favor. You want mammal DNA, you go to something OTHER than blood. Hair, tissue, bone, teeth, pretty much anything. And you DEFINITELY don't include blood on someone's boots; the mere inclusion of such a sample demonstrates such a shoddy sampling procedure as to call into question the entire process.

If Smeja's boot sample was part of the project, why release those results and no others?

Well, one potential reason springs to mind: he's got conclusive evidence for this one and not the others. DNA analysis can take some time, after all. Particularly if you're dealing with extremely crapy samples (how long does a PCR run take?).

 

[RayG]

I'm not a DNA expert and have never claimed to be but, never mind that because the evidence is in Dr Sykes' possession, he is "the" expert.

I would expect Dr. Sykes will be on top of what can be extracted from the DNA and what cannot.

Even experts are sometimes wrong.

"We found some DNA in it, but we don’t know what it is. It's not a human, not a bear nor anything else we have so far been able to identify. It's a mystery and I never thought this would end in a mystery. We have never encountered DNA that we couldn’t recognize before." -- Dr. Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine, 2001

and yet...

"On Saturday, April 28, I had lunch with Dr. Byan Sykes... Sykes also analyzed hair samples from Bhutan attributed to the Yeti, which seemed to defy DNA identification. Interestingly, during our conversation I learned that further efforts were subsequently successful in determining that the hair originated from bear." -- Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 1:81-82 (2012)

The history of bigfootery is filled with failures but never any bigfoot.

Chris, I would like to suggest a large gathering of skeptics for a banquet dinner with you in attendance. Our challenge is that if you fail to provide biological classification evidence of Bigfoot that is accepted as proof of existence by science, by December 31, 2015, you agree to consume a large portion of the main course.

The main course will be of course, Crow. Clean healthy specimens will be obtained for the dinner. They will be humanely dispatched, thoughtfully prepared and cooked to perfection.

We skeptics will enjoy a main course of steak and accept gracious apologies from you throughout the night. We will of course pay for the banquet, and dining facilities.

Would you be willing to participate?

RayG

 

[William Parcher]

I'm afraid this says an awful lot more about you than it does about Sykes, who is one of the leading scientists in his field in the world. Very highly respected. Frankly, you ought to do better than this.

I'll tell you some more about me. I'm prepared to call him a fool in addition to a nutjob. That is if he says something stupid like Krantz & Meldrum talking about Bigfoot is real. Or some crap ass talk about how DNA says we have a Bigfoot out there. But of course there's no body. There never is a body.

See Mike, I think that Krantz, Bindernagel & Meldrum are nutjobs because of their strong belief (or conviction) in Bigfoot existence. It's like they are dazed by the headlights and fail to properly grasp the serious problem of there never having ever been a body (living or dead) or body part acquired using any possible means to acquire that biological part. So we may not have seen the end of scientists who believe in the wacky idea that Bigfoot is real and lurking out there in places that we inhabit or visit.

 

[Dinwar]

I'll tell you some more about me. I'm prepared to call him a fool in addition to a nutjob.

Let's face it, he wouldn't be the first scientist to go from "highly respected pillar of the community" status to "raving lunatic, possibly dangerous to himself or others" status. The most impressive fall from grace I can think of is Richard Owen, who went from THE leading anatomist of his time to pretty much the way we consider Creationists. Then there's of course Francis Crick. It's sort of cliche for old paleontologists to become philosophers. And it's a basic truism of skepticism that when someone is speaking outside their area of expertise even experts do no better than lay folk.

The mere fact that someone is an expert in no way is a defence of their activities. If anything, it means that we must be MORE critical of their work. Science isnt' for the weak-hearted, and the proper way to gain and maintain a reputation is to allow nothing to take precidence over the truth. If they start using their prestige to defend their arguments, they're probably wrong--or at least uncertain.

I'm even more critical of scientists who speak without evidence than you. As AronRa put it, if you claim to know things about something for which you cannot present evidence, you have precisely no credibility. The mere act of making such a statement demonstrates an abandonment of scientific principles to such a degree that no rational scientist can trust what you say anymore. Science has rules, and the most absolutely fundamental of them--the rule from which all other statements are derived, and the only truly necessary rule--is that every statement must be supported by factual evidence. There are no honest reasons to abandon that rule, and any error, however small, is grounds for being ostrecised from the scientific community in my opinion. Harsh? Yes. However, I've poured my heart and soul into this field, more than once risking my life for it. I'll be damned--in every sense of that sentence--if I'll see science corrupted without raising a protest.

I can accept a lot of sins from scientists. Speaking as an expert without being able to provide evidence to support your ideas is the one unforgivable sin.

 

[William Parcher]

I would agree Dinmar. I think it's interesting that there really hasn't been any public debate between a Bigfoot denialist (or skeptic) scientist and a Bigfoot Believer scientist. You sometimes see it with creationism vs evolution but I don't think it happens in the Bigfoot scene. I might like to see Dawkins vs Meldrum in debate but I'm not sure if Richard would know enough about Bigfootery or the PGF. Oh I almost forgot about that other nutjob scientist Henner Fahrenbach who thinks that Bigfoot is real.

Question to all...

Which scientist would you want to see have a public Bigfoot debate with (in person or by written communication) Jeff Meldrum or Bindernagel or Fahrenbach?

 

[Dinwar]

There's nothing to debate. Even Creationists have more evidence than the people trying to find bigfoot. To debate those people before they have evidence would be to give them far more credit than they deserve.

 

[William Parcher]

You can give them the privilege to present the things that they regard as evidence. Any scientist who presents a false thesis is presenting false evidence. You can debate that. You better be able to debate that, eh?

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

ChrisBFRPKY, I am absolutely not surprised that you refused to admit error. That said, you ARE in error on what provides the best DNA sampling. Demonstrably. As in, I demonstrated it. Your refusal to admit you were wrong undermines pretty much everything you've said about honesty and integrity of anyone (and that's about all you've spoken about in regards to those who disagree with you). At this point, it's not unreasonable for us to conclude that either any evidence will be taken by you to support your pet hypothesis, or that you'll refuse to acknowledge the validity of any contrary evidence (that's what you're doing now, so you'll probably do similar in the future).

In other words, you've completely destroyed your credibility here. You don't know the subject, and you refuse to learn.

Sure there is. You simply refuse to consider it. The third way is that YOU, ChrisBFRPKY, are wrong, not us. There's no shame in this, by the way--when I call you ignorant, it's a statement of fact, not a moral judgement (your stupidity--your willful refusal to acknowledge facts--is another matter, but that's not something very relevant to this thread). I'm ignorant about any number of things. My go-to example is electricity--I know the basics, enough to do home wiring jobs, but have no clue how the heavy physics works. If you'd admit your ignorance and errors, it'd be a non-issue.

Also, I love how your references are supposed to automatically trump our references, which at this point include laws, scientific publications, well-known biological facts, and the personal experience of at least three scientists. Sorry, but the real world doesn't work that way. The facts are in our favor. You want mammal DNA, you go to something OTHER than blood. Hair, tissue, bone, teeth, pretty much anything. And you DEFINITELY don't include blood on someone's boots; the mere inclusion of such a sample demonstrates such a shoddy sampling procedure as to call into question the entire process.

Excuse me but we were talking about obtaining primate DNA. I've worked with primates before and although I did not perform the actual DNA testing to determine the genetic line of the individuals being tested, each test was accomplished by drawing a blood sample from the subject.

I'll say this again, each DNA test sample was taken from the blood and not the fecal material. Again because the blood was the best source for DNA collection.

The fecal material was used to determine diet and health of the subjects only. If you wanted to see if someone was eating properly or if they were suffering from a parasitic infection you used a stool sample.

There were and are other informations that can be gleened from such samples, but DNA test samples were never taken from the fecal material, only the blood.

Why? Because blood contains tons of DNA. Even in the 80's blood was the top choice of sample used to obtain DNA genetic line information from a subject.

Are there better technologies now? Of course. Are other materials used to obtain DNA samples now? Of course. From what I understand DNA can be extracted from hair samples in this day and age where as before it could not be. How they are doing this is unknown to me and I will not speculate.

I did read the link you provided and it mostly talked about obtaining plant DNA from dung. This was important as to better understand the diet of these now extinct animals. There was some info that suggested they could obtain animal DNA as well although not much was discussed as to how they obtained the animal DNA and or if it was clean or had been contaminated. Can you see the problem here?

After further reading in another article that was quoted by another member it seems one of the problems that surfaced with ancient human DNA collection from dung was contamination. Do you not realize this?

The process they used to determine what was contaminated by the collection team and what was hopefully ancient human DNA to be collected from the ancient human dung, was to sample and test each team member separately.

Do you see where we're going here?

They didn't sample and test every modern human that had ever discovered the dung BEFORE their team collected the dung samples. For this reason the results could only be invalid.

I'm sorry but those are the facts. The study even revealed fox and coyote DNA, which led to completely unscientific speculations of "They might have eaten coyotes and foxes." or "A coyote or fox may have urinated on the dung at some point."

Hilarious. This reminded me of another DNA claim from 2008 and the GA Bigfoot body hoax. DNA tests came back as "opossum" where it was quickly suggested by the promoter of the hoax that "The Bigfoot may have eaten the opossum." Ridiculous for the same reasons, contamination. Since rubber suits don't have Bigfoot DNA the most likely event was that the DNA collected was simply from an opposum. Can you understand now?

When you say: "blood is a terrible source for DNA", you completely destroy YOUR credibility, not mine. Once again, blood is a great source for DNA sample collection. It used to be the ONLY sampled source testable for DNA genetic testing.

What we're beginning to see here is a panic among skeptics. Instead of acknowledging Dr Sykes as the professional he is, attacks on his character and scientific knowledge are beginning to surface. A bit premature in my opinion. As his results haven't been released yet.

This may lead to a problem later for those on the attack now. What if Dr Sykes ends up siding with the skeptical view? Does he then receive acknowledgement as the professional he is? But only if he agrees with the skeptic's position on Bigfoot? Ridiculous.

Will the footer's then claim, "You know you skeptics were right, Sykes is a kook." I think it'd be best to leave Dr Sykes' reputation out of the mud either way and concentrate on his findings when they become available. If you cannot agree he is one of, if not THE top in his field of DNA study, there's something seriously wrong with your perception of the man and of science in general.


edited to add: I did snip Dinwar's response to another member from his quoted post.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Even experts are sometimes wrong.

"We found some DNA in it, but we don’t know what it is. It's not a human, not a bear nor anything else we have so far been able to identify. It's a mystery and I never thought this would end in a mystery. We have never encountered DNA that we couldn’t recognize before." -- Dr. Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine, 2001

and yet...

"On Saturday, April 28, I had lunch with Dr. Byan Sykes... Sykes also analyzed hair samples from Bhutan attributed to the Yeti, which seemed to defy DNA identification. Interestingly, during our conversation I learned that further efforts were subsequently successful in determining that the hair originated from bear." -- Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 1:81-82 (2012)

The history of bigfootery is filled with failures but never any bigfoot.

Chris, I would like to suggest a large gathering of skeptics for a banquet dinner with you in attendance. Our challenge is that if you fail to provide biological classification evidence of Bigfoot that is accepted as proof of existence by science, by December 31, 2015, you agree to consume a large portion of the main course.

The main course will be of course, Crow. Clean healthy specimens will be obtained for the dinner. They will be humanely dispatched, thoughtfully prepared and cooked to perfection.

We skeptics will enjoy a main course of steak and accept gracious apologies from you throughout the night. We will of course pay for the banquet, and dining facilities.

Would you be willing to participate?

RayG

Ray, I'll accept your invitation if everyone here will agree to accept mine. And since we're now putting a deadline I must amend my invitation to include factual scientific evidence collected by others as well of course. Agreeable?

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

What I find hilarious is that we have a lay person (who's entire knowledge of DNA is being gleaned on the run by Google searches) telling a scientist (who uses DNA samples in his work to identify and name new species) how DNA samplying and typing works.
Oh, and that scientist is doing it wrong.

A perfect example of Bigfoot Science^[TM], indeed any Bleever Science^[TM].

Bolding mine. Can you qualify the bolded part of this statement?

 

[Resume]

Ray, I'll accept your invitation if everyone here will agree to accept mine. And since we're now putting a deadline I must amend my invitation to include factual scientific evidence collected by others as well of course. Agreeable?

Why should anyone accept yours if you're not here to prove anything or share your experiences? If others do the work, they get the spoils, not you.

As to the highlighted, that's gonna be a type specimen, and none of you people seem competent enough to achieve that goal. It doesn't necessarily have to be a killed specimen either (think relocating problem bears) so if that's your demur, it's a false one.

 

[The Shrike]

Why are you guys pissing past each other? If you're in a lab situation and can freely draw blood from your subjects then you can collect enough to get the DNA you need. If you're in a field situation and faced with extracting DNA from whatever dried droplets of blood you might find or the tooth you just found, my money's on the tooth for providing better information.

Debate with Meldrum? Lead balloon. Unless the skeptic authority selected for the task knows every intimate detail of the PGF, it'd be a complete debacle 'cause that's where Meldrum would camp out. Besides, when's the last time a bunch of creationists became rationalists because a rationalist showed them in a debate how stupid creationism was? You can't reason someone out of a position that weren't reasoned into.

 

[dmaker]

Excuse me but we were talking about obtaining primate DNA. I've worked with primates before and although I did not perform the actual DNA testing to determine the genetic line of the individuals being tested, each test was accomplished by drawing a blood sample from the subject.

I'll say this again, each DNA test sample was taken from the blood and not the fecal material. Again because the blood was the best source for DNA collection.

The fecal material was used to determine diet and health of the subjects only. If you wanted to see if someone was eating properly or if they were suffering from a parasitic infection you used a stool sample.

There were and are other informations that can be gleened from such samples, but DNA test samples were never taken from the fecal material, only the blood.

Why? Because blood contains tons of DNA. Even in the 80's blood was the top choice of sample used to obtain DNA genetic line information from a subject.

Are there better technologies now? Of course. Are other materials used to obtain DNA samples now? Of course. From what I understand DNA can be extracted from hair samples in this day and age where as before it could not be. How they are doing this is unknown to me and I will not speculate.

I did read the link you provided and it mostly talked about obtaining plant DNA from dung. This was important as to better understand the diet of these now extinct animals. There was some info that suggested they could obtain animal DNA as well although not much was discussed as to how they obtained the animal DNA and or if it was clean or had been contaminated. Can you see the problem here?

After further reading in another article that was quoted by another member it seems one of the problems that surfaced with ancient human DNA collection from dung was contamination. Do you not realize this?

The process they used to determine what was contaminated by the collection team and what was hopefully ancient human DNA to be collected from the ancient human dung, was to sample and test each team member separately.

Do you see where we're going here?

They didn't sample and test every modern human that had ever discovered the dung BEFORE their team collected the dung samples. For this reason the results could only be invalid.

I'm sorry but those are the facts. The study even revealed fox and coyote DNA, which led to completely unscientific speculations of "They might have eaten coyotes and foxes." or "A coyote or fox may have urinated on the dung at some point."

Hilarious. This reminded me of another DNA claim from 2008 and the GA Bigfoot body hoax. DNA tests came back as "opossum" where it was quickly suggested by the promoter of the hoax that "The Bigfoot may have eaten the opossum." Ridiculous for the same reasons, contamination. Since rubber suits don't have Bigfoot DNA the most likely event was that the DNA collected was simply from an opposum. Can you understand now?

When you say: "blood is a terrible source for DNA", you completely destroy YOUR credibility, not mine. Once again, blood is a great source for DNA sample collection. It used to be the ONLY sampled source testable for DNA genetic testing.

What we're beginning to see here is a panic among skeptics. Instead of acknowledging Dr Sykes as the professional he is, attacks on his character and scientific knowledge are beginning to surface. A bit premature in my opinion. As his results haven't been released yet.

This may lead to a problem later for those on the attack now. What if Dr Sykes ends up siding with the skeptical view? Does he then receive acknowledgement as the professional he is? But only if he agrees with the skeptic's position on Bigfoot? Ridiculous.

Will the footer's then claim, "You know you skeptics were right, Sykes is a kook." I think it'd be best to leave Dr Sykes' reputation out of the mud either way and concentrate on his findings when they become available. If you cannot agree he is one of, if not THE top in his field of DNA study, there's something seriously wrong with your perception of the man and of science in general.


edited to add: I did snip Dinwar's response to another member from his quoted post.

I'm not panicking at all. Even if Sykes has gone off the Bigfoot deep end, there is still peer review and scientific consensus. The process prevents one persons subjective bias from becoming accepted canon in a field. For example, I suspect this is why we get no peer reviewed papers from Meldrum, Bindernagel and Krantz. Instead we get cute little field guides and other books that are simply an extended opinion piece.

I have trust that if Sykes is wandering off the reservation, then his findings will not be corroborated.