Bigfoot DNA

[River]

It is interesting watching everyone shuffle their positions around with the "homo sapien" sasquatch. (human not in gen bank must = sasquatch apparently) Like seriously? The important question comes up of say, I don't know - objectivity?

This trait seems to be overlooked when it comes to bigfoot "science". We cant find a real bigfoot sample, so we're going to make a human sample bigfoot. lol?

 

[RedRatSnake]

This new hope DNA thing kinda just stopped pretty quick, Anyone got some new skinny on it at all ?

I know if i had the story of the century Christmas would not stop me from working on it.

Tim

 

[mustbeso]

According to Tim Fassano as reported at Bigfoot Evidence Melba Ketchum's paper has been rejected by whatever orginization it was submitted to. Go figure.

 

[RedRatSnake]

That guy just fits right into the entire Bigfoot culture like a glove, another whack job that swallowed to much trailer park juice.

Tim

 

[CTB]

Bad news, chaps. No yeti DNA here

 

[RedRatSnake]

That had been sitting on the pile of hoaxes as far as i know, but it is good to get confirmation on it, I think technology is not going to be as friendly as the hopefuls thought it would be.

Long live Bigfoot ~

Tim

 

[DennyT]

The Melba updates her fans on facebook.

shorter version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuBREMXxts

 

[Drewbot]

Holy Snchnikies! did she really type Illusive?

From the Cryptomundo link Parnassus posted above:

They are real and most if not all of the people on FB here are believers. Please, let’s do this right so the world will know once and for all that there is a real and illusive creature that is alive and well right here in our own backyards. If I have any news I can share, I will share it here though, OK?

 

[DennyT]

Holy Snchnikies! did she really type Illusive?
...

maybe that's why her paper was "handed back".

 

[Deacondark]

Holy Snchnikies! did she really type Illusive?

From the Cryptomundo link Parnassus posted above:

If you go to her Facebook page you will see all sorts of evidence of her ignorance. Also, you will see pictures of her traveling the globe, spending all the money she's bilking from believers. It's shameful. I wonder how she could have had the time to write her paper while she was out vacationing all over the planet. Hmmmmm.

 

[mustbeso]

Robert Lindsay has started again after a rest. It is a long and laborious read that I don't think I will link to. I simply cannot understand how grownups can behave in this manner. They actually believe that dna evidence will proove the existence of a giant primate with out an actual specimin being found. The idea continues to be that it is genetically closer to human than chimps and that known hoaxers have presented good evidence despite their hoaxing activity. Richard Stubstad also checks in.

 

[DennyT]

Robert Lindsay has started again after a rest. It is a long and laborious read that I don't think I will link to. I simply cannot understand how grownups can behave in this manner. They actually believe that dna evidence will proove the existence of a giant primate with out an actual specimin being found. The idea continues to be that it is genetically closer to human than chimps and that known hoaxers have presented good evidence despite their hoaxing activity. Richard Stubstad also checks in.

Lindsay:

The skeptics also said that Gee would have to be a complete idiot who made the mistake of his lifetime to have turned back a good Ketchum paper with the conclusion of the century. Well then, that must be correct. Gee apparently is a complete idiot then, and he just did make the mistake of his lifetime I suppose. He’s only human; why is that so hard to figure out?

let's see....on the one hand we have Henry Gee, and on the other we have Robert Lindsay.... let's see...I'm weighing, weighing, comparing.....yup I have to go with Henry.

 

[HarryHenderson]

You can bet at least a quarter that an 'innocent' Robert Lindsay would be screaming bloody murder if he were, say, on trial for bloody murder and was being prosecuted with the same degree of mindless zeal and dubious evidence as this one appears to have been. Bigfoot Hopes and Dreams™ killing concepts like 'chain of custody' and 'tainted evidence' would instantly become of utmost importance to him and he would likely be willing to go down in flames if necessary defining such in proving his innocence to such cosmically absurd shenanigans. And all because the truth is what would have truly mattered. Apparently the truth doesn't matter as much in the case of Bigfoot. Bigfoot Hopes and Dreams™ means more.

And while I don't have a sophisticated understanding of exactly how scientific 'truths' are ultimately established, I do understand the regimentation of 'the scientific method' and the necessity for rigorous compliance with it. Yet, The Melba™, a supposed credentialed and trained scientist, would appear to have epically failed on the (theoretical) first question.

Real® Scientist Peer: So where did you get the Real® Bigfoot DNA sample?

The Melba™: Well, a guy I know who knew a guy that knew the cousin of this other guy that had shot a Real® Bigfoot gave it to me.

Real® Scientist Peer: Oh okay, good, as long we got a voucher. <whispering in her ear> Just between you and me, it looks like Real® Bigfoot DNA to me too. Peer review my ass, we'll whisk this one through in no time. Congratulations on the find of the century.

 

[DennyT]

Robert Lindsay has posted another mish mash of gossip and speculation, which you can find by googling his name. In this post, we can again identify the voice of Richard Stubstad, blasting away at Ketchum and those around her. David Paulides is the special target this time around. But in discussing Paulides, he gives some info on one of the central questions regarding The Ketchum's project: what is she using as the standard, by which she has supposedly identified some 20 or so samples as being from a bigfoot?
(emphasis added)

Ketchum in Tribal Bigfoot.

Paulides has written an excellent book in Tribal Bigfoot. Towards the end, he prints two letters from labs that were sent possible Bigfoot samples by Paulides from the Hoopa area.

One letter from the lab is on page 253 for a sample provided from Gasquet, California [Yurok tribe in this area; Karuk and Hupa not far away--parnassus] dated Dec. 19th 2008. The sample was determined from morphology exam to be from an unknown primate with no DNA result at that point. It was suspected there was inhibitors that were interfering with amplification that sometimes occurs with feline hairs. The lab said that further testing was warranted and that they were developing “novel extraction protocols and kits” to get a pure DNA result.

Another letter is on page 372 & 373 from the Hoopa Valley “Ullibarri” sample. and dated Mar. 21, 2009. They had sequenced nuDNA and were
analyzing X/Y chromosome markers. (Amelogenin Locus). The result indicated was not normal for humans.

The Ullibarri sample is said to have made it into the study as presumptive for Bigfoot. Paulides also had another sample, a very large bone from a streambed in Oregon. I know nothing of the Gasket sample.

Ketchum did indeed have a lot of trouble getting primers to use to extract Bigfoot DNA with as implied above, and eventually they had to make a lot of their own primers. The human primers would not work properly on Bigfoot DNA. That’s because the DNA in Ketchum’s study is really human, right skeptics? It’s so human that human primers don’t even work on it.

The mysterious labs mentioned above by Paulides appear to be nothing other than Ketchum’s lab itself.

Note the dates and that Tribal Bigfoot was published May 25, 2009; so the specimens referred to in that book must have been among Ketchum's very earliest.

It has been my speculation from the beginning that Paulides could obtain specimens from the Hupa and other isolated tribes, and their DNA would likely fool naive labs into thinking it was not a modern human, because the sequences from isolated tribes would likely not be in GenBank. Lindsay's/Stubstad's statements seem to make this a possibility.

In other words: Ketchum may be using samples from isolated Native Americans as her reference Bigfoot DNA.

 

[The Shrike]

So uh, Melba is now going public that she's seen bigfoot: multiple bigfoots and apparently multiple times. It's OK though, 'cause she didn't see them until after her scientific analysis of the DNA convinced her that bigfoot was, you know scientifically, real.

 

[Drewbot]

Has anyone verified that that is really Melba's Facebook page? I mean it really sounds like MikeyX, Sweaty or someone like that is posting under the guise of a scientific doctor.

 

[The Shrike]

Has anyone verified that that is really Melba's Facebook page? I mean it really sounds like MikeyX, Sweaty or someone like that is posting under the guise of a scientific doctor.

Her writing is pretty garbled . . .

I did a little Google Fu on Dr. Ketchum, mostly just by going to her own website (DNA Diagnostics, Inc.) to learn more about her. She doesn't have a CV available online, so I'm forced to interpret a bit based on the bio on her page, which she has no doubt written herself.

Two things jump out at me. First, she describes herself as a "Moody Scholar". I Googled that and learned that the Moody Foundation has been giving scholarships to Galveston County high school kids since 1969 to offset some portion of their college costs. Their current annual budget (now covering 4 additional schools) is $500,000. So they probably fund 100 kids at $5000/yr, or maybe 200 kids at $2500 - I don't know. They claim to have provided more than $10 million in support to more than 4000 graduation seniors since 1969.

Sounds like on average, 10 kids receive these scholarships each year. While that's certainly a nice feather in one's cap, it seems odd that someone would, years later, refer to themselves as a "Moody Scholar." I received support from two similar sources that allowed me to pursue my BS, but I certainly wouldn't describe myself as a "Buckley Scholar" or a "Tradition Fellow" anywhere outside the awards banquet.

The next puzzling thing is right there in the same sentence:

" . . . attended Texas A&M University where she received her doctorate in Veterinary Medicine after five years at the university."

Sounds to me like Dr. Ketchum did one of these joint BS/DVM thingies, rather than obtain her BS and then work for an additional 3-4 years on her DVM. Now I know you need good undergraduate grades to qualify for one of those programs, but it just makes me wonder how much real academic development she's had. I've met a lot of students who are very smarticle with the book-learnin' thingies in their heads, but just lack a good deal of savvy in things like critical thinking, scientific process, maturity in writing, and overall professionalism. These latter things develop best with time in an academic setting, unless they happen to come naturally or the person has specifically tried to develop those areas.

Maybe some of the apparent naivete we've seen from Ketchum with respect to her handling of this alleged paper comes from not really being academically mentored very well. From what I gather in her bio, she was working veterinarian by about age 23 and then founded her own business not too long thereafter. Meanwhile, she had two kids and has managed her own ranch! So I have no doubt that she's smart and hard working, but I can see little glimpses of her inexperience in academic publishing.

I guess we'll just have to stay tuned . . .

 

[Resume]

Her writing is pretty garbled . . .

I did a little Google Fu on Dr. Ketchum, mostly just by going to her own website (DNA Diagnostics, Inc.) to learn more about her. She doesn't have a CV available online, so I'm forced to interpret a bit based on the bio on her page, which she has no doubt written herself.

Two things jump out at me. First, she describes herself as a "Moody Scholar". I Googled that and learned that the Moody Foundation has been giving scholarships to Galveston County high school kids since 1969 to offset some portion of their college costs. Their current annual budget (now covering 4 additional schools) is $500,000. So they probably fund 100 kids at $5000/yr, or maybe 200 kids at $2500 - I don't know. They claim to have provided more than $10 million in support to more than 4000 graduation seniors since 1969.

Sounds like on average, 10 kids receive these scholarships each year. While that's certainly a nice feather in one's cap, it seems odd that someone would, years later, refer to themselves as a "Moody Scholar." I received support from two similar sources that allowed me to pursue my BS, but I certainly wouldn't describe myself as a "Buckley Scholar" or a "Tradition Fellow" anywhere outside the awards banquet.

The next puzzling thing is right there in the same sentence:

" . . . attended Texas A&M University where she received her doctorate in Veterinary Medicine after five years at the university."

Sounds to me like Dr. Ketchum did one of these joint BS/DVM thingies, rather than obtain her BS and then work for an additional 3-4 years on her DVM. Now I know you need good undergraduate grades to qualify for one of those programs, but it just makes me wonder how much real academic development she's had. I've met a lot of students who are very smarticle with the book-learnin' thingies in their heads, but just lack a good deal of savvy in things like critical thinking, scientific process, maturity in writing, and overall professionalism. These latter things develop best with time in an academic setting, unless they happen to come naturally or the person has specifically tried to develop those areas.

Maybe some of the apparent naivete we've seen from Ketchum with respect to her handling of this alleged paper comes from not really being academically mentored very well. From what I gather in her bio, she was working veterinarian by about age 23 and then founded her own business not too long thereafter. Meanwhile, she had two kids and has managed her own ranch! So I have no doubt that she's smart and hard working, but I can see little glimpses of her inexperience in academic publishing.

I guess we'll just have to stay tuned . . .

So it would not be unfair to call her a vet rather than a biologist. One certainly wouldn't call her an academic.

 

[The Shrike]

So it would not be unfair to call her a vet rather than a biologist. One certainly wouldn't call her an academic.

Academic? No.

Veterinarian? Yes.

Biologist? By title, no. But she's apparently been doing genetic testing since at least 1985. To me, that sounds more like working as a research biologist than like working as a veterinarian. So I'd be OK with considering her a biologist. By the same token, she should be able to describe herself as an "expert in genetic testing".

 

[BravesFan]

Academic? No.

Veterinarian? Yes.

Biologist? By title, no. But she's apparently been doing genetic testing since at least 1985. To me, that sounds more like working as a research biologist than like working as a veterinarian. So I'd be OK with considering her a biologist. By the same token, she should be able to describe herself as an "expert in genetic testing".

I had tons of herpetological field experience as a kid. I probably caught and could identify nearly every herp that lives down here (south mississippi). That hasn't stopped me from making a few mis identifications over the years due to the nature of herps to develop pretty much how nature chooses. I've caught eastern hog nose I would've sworn were southern's. I once was called to a friends to ID a snake that on first glance I dubbed "a strange speckled king snake" only to figure out a bit later was just a strangely marked mud snake.

In other words, we can know what we are doing and still make fairly routine mistakes from time to time. Especially when the worst word in science "emotion" gets involved. And even to a greater extreme when the second worst word in science "hope" combines with the first and the third "belief"..

Emotion+hope+belief generally= bad results