Bigfoot/Sasquatch in Scientific Journals

[Drewbot]

In the thread- Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum - America's "Bigfoot Professor" started by William Parcher, Parcher quotes an Idaho State University faculty member Martin Hackworth;

If you are interested in the scientific basis for Bigfoot I encourage you to check out the publisher of Dr. Meldrum's book /Sasquatch - Legend Meets Science/ (http://www.tor.com/). I would also encourage you to have a look at the /Journal of Scientific Exploration/, volume 18, for what passes for peer review in this area.

I thought I would take him up on that to see exactly what he is referring to. What DOES pass for peer review in this area?
Journal of Scientific Exploration Vol. 18

In this paper, by Dr. John Bindernagel- The Sasquatch: An Unwelcome and Premature Zoological Discovery? http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/pdf/18.1_bindernagel.pdf he lists five 'Components of the substantial body of evidence that makes the "Sasquatch Anomaly" worthy of Scrutiny.'


If this is the 'substantial body of evidence', can anyone be blamed for not scrutinizing this in the name of science?

Secondly, volume 18 includes an article by Dr. Meldrum himself.
Midfoot Flexibility, Fossil Footprints, and Sasquatch Steps: New Perspectives on the Evolution of Bipedalism. http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/pdf/18.1_meldrum.pdf

He uses much of the same photographic / artistic stuff that he uses in his NA Foot Ape article, he also used the Patterson-Gimlin Film as the basis of his article. Not to mention using Laverty's photos, and Titmus' (The Taxidermist) casting "A series of 10 sequential footprints, a number of which had been covered to protect them from the elements"

While this is typical Bigfoot-Science, it does not explain the statement "See what passes for peer review"

I am unclear if he is referring to the lack of review on the above two papers, or if he is referring to the numerous reviews of other work that are listed in Vol. 18. Here is a list; http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/pdfs TO DO/scex-18-04_729..733.pdf

Review of...
... European Cases of Reincarnation
... America's Bigfoot: Fact not Fiction
... The Beasts that Hide from Man: Seeking the World's Last Undiscovered Animals.
... Bigfoot: To Kill or Film
... The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep
... In the Footsteps of the Russian Snowman

There are many more reviews, unfortunately, the Reviews don't come up on Google Scholar to read.

Basically, I'd like to ask, is Martin Hackworth, when he says:

I would also encourage you to have a look at the /Journal of Scientific Exploration/, volume 18, for what passes for peer review in this area

Really saying, 'look at how Kooky this publication is.'? That would be my guess.

 

[William Parcher]

Bindernagel's 5 components are really two.

1. Similar anecdotal eyewitness accounts.

2. Casts of tracks.

 

[Maldon]

Why are they always pointing out that law officers have seen the critter?
Are they selected for police academy on their ability as an eyewitness?

 

[GT/CS]

Why are they always pointing out that law officers have seen the critter?
Are they selected for police academy on their ability as an eyewitness?

...and wasn't one of the Georgia Boyz a law officer?

 

[Drewbot]

It's an old 'footer trick, to cite 'trustworthier' witnesses. i.e. Cops, forestry workers, etc...

 

[kitakaze]

Park rangers and highway patrol should be seeing bigfoot all the time. They should be wondering what that guy is up to and then realize it's just another Bigfoot all the time.

 

[LTC8K6]

Associating Meldrum with the cast collection is an attempt to give them credibility they don't actually have.

The provenance of the casts is what matters, not who bought the collection.

 

[LONGTABBER PE]

Dont forget also that a good portion of these peer reviewed journals charge the author ( not pay) a page/article fee

 

[kitakaze]

Jeff Meldrum's piece on Bigfoot prints has some glaring hoaxes in it:

EVALUATION OF ALLEGED SASQUATCH FOOTPRINTS
AND THEIR INFERRED FUNCTIONAL MORPHOLOGY

Hello, glaring hoax.

Why does Meldrum believe you?

 

[GT/CS]

Jeff Meldrum's piece on Bigfoot prints has some glaring hoaxes in it:

EVALUATION OF ALLEGED SASQUATCH FOOTPRINTS
AND THEIR INFERRED FUNCTIONAL MORPHOLOGY

Hello, glaring hoax.

Why does Meldrum believe you?

It's amazing how bigfoots walk by placing their feet perfectly vertically onto the ground, and pulling them up the same way. That must make for an interesting gait!

 

[sanguine]

Dont forget also that a good portion of these peer reviewed journals charge the author ( not pay) a page/article fee

That's not particularly meaningful in terms of validity of the content. A lot of very respectable journals (e.g. The Journal of Biological Chemistry, to pick one out of a hat at random) charge page fees to defray publishing costs. As open-access journals flourish, I think it's reasonable to expect most scientific articles to have had publication costs paid for them.

Now, in a respectable journal (say, JBC again), the papers have still gone through cycles of peer review, editorial evaluation, and so forth, page fees or no. So we're back to deciding if the journal in question seems respectable, based on the merits of what it publishes.

 

[sthomson]

Drewbot - usually, when an academic questions the credentials or "peer review" standards of a journal, he's questioning two things: 1) The qualifications of the review board to make judgments on the scientific soundness of the published articles, and thereby 2) The soundness of the articles themselves. I skimmed Vol. 18 briefly and I can see why Hackwork is scoffing.

1) The purpose of the society seems to be to examine phenomenon or articles that other peer-reviewed journals won't publish, without asking, "Why weren't they published?"

2) One of the first things I look at when I read an article is "What other articles are referenced?" If a supposedly "peer-reviewed" article references articles that were not peer-reviewed, then it is definitely suspect. I believe this is probably the exception Hackwork is taking. I don't have time to go into a thorough investigation of the referenced evidence, but suffice to say that several of the articles reference online databases of Bigfoot sightings, which is by no means a reliable source of data.

 

[LONGTABBER PE]

but suffice to say that several of the articles reference online databases of Bigfoot sightings, which is by no means a reliable source of data.

Say it isnt so

 

[Drewbot]

Sthompson-
Thanks for the answers. are you seriously telling me that some of the Bigfoot articles cite the BFRO sighting database (or something similar) as a source? I didn't even notice that when I read those articles. I think I'm starting to understand what Hackworth was talking about.