The Ketchum Paper - What the experts say.

First up is Richard Gibbs, one of the key scientists behind the Human Genome Project and director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine:

“As a scientist I would consider anything.The currency of scientific advance is keeping your skepticism at bay. You have to approach these things incredibly agnostically. As I read the paper I asked, is the evidence here compelling? I don’t know. Is there clear evidence of fraud? That’s not apparent. It’s an intriguing hypothesis. One would need to view more sequencing information before supporting the conclusions.”

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Next is the view from Leonid Kruglyak, a Princeton University geneticist:


“To state the obvious, no data or analyses are presented that in any way support the claim that their samples come from a new primate or human-primate hybrid. Instead, analyses either come back as 100% human, or fail in ways that suggest technical artifacts. They make the bizarre claim that the failures might be caused by novel, nonstandard structure of the DNA (“Electron micrographs of the DNA revealed unusual double strand – single strand – double strand transitions which may have contributed to the failure to amplify during PCR.”) which would mean this DNA was different from DNA in all other known species. There’s also the strange statement they couldn’t deposit sequences in GenBank because it’s a new/unknown taxon — GenBank does that no problem.”

“The tree in Fig 16 is inconsistent with known primate phylogeny and generally makes no sense.”

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Here’s the view from Todd Disotell, a human origins expert at New York University who has previously tested dozens of DNA samples from people claiming to have Bigfoot DNA.


“It’s clearly a fake Vanity Journal with lots of ShutterStock pictures, misspellings and it was only created on 2/4/13. I’ve only read the abstract and conclusion and neither makes any sense.”


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Will says:

February 14, 2013 at 8:30 am


I have no idea why Richard Gibbs was so charitable. I can only imagine that he didn’t take the time to read any of the paper. I read as much of it as I could until the sheer weight of the BS became unbearable. Yes, I do have a PhD in genetics and do feel qualified to say that the manuscript is utter nonsense.

It’s an intriguing hypothesis. One would need to view more sequencing information before supporting the conclusions.”

“It’s clearly a fake Vanity Journal with lots of ShutterStock pictures, misspellings and it was only created on 2/4/13. I’ve only read the abstract and conclusion and neither makes any sense.”

CMcMillan wrote:Its funny the one Scientist you quoted says its interesting.

It’s an intriguing hypothesis. One would need to view more sequencing information before supporting the conclusions.”

CMcMillan wrote:And yet has anyone asked her for samples yet?

There’s also the strange statement they couldn’t deposit sequences in GenBank because it’s a new/unknown taxon — GenBank does that no problem

Jeff Meldrum wrote:The journal was created on a GoDaddy template on Feb 4, by a third party, with a one-year contract. There is no information about who is editing the "journal" or who the members of an editorial board might be. I queried the contact feature on this matter but have received no reply. This does not appear to be a refereed journal. It appears to merely be a front for a self-published report. The sequences have not been uploaded to Genbank.

Steve Streufert wrote:I've said this many times before, and I'll say it again:
Ketchum may indeed have real Bigfoot samples, but she clearly screwed up the scientific process in many ways, and seems to have an extremely naive interpretation of what the data mean. This will become clear when real scientists get a hold of that data. Even then, it is possible that this flawed study could lead to the proof of the possible Sasquatch species. Personally, I would love to see that happen.

GenBank Data Usage

The GenBank database is designed to provide and encourage access within the scientific community to the most up to date and comprehensive DNA sequence information. Therefore, NCBI places no restrictions on the use or distribution of the GenBank data. However, some submitters may claim patent, copyright, or other intellectual property rights in all or a portion of the data they have submitted. NCBI is not in a position to assess the validity of such claims, and therefore cannot provide comment or unrestricted permission concerning the use, copying, or distribution of the information contained in GenBank.

online self-publication

CMcMillan wrote:

online self-publication

So according to that one Person.
Anyone who self Publish is not a real writer either.
Guess Amazon should remove all the self Publishing e-pubs.

Running the data

Normally, publishers require genetic sequences to be submitted to a public database before a paper's publication, but there's a slight hitch here: the big public database requires a species identification, and sasquatch isn't officially a species. While the research team works on sorting out the species issues, it has provisionally settled on Homo sapiens cognatus. Some of the sequence data from the alleged bigfoot is available as downloadable supplements.

CMcMillan wrote:when 1 so called expert says she didn't load it to the bank you say see its not good science.
Yet she doesn't have too.

CMcMillan wrote:

Running the data

Normally, publishers require genetic sequences to be submitted to a public database before a paper's publication, but there's a slight hitch here: the big public database requires a species identification, and sasquatch isn't officially a species. While the research team works on sorting out the species issues, it has provisionally settled on Homo sapiens cognatus. Some of the sequence data from the alleged bigfoot is available as downloadable supplements.

No, she really, really has to. Her paper is useless without it since the DNA sequence is the empirical evidence for her arguments. If she doesn't share the data then she hasn't presented any evidence to back up her claims and she's just spinning wild stories without any proof.
Sharing the data is the entire point of her five years of research and the entire reason that people have been waiting for DNA evidence of Bigfoot.

Thanks for the personal abuse, you're really classy.

CMcMillan wrote:She can say f'u to the whole thing. Yes it is in her best Interest too upload it.

CMcMillan wrote:But as I showed from one of your own LINKS. They don't have a classification for her to upload it too.

CMcMillan wrote:Just as classy as you are.
Inferring that I am trolling because you don't like the information I am posting.

If a paper is peer reviewed does that mean it's correct?

In a word: Nope.

Moreover, it has been suggested that peer review is not always good at detecting fraud, particularly in the case of articles submitted to scientific journals. One reason for this is that the reviewers often do not have immediate or full access to the data on which the articles are based (except perhaps in fields such as mathematics where it is easy to provide the data and attempt to replicate the results). However, longer term peer review (i.e., after the articles have been published) has proven to be much better at detecting fraud.

Unfortunately, this is "science" we are talking about, which is a construct of Man, and therefore susceptible to all of Man's short comings.

I myself have had things that were evident, strong, and well demonstrated, but rejected, either due to political reasons of the reviewer (e.g. delay my publication so they could do the same project and publish first, or I was stepping into their territory) or due to the reviewer's own lack of knowledge. The basic solution is to refute the reviewers claims and for the editor to find another. I have heard from Ketchum that so many reviewers treated it as a joke, that the editors just gave up. What good is science when it is being run by children?

Yep, she did buy the journal. I'm not sure what the original name was, but it was supposed to become the American equivalent of Nature, focused on cutting edge, general interest research.

The plan was to continue collecting articles and make a proper publication, but Ketchum became convinced that another paper on bigfoot DNA is coming out on Feb. 15th, and so she rushed the release of her paper. It would be great if another paper is released soon.

I have independent analysis of our data going on. If the outcome of what we are doing supports our analysis, then we are vindicated. If not, then I will announce that also. It involves top level scientists that have volunteered after I released the paper. If their findings are the same, they will go public. So, please be patient. They also will assure upload to GenBank and they can make that happen. - Dr. Melba Ketchum

CMcMillan wrote:http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2013/02/ketchum-is-now-all-in-with-her-bigfoot.html

I have independent analysis of our data going on. If the outcome of what we are doing supports our analysis, then we are vindicated. If not, then I will announce that also. It involves top level scientists that have volunteered after I released the paper. If their findings are the same, they will go public. So, please be patient. They also will assure upload to GenBank and they can make that happen. - Dr. Melba Ketchum

CMcMillan wrote:Then your not looking or Reading.

Several People have said the Science seems good.
They don't agree with her conclusions or some find them Intresting.

CMcMillan wrote:How about you look around on your own.
You really have no desire to look at it objectively.

BurdenOfProof wrote:

CMcMillan wrote:http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2013/02/ketchum-is-now-all-in-with-her-bigfoot.html

I have independent analysis of our data going on. If the outcome of what we are doing supports our analysis, then we are vindicated. If not, then I will announce that also. It involves top level scientists that have volunteered after I released the paper. If their findings are the same, they will go public. So, please be patient. They also will assure upload to GenBank and they can make that happen. - Dr. Melba Ketchum

You know what that sounds like? A PEER REVIEW!! ahaha.

Not sure whats going on now, apparently before hand scientists refused to review it or publish it but now apparently shes has found some that will review it? No names of course. The whole thing is just crazy.

BurdenOfProof wrote:Has anyone heard of any scientists that have good things to say about the paper because I cant find any?