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Sunday, September 15, 2013

Melba Is Toast: A Biochemist with a Ph.D. from Harvard Analyzes the Ketchum Bigfoot DNA Paper

BIGFOOT'S BLOG
Mid-September 2013 Edition


A longtime friend of mine, a tenured faculty member in biochemistry at a research university, with a Ph.D. from Harvard, has analyzed the Ketchum "Bigfoot DNA" paper, its techniques and methods, and its aftermath. Here is his statement:

"Melba Is Toast

The paper by Melba Ketchum and co-workers, published in an online journal Ketchum purchased just to publish her results, appears to be the product of careless work on impure samples and highly improbable conclusions. Here is a list of problems with the work. It is no doubt incomplete, but these are the obvious points.

1) The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method for amplifying DNA. Ketchum and her team used it to obtain analyzable amounts of DNA from their samples. Since PCR amplifies DNA exponentially, any contaminating DNA can yield artifacts. This can reveal itself in products of unexpected size and sequence. The most likely interpretation of their observation of unusual products resulting from PCR of the samples is contamination. If one is not extremely careful with how one handles the source of the DNA samples, like hair, and the isolation of the DNA and all steps prior to PCR, then contamination is not just a possibility but a likelihood. Contaminating DNA can come merely from superficial contact, as it is on skin and hair. It could already be the sample (for instance, if the animal had killed and eaten another animal). It can originate from humans handling the samples or from any other organism whose DNA is present at any point, not only on site or during transport of the sample but also in any of the labs or facilities from any material that comes into contact with the sample (bench tops, improperly washed or autoclaved tubes or other lab implements, etc.) or even from bacteria on dust particles, which can be a problem if samples are exposed to the air for long. With regard to dust particles, much of the dust present in any normal setting under non-sterile conditions comes from human skin flakes (all people are constantly shedding very tiny flakes of skin, which contain not only human DNA but also microbes that feed on the skin). So there are myriad possible sources for contaminating DNA. One must be extremely careful to minimize such contamination in handling samples, especially for a very sensitive technique like PCR.

2) Other issues that can result in strange results are degraded DNA, as well as trivial but common things such as DNA polymerase enzyme that is no longer functional because of denaturation, forgetting to add a component of a reaction like the nucleoside triphosphate cocktail, not using the right buffer, etc. Experiments can fail and yield "false negatives" in addition to "false positives" or results that are "erroneous" in that they do not reflect what one thinks one is testing. This happens all the time. It is just the nature of experimentation, where there are many variables and many things that can go wrong, often without one ever knowing what went wrong. This is why it is so critical to be very careful with samples, perform the appropriate controls and repeat the experiments several times over (at least) to see if the results are repeatable.

3) Ketchum and co-workers found some European haplotypes from sequencing of their PCR products. They conclude, implausibly, that this is supported by the Solutrean hypothesis, an obscure idea that humans came over from Europe. The only basis for this hypothesis is that tools of the Solutrean culture, which existed in Europe between 17,000 and 20,000 years ago, seem to resemble tools from the Clovis culture, which developed in North America around 13,000 years ago. There are huge problems with this hypothesis - that Europeans came to North America around 13,000 years ago and spread tool-making to the mostly Asian-derived Native American population. Most archeaological and carbon-dating experiments emphatically do not support it. So why do Ketchum and co-workers jump to the most unlikely and assumption-laden conclusion to explain their data? Applying Occam's razor - that one should first go with and test the simplest of hypotheses when there are multiple explanations for something - would lead one to conclude that the sample was contaminated by one of the team members of European extraction.

4) In addition to the genotyping and sequence analysis, Ketchum and co-workers used electron microscopy to look at the DNA samples and found that some of the DNA would base pair with one complementary strand, but other parts would not base pair with anything at all and remain single stranded or base pair with another DNA molecule. Such DNA, if it originated from a single source, would be very strange. Even if they were, as they claim, looking at DNA from a hybrid of a female human and a non-human hominid male, the DNA would form double helical molecules. (A single or very small related source of maternal inheritance is concluded by Ketchum and her team since the mitochondrial DNA is human and seems to be from one source; mitochondrial DNA, unlike nuclear DNA, is inherited exclusively from the mother.) Ketchum and her team's assumption that their data support the notion of a single or very limited mating between a female human founder and a male non-human hominid is highly problematic, to say the least. First of all, the DNA would have undergone extensive DNA recombination since the time that the human and non-human hominid mated. Secondly, for successful mating to occur, the non-human hominid would have to be very closely related to humans. In that case, the DNA, even the non-coding regions, would be very similar and hybridization between the two would occur with nucleotide mismatches not going for long stretches of DNA for any given length of DNA; mismatching resulting in looped-out single strands would therefore not be observable by electron microscopy. Thirdly, even if the mating was between a human and a relatively distantly related non-human hominid (so that there was more extensive base mismatching) and was a relatively recent mating (so that much recombination would not have occurred yet), the two complementary strands of DNA from each chromosome from both the human and non-hominid ancestor would base pair with its own perfect complement rather than the other molecule (since that would be the most stable base-pairing pattern).

5) To reiterate and add to some points above related to the way their conclusions were an implausible stretch of the imagination, only relatively related species can mate and have fertile offspring. So the DNA should be very closely related one to the other. Even if they were more distantly related and bore fertile offspring, the sequences would be highly similar due to DNA recombination (and after 13,000 years or many hundreds of generations, there would be extensive recombination). Another weird assumption they make is that, while the hybridization resulted in fertile offspring, the offspring then did not mate with other pure humans or pure non-human hominid. Why did the hybridization occur only once or a limited number of times at the same period and place? Why was the hybridization confined to a human female and male non-human hominid? Why not a female non-human hominid and male human also (which is ruled out, even in their strange paradigm, by their not seeing non-human mitochondrial DNA)? How was an initial population big enough to support a breeding population generated? Obviously, there would have to have then been a lot of inbreeding, but how were enough even generated from a limited hybridization to lead to a non-out-breeding Sasquatch lineage from 13,000 years ago to the present? If the non-human hominid could breed with a human, why did it only breed with a supposed European-derived human in America 13,000 years ago and not also with Asian-derived humans, who obviously came over the ice bridge from Siberia to establish the Native American genome (by the way, there is no evidence of the presumed European ancestor in the Native American genome at all)? Also, why would all of the hybrids go off, live an isolated existence and not leave tangible evidence of this existence? What happened to the presumed non-human hominid that was the male founder of the Sasquatch lineage? It went extinct without leaving any archaeological or anthropological evidence of its existence? One could go on. It's all so very unlikely. It's a house of cards made of one flimsy card after another. It defies all evidence, any logic and is the product of pure faith.

6) A more minor point is that the Ketchum paper contains mistakes in interpretation or representation of the published literature. This reflects poor scholarship. In addition, there are many typos in Ketchum's response to the reviewers that was leaked. While this in and of itself does not necessarily mean that their handling of the samples or conclusions was sloppy (the above points do), it does show that they can be hasty, not pay attention to details and make statements without thinking too deeply about them. It is only human to view someone who is sloppy about a lot of little things as sloppy in big ways too, and it is often a correct conclusion.

It appears almost certain that the team was dealing with mixed samples of DNA, including contamination from team members or other people who may have handled the samples, and that they grasped at the least plausible answers to their results over and over again. They wanted to prove the existence of Sasquatch. Moreover, they were willing to go to very strange "places" in their interpretation of data that again and again most likely reflected contaminated DNA samples. They kept looking at the data and saying how can this prove that Sasquatch exists, reaching the least likely conclusions to support a more and more outlandish Sasquatch. This creature is as unlikely as the proverbial little green men."



37 comments:

  1. fyi, 'caucasian' skeletons have been found in North America pre-dating the arrival of Asiatics. One in Chile is the oldest known human in the Americas. Kennewick man is also caucasian. The Solutrean culture in EU and the Clovis culture could have originated from the same Siberian stock, since caucasians halotypes are also found in far eastern Siberia.

    Another thing - how do you explain the consistency of results generated by Ketchum's efforts? The potential PCR problems and contamination you mention would not yield 'clean' DNA.

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    Replies
    1. > Kennewick man is also caucasian.

      Wasn't that an early view, with the consensus now that Kennewick was descended from Asians?

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    2. Kennewick man was not caucasian. He is related to the Moriori (Polynesians of the Chatham Is) and the Ainu of the coastal areas of mainland Asia. No caucasian skeletons have been recorded in the Americas prior to the arrival of the Siberian ancestors of the NA's. The oldest human remains known and dated in the Americas, unless one has been found that I am unaware of, were discovered in an underwater cave in Cancun, Mexico, of a female known as the Naharon Woman, estimated to be from 11,600-13,000 ybp. Clovis originated in North America. On the East coast of North America, however, artifacts similar to those of the Solutrean culture, including some made from material only available from Southern France (Solutrean culture was in the area of the Iberian Peninsula - France, Spain, & Portugal), have been unearthed and dated by a team that included a scientist from the Smithsonian at 19,000 to 29,000 ybp, making that the oldest evidence of human occupation in the Western hemisphere, and nearly 20,000 years before the first Asians crossed the Bearing land mass. If you want to credit caucasians with arriving somewhere on this side of the world before anyone else, that is the place and time you need to focus on, not the West coast. They would have had to cross the entire continent of Asia plus sail across the Pacific to get there, but they simply had to follow the pack ice from Europe to North America during the latter part of the last ice age to get to the East coast.

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  2. Part 1

    1. Please name this friend so we may examine his/her credentials.
    2. These comments obvious originated from the first peer review done by the Journal Nature that were unethical leaked by one of the reviews.
    3. The Novel North American Hominins, Next Generation Sequencing of Three Whole Genomes and Associated Studies was revised twice since this review.
    4. All of his concerns were addressed ad nauseum in both the DNA Study and the peer reviews responses yet your "expert" predictably ignores them and the documentation.

    Below is a paragraph from Dr. Ketchum's cover letter to the Journal Nature dated December 19th, 2012. It addresses most of the concerns of your unknown friend with a "Ph.D. from Harvard"
    Reviewers accused our genomes of having contamination even though we went to great lengths to explain how the samples were extracted and screened to rule out contamination. To tell us, as scientists, especially those of us that are forensic scientists, that our samples are contaminated can be likened to accusing us of hoaxing a scientific study or perjuring ourselves in court. As forensic scientists that testify in court, this can be highly damaging and has caused all of the authors tremendous worry and concern. Since we were not given a chance to defend ourselves on the second peer review and our manuscript refused because of these
    accusations (since all other revisions were verbiage and extremely minor), we contacted Illumina (manufacturers of the HiSeq 2000 next generation sequencing platform that we used to sequence the genomes) in an effort to prove, once and for all, that the three genomes were single source and not contaminated. We spoke with two supervisors specializing in technical support for next generation
    DNA Diagnostics
    P.O. Box 805
    Garrison, Texas 75946
    1-936-554-2116
    http:www.dnadiagnostics.com
    sequencing. We asked them if it was possible to prove if there was contamination in a genome or not. They immediately answered “yes”! They told us that the average Q30 score for a genome was 85, but if there was contamination, which would cause the divergent sequences to compete against one another, that a contaminated sample would have a Q30 score of only 40 to 50. A pure, single source sample would have a Q30 score of about 85. When we checked our Q30 scores for the first read, our three genomes had Q30 scores of 92, 88 and 89 respectively. The second read was a little lower 88, 84.25 and 83.66 but still very close to the average of 85. The Q30 is the percent of the reads that have the statistical probability greater than 1:1000 of being correctly sequenced.
    Therefore, with the help of the scientists at Illumina, it was determined that not only were the sequences from a single source, but the quality of the sequences were far above the average genome sequenced using their platform. I can furnish contact information if you desire it. We attribute the high quality of the genomes to the stringent extraction procedures utilized whereby the DNA was repeatedly purified. This gave us greater than 30X coverage of the three genomes.

    Furthermore, it supported our original findings of human mitochondrial DNA since the whole genomes yielded human mitochondrial DNA consistent with the original individual mtDNA genome sequencing. The nuDNA findings were also supported in that there was novel primate sequence in the nuDNA. So, the original submission was indeed supported by the next generation sequencing that we included in the revised submission. The three genomes aligned with one another also supporting that all three genomes came from the same species and they were NOT contaminated. Most importantly, the Q30 scores absolutely disproved the reviewers’ assumption that the whole genomes were a mixture of
    human with animal DNA contaminants. The summary of the next generation
    sequencing generated by the Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencer is now furnished as Supplementary Data 7 to support this discussion that is now included in our manuscript, Lines 544-558

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dr.rhys drojyka. Petro can geologist canadian oil research team. Well funded and educated.

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    2. I found no results for "Dr. rhys drojyka" and don't know what you refer to by posting the above. Can you explain?

      Delete
  3. Part 2


    Rebuttal for Item #1 from Dr. Ketchum's Peer Review
    We have now included Figures 7 and 13 that show the quality of the DNA
    on yield gels. There was little to no smearing and the DNA was pristine. This supports the fact that the DNA was not degraded enough to mar the results. We sequenced 30 mitochondrial whole and partial genomes and they were all homologous with modern human mtDNA. We also
    sequenced several nuclear loci from the same extractions which encompassed a number of long sequences up to 900 bases. It is difficult to amplify and sequence long amplicons with degraded
    DNA. In order to ascertain if the novel nuclear DNA was an anomaly, we used next generation sequencing to generate 3 whole genomes to determine if the nuclear DNA was indeed novel. If the DNA was badly degraded, the sequencing of whole genomes would have been impossible.
    The 3 extractions utilized for next generation whole genome sequencing passed all quality controls in our laboratory and the university core laboratory prior to sequencing. The libraries generated from these samples also passed stringent quality control measures in the core
    laboratory prior to the next generation sequencing. If the libraries had not passed QC, the sequencing would not have been performed. We have furnished 9 phylogenetic trees (mitochondrial and nuclear) to support the results of this study.

    Rebuttal Item 2 - from Dr. Ketcum's Peer Review
    We have added Figure 13 to show the level of degradation of the human
    control sample in comparison with some of the Sasquatch samples in the study. We have added 3 whole genomes that were successfully sequenced using next generation sequencing technology. These genomes supported our previous data and were novel. Furthermore, we haveadded photos of the raw extracted DNA on agarose to support the quality of the DNA.

    Rebuttal for Item 3 - from Dr. Ketcum's Peer Review
    We now have two samples that did yield American Indian haplotypes.
    These were late arriving samples and were added to the manuscript. As far as when this species arrived in the United States, we do not know, however due to H haplotypes in their mitochondrial DNA, the age of these hominins is less than 15,000 years. However, they could have arrived in the United States before Native American peoples according to the Solutrean Theory now added as a reference in this manuscript. As far as the mitochondrial DNA being homologous to human, we used next generation whole genome sequencing on three samples. The mitochondrial DNA sequences were extracted from the genomes and all three were consistent with the same human mtDNA sequence previously sequenced in the beginning of our
    study. The nuDNA however, was a mosaic of human sequence interspersed with novel sequence related to primate lineage. This supports the previous findings reported in the original manuscript.

    Rebuttal for Item 4 - Dr Ketchum's Peer Review
    The electron microscopy was not intended to provide species identification
    but was included as supporting evidence for the unusual behavior of the amplified DNA. We have further addressed this in the revised manuscript.

    Items 5 and 6 are the unknown "PhD from Harvard's" personal opinions based on the fact he can't except the odd nature of the NOVEL DNA so it must be contaminated, hoaxed, of a flawed process.

    I find it VERY interesting that this unknown "PhD from Harvard" had remarkably similar criticisms of the DNA Study as did the Referees in the leaked Peer Review from the Journal Nature. Makes one wonder if this "PhD from Harvard" is actually a composite character constructed from the leaked Peer Review to for the express purpose of defaming the study and Dr Ketchum? Especially when no one is will to put their actually name on a detailed analytical criticism of the Study......


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  4. Look at this ridiculous conspiracy theory (from Bigfoot Evidence comments):

    "Anonymous Monday, September 16, 2013 at 1:44:00 PM PDT
    "I find it VERY interesting that this unknown "PhD from Harvard" had remarkably similar criticisms of the DNA Study as did the Referees in the leaked Peer Review from the Journal Nature. Makes one wonder if this "PhD from Harvard" is actually a composite character constructed from the leaked Peer Review to for the express purpose of defaming the study and Dr Ketchum? Especially when no one is will to put their actually name on a detailed analytical criticism of the Study...... "

    THIS IS A REAL PERSON, NOT A COMPOSITE.
    HE WAS NOT, I REPEAT NOT, INVOLVED IN THE "PEER REVIEW" AT NATURE OR ANYWHERE ELSE.
    HIS VIEWS ARE BASED UPON READING THE PAPER AND SUBSEQUENT AFTER-STATEMENTS BY KETCHUM.
    THE PURPOSE OF THE ESSAY IS TO HONOR REAL SCIENCE, AND TO DEBUNK FALSE SCIENCE.

    I am talking to him now. He may come forward with his name. I have known this person since high school. He went to Harvard. He is currently employed at a research university. He chose anonymity precisely because he wanted to distance himself from the ridiculous conspiracy theory and accusations that were bound to come from certain elements of the Bigfooting community, as are clearly seen above.

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    1. If he is real then Dr. Ketchum has already addressed his concerns Ad nauseam. IMHO "he" is not being intellectually honest. I will be very interested in who he is so we may check his background, find out his personal beliefs, see if any of his friends are willing to stab him in the back, check out all his personal affiliations, see what political groups he is a member of, etc etc....I do not see why he should not be given the same treatment Dr. Ketchum was given in the interest of fairness and impartiality. And I still think his critical points were very similar to the Journal Nature referees so I still wonder if he had a leaked copy of the peer reviews to draw his criticism from, and it is a valid question whether you want to admit it or not....

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    2. He is real. A real guy. A professor at a research university. All of your conspiracy theory and special pleading cannot change that. Of COURSE he does not want to be stalked by the likes of you, nor have to deal ad nauseum with irrational Bigfooters. He simply looked at the science of the paper and the other statements and documents, and expressed his reservations as a professional scientist in the area of biochemistry. He pointed out common problems and errors that occur, and the almost certainly did occur, in his opinion. He had access to the leaked copy of the NATURE stuff, only as it was released PUBLICLY via Robert Lindsay's blog. He had access to your blog, Scott Carpenter, as well. There is no conspiracy theory. Ask just about any legitimate scientist and you will get the same answers, as Science does not bend to whatever one wants to believe; it deals in facts and predictable processes of analysis. Ketchum is not a research scientist at the level of my friend. She is a vocational veterinary doctor, and runs a genetics lab that sends samples out to real labs for sequencing. Her BBB rating alone should be enough to understand her qualifications: "F".

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    3. "Joe," she CLAIMS to have addressed his concerns, but according to my friend, she has not ADEQUATELY addressed them, and in fact has committed some kind of scientific cover-up of her errors and asserted things that simply are not substantiated. I will see if he will come here and comment further on these matters, but he is a busy guy with a lab to run and courses to teach. Not everyone has someone like Wally paying them nearly half a million bucks to foist a crap paper and flawed hypothesis upon the world, you know.

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  5. Not picking sides as there are descriptiveness on both sides of the fence, but their is more reason
    to believe that people sabotaged the study by leaks injecting false statements and the like,There
    are people out there making a fortune by NOT finding Bigfoot.
    on the other side, their were some well respected people that removed themselves from the study
    and recently made statements,One is Derek Randles, witch i believe is one of the most if the most
    respectable people in the field, and for him to actually come forward, makes me believe Melba is as
    difficult to deal with as the rumors suggest. If someone else was put in charge of the project, that wasn't so obsessed with taking all the credit and being first, it would of had a more favorable outcome.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Just about EVERYONE who was involved has defected. I mean, Sally, Linda Thompson, Derek Randles, Rhettman Mullis, Richard Stubstad, Java Bob Schmalzbach, Justin Smeja, Bart Cutino, and yes, the guy who funded the darn thing, Wally Hersom. Adrian Erickson has vanished. Look who is left... "Joe Black," the blobsquatcher otherwise known as Scott Carpenter, and well not many more. This thing is dead in the water, and starting to really stink to high heaven.

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  7. That critique of her paper was superficial at best and ignorant at worst. I would respect someone who actually addressed ALL the points Ketchum went to lengths to detail and pointed out where she, and all the other laboratories who did the work for her, were wrong. One of the strengths of her work is the consistency of results from different organisations. Or are we to presume that they all made gross mistakes. Until someone steps up to the plate and gets a sample from her and does an independent analysis to make or break the paper, this use of anonymous commentators making half baked analyses is just a nonsense and insulting. I don't care if this person is your kid brother, the public deserves an intellectually honest and comprehensive answer and not more of the ad hominems that are being trotted out. I have yet to see one decent and complete rebuttal. She could well have made mistakes but not doing a rebuttal properly is scientific hypocrisy. What do you say if Sykes does have similar results from hairs which in some cases would have come from the same sources as Ketchum used. Lambast him as well? I think some of the PhD's need to be very careful and be prepared to own their comments. After all they are attempting to destroy someone else's career. In fact they are impuning the careers of every co-author. They at least had the conviction to put their names to the paper. AS it stands from my perspective we have a large groups of named scientists and institutions on one side and your unnamed contributor of the other. They are winning hands down so far in the credibility stakes. Presumptions are not a scientific argument.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Must I always say it? Truth and reality and science are NOT about "people." It is not as if anyone is "out to get" or "destroy" Ketchum. Science simply wants true things, proven things, and is by its very nature going to try to dismantle any claim made by any researcher that is not clearly proven. This is, in fact, what Ketchum should have tried to do to her own hypotheses. Instead, she had a preconceived notion, and they ridiculously tried to bend the evidence to support that idea. No matter how hard she tries, one simply cannot turn a bear, man or dog into a "Bigfoot." Those are the facts, and she has done nothing to prove anything otherwise.

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    2. Excuse me, Anonymous, above, BUT... WHO is "out there making a fortune by NOT finding Bigfoot" now? Really? So far the only person I see making a fortune is Melba, in what she took from Wally.

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  8. This is fun.
    Steven,
    I myself am a composite anonymous, and I have to say that for the study to be dead in the water, you and your friend should address the concrete rebuttals, not the identities of posters.
    I believe your friend could be real, just not willing to really get into this which is a lot of serious work - required if a real name is to be given
    "Joe Black" made a mistake of making irrelevant identity claims, so you could jump on that and ignore the rebuttals.

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    1. Yes, that is a straw man and red herring attack. The fact is he is not a professional or trained biologist, and really is not capable nor qualified to analyze what my friend the biologist has said. Scott Carpenter/Joe Black is a propagandist for Ketchum. He is repeating her talking points, and that is really all there is to it.

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    2. You your"self" are a "composite." Seems like an oxymoron doesn't it?

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  9. He says he needs the full data set to say anything further. Apparently Ketchum has not provided these ostensible "complete genomes" even to the suckers foolishly forking over thirty bucks to support this pseudo-scientific scam. If she wants so badly to be taken seriously, she should be open with her data and the remaining samples and provide them for verifying or refuting scrutiny. She hasn't even provided these to Wally, the man who gave her $450,000.00 to do this study.

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    1. Not so sure you're entirely right about Wally and not providing data...
      If he contacted her personally, name attached, he might have it all.
      Some of the support she's got - she got exactly that way.
      Anyway, this is rather fair of you now:
      you are basically openly admitting that your friend will not disclose his name without the full data because without it - his evaluation is basically of no merit, so he can not disclose his name and stand behind it.
      Nice. And fun.

      You should not have published this at all, without the name.
      You should have tried to get the full genomes and make your friend work a bit more.

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    2. WALLY *DID* CONTACT HER PERSONALLY. ARE YOU KIDDING? HE WAS THE ONE *PAYING* HER TO DO THIS PROJECT.

      The biologist above does not want to disclose his name, and that is his prerogative; it has NOTHING to do with the validity of his evaluation or his scientific opinion and knowledge. That is a false connection and fallacious. On the basic level this is a valid, publishable opinion and evaluation. If KETCHUM would release the full DATA then he could do more. But as she will not, he cannot. THAT is the situation as it stands, and your casuistry won't change that. It is HER job to prove her extraordinary claims and provide the data to support them. It is not my friend's job to get what he needs from her for a real genomic analysis if she has not already willingly and openly released it.

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    3. I respect the fact that you allow my comments.
      What I'm saying is that I have never seen a credible source for this Wally affair. So many things seem to be taken for granted in this story, but only and all of them of the anti-Ketchum type. Maybe I missed something? Sorry if I did.
      Since I’m already talking “taken-for-granted”: while in the basic level the opinion of somebody you say is a expert is a valid, publishable opinion and evaluation, on a not-so-basic level, a scientific one, it is of no merit whatsoever. Ketchum published her work in a new magazine she herself owns (getting into the question of its previous existence, peer review etc is totally irrelevant now) and she was bashed brutally. And there are names of other people and labs. Imagine she published her entire paper anonymously. And your friend didn’t even publish a paper. It’s an opinion.
      The “whole data” reminder: David Swenson, immeasurably more qualified than me and you and surely more than anybody anonymous, had the data and fully supported her. How come?
      So she has all the reasons to claim that she did provided the data and proof for her extraordinary claims, but nobody really wants to really review it.

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    4. Bart Cutino and Derek Randles, Wally's closest associates in Bigfooting... they are the source. It is true. On Melba's end, there are several who were involved also now confirming it publicly.
      The samples have been reviewed... bear, man, and dog.
      What can I say further? It's over.

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    5. "Bart Cutino and Derek Randles, Wally's closest associates in Bigfooting... they are the source." Exactly my point. They might not be his closest associates any more, as far as we know. They might be associates of another "soon to be published" researcher now. Who can you trust these days, with Nobel prize and place in History at stake?
      Bear, man, and dog - MK repeatedly answered those in a way even you or I can understand.
      Please dont be so sure, you're a smart man.

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  10. RIDICULOUS CONSPIRACY THEORY FROM THE BIGFOOT EVIDENCE COMMENTS:
    Anonymous:
    "How could you seriously expect a mainstream scientist to say any differently, since they're part of the cover-up. Streufert of course is just a henchman and stool pigeon for the plot, same as this blog's eternal attempts at smearing these results because they obviously must be true. Attack Ketchum attack PGF, attack everything that's real and bother not with the hundreds of fakes. We know mainstream science is embedded like the press and the media therefore the whole covering up is going according to plan. In other words, intelligent people still follow Ketchum and disregard fakers like the (secretly) government founded BFRO, etc. So basically, the faking goes on to hide and obscure these beings. Next."

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  11. ABSURD AD HOMINEM FROM THE BIGFOOT EVIDENCE COMMENTS:
    AnonymousMonday, September 16, 2013 at 10:01:00 AM PDT
    "In the photos of Streufert I have seen he has a look on his face like he just burned down someones house and got away with it. Surprised anyone would listen too closely to what he has to say.
    Chick"

    Ha ha ha.

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  12. And STILL, the world's champion at hide-and-go-seek, Bigfoot. Let's have some definitive evidence that is REAL. Capture one. No grainy photos or videos, no in-question DNA, let's have the real deal. Catch one. THEN the world will believe. Until then, I do give you credit for a wild imagination.

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  13. Damned Americans... there was no Bering Sea landbridge if you researched in the world as a total you would be more informed.

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    Replies
    1. Can you explain what you mean here, and why you would wish to deny this pretty darn convincing thing, which is seen in the fossil record, with a forest evident there from when it was land and not covered by water? I'm puzzled, frankly.

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  14. I find it funny that you whole heartly believe a "mindspeaker" such as Sally Ramey. After you have thrown other's under the bus. She knew she wasn't gonna get a piece of the pie, so she jumped ship. She's a PR JUNKIE. Funny how she's working with Bigfootology now. Hmm must be useing her so called "mindspeak" there also. Looking for a handout.

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    1. I'm afraid you just don't know what you are talking about here. Sally is smart, critical thinking and seriously engaged with the investigation of this phenomenon. I don't mind that she has associated with Ketchum or Janice Carter. It is in the rational approach to things that I find her worthy, whatever side beliefs she might hold with which I don't agree. I've never "thrown under the bus" anyone... they do a find job of that themselves, and I just sit here and point it out when they violate the boundaries of logic and sanity. Handout? What does that even mean? It is folks like Ketchum who are standing on the welfare line at Wally's door.

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  15. Don't mean to crash the party, but if anyone is interested in another opinion, or would like to join in on a few other conversations...Go to bigfootfinder.com --- Also, I noticed your Harry and the Henderson's pic up on the left....Reminded me of this! http://teespring.com/henderson

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  16. Didn’t know if you caught this Steven. Pretty much confirms everything you said about Wally and Derek.

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  17. Well, Dave Paulides says he has 30+ samples of supposed bigfoot hairs and such that he has been trying to get a university to run DNA tests on, and he says they all refuse to touch it. Contact him through his website http://www.nabigfootsearch.com/directors_message_1.html and lets get to the bottom of this!

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    1. ACTUALLY, Paulides was the co-founder of the horribly failed Melba Ketchum Bigfoot DNA study. Any viable samples that he had could have been submitted there and covered by the largesse of donors like Wally Hersom and Adrian Erickson, who together paid over half a million into that debacle. His samples are indeed "supposed bigfoot," meaning they are likely bear or human or other common animal, like the rest turned out to be.

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  18. Haha ofcurse it's Harvard you morons because she will prove that humans are hybrids and will put all these f#cking fakes out of business! So yea it make sense the fakes will attack her. Get lost moron it's out there keep kicking and screaming sooner or later yall be smoked out

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