Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum - America's "Bigfoot Professor"

[The Shrike]

I don't find bigfoot to be an impossibility, simply because we have multiple species that we know existed in the past that could potentially fit some descriptions of "bigfoot" if they were encountered alive today. Gigantopithecus might be one, I'm not sure about that. Other potential creatures that might be called a bigfoot include other hominins like Homo erectus, Australopithecines, etc. Of course, none of them furnish a satisfying match on all counts. For example, Australopithecines kind of look like how bigfoots are often described but they're way too small. Nonetheless, a potential antecedent in the fossil record makes the existence of a creature more likely than one without it. To me, there are potential bigfoot antecedents - your mileage may vary. In contrast, there are no antecedents for something like the New Jersey Devil.

In terms of probability, what does that mean? I give both bigfoot and New Jersey Devil zero probability of existing in North America, but I might consider bigfoot theoretically possible and New Jersey Devil impossible. Does that mean that the probability I assign for bigfoot's existence should be marginally higher than that I assign for the devil, say 0.00000001 compared to 0.00000000?

[Natural Born Skeptic]

So how many more pages are some of you folks going to debate the mathematical probability of big foot? This thread should be retitled "intellectual masturbation" .

[GT/CS]

It's interesting that masterbation is the first thing you thought of.

[parnassus]

and that an intellectual would be the object of it.

[The Shrike]

I can't tell if I feel violated or flattered now. Maybe it's both . . .

[Natural Born Skeptic]

Did I say there was anything wrong with intellectual masturbation ? It's perfectly natural and healthy.

[Correa Neto]

I will not masturbate any intellectual other than me.

[AttorneyTom]

"Bigfoot or Sasquatch, as some people prefer to refer to this Creature has been known to self pleasure with various primative devices using the roots of natural tubers such as the wild carrot , pine cones and also chimpmunks.."

Your "expert" of choice on the topic.

and no I did not misp. chipmunks.. jsyk.

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Ray, there isn't an evolutionary law that says a population has to change. If the selective pressures remain constant there isn't reason to evolve further if they are already optimal for their environmental niche.

Bacteria are stable for billions of years, remaining the same for trillions of generations or something like that. Sharks have been around for half a billion years. The coelocanth has been around in its present form for almost the same length of time. So what?

It is much less common now than then, apparently restricted to a much smaller area where no scientists studying fish fossils live. So you had scientists who were aware of fossils of this fish, but no knowledge of a living specimen beginning in about 1839. At the close of the cretaceous a lot of species died out, including the dinosaurs, so it is unsurprising that the scientists just assumed it went extinct with so many other things, as they continued to find fossils but not living specimens.

Well, in that very same year of 1839 (the first fossil coelocanth written of), families around the Indian Ocean were sitting down to occasional fine meals of this big, beautiful fish. And mountain gorillas were common knowledge to the tribes of the Virunga Volcanos area too. (The skulls were a fetish for some of them, or witchcraft, and the meat eaten.)

So too with other species. We finally have scientists, inexorably cataloging every fish the fishermen are bringing in across the world, and the coelocanth is discovered to exist to this day, thirty years after the mountain gorilla and almost a hundred years since the first fossil was found. I don't know what year anyone at all started asserting the coelocanth was extinct. Do you?

The history of this fish is that Louis Agazzis is digging into some rock of northern England in 1839 and finds this fossil in the Permian layer, a couple or three hundred million years ago. He finds this coelocanth fossil. He doesn't know where any live specimens are, and neither does any other scientist until 1932. At some point between 1839 and 1932 scientists are not seeing live coelocanth ,and the last layer they find them in is that C-Y boundary. So a consensus develops they are probably extinct.

This condition held then for a matter of mere decades at most: scientists thinking something was extinct when it was not. It was relatively rare but not uncommon in its prime habitat.

This is the argument from personal incredulity, but maybe with this additional fallacy: it almost sounds like scientists thought it was extinct for 65 million years. Well, no - for some decades a consensus developed that something was extinct, and later specimens were found in an isolated area.

Moreover, the first specimen was found off the coast of Africa but was unpreserved so the search to preserve a specimen was concentrated there. As it turns out they are more common to the Indian Ocean area so here again it is no surprise that it took over ten years to find another one. They didn't have coelocanth expeditions. A museum curator simply goes to his fishermen buddies to look at unusual catches. A coelocanth is seen and described. Another scientist sees the report and urges them to preserve the next specimen they find and word is put out to the fisherman of a reward. But it is in the wrong area. As soon as flyers went up where the fish was more common, it was brought in within one fishing season.

Compare this with bigfoot. No peoples of the pacific northwest, in their entire histories, have been hunting and eating bigfoot, using the skulls for spells and sex potions etc. There are zero people to find that have customs we are unaware of. There is no fossil bigfoot that has scientists declaring it extinct.

So the coelocanth is a great big yawner, statistically speaking. It happened just like you would expect for a fish that was common pre-cretaceous and got hit really hard from the asteroid impact, but some very small population survived and is found in an isolated area of the Indian Ocean.

[parnassus]

I don't expect Meldrum is going to talk about feet at the conference, but rather rehash those snoozers he put up on the RHI. I'll have to check the schedule but if he talks after lunch he may have tolerate some snoring, at least until the Q and A's. He shouldn't be irritated... look at it this way: if I snore, it keeps the rest of the audience awake. Just ask my wife.

[AttorneyTom]

Originally Posted by parnassus

I don't expect Meldrum is going to talk about feet at the conference, but rather rehash those snoozers he put up on the RHI. I'll have to check the schedule but if he talks after lunch he may have tolerate some snoring, at least until the Q and A's. He shouldn't be irritated... look at it this way: if I snore, it keeps the rest of the audience awake. Just ask my wife.

I think they would be used to people snoring during these "important events". Just be careful not to have any pens or other pointed objects.. could cause a "squeeky belly deflation" issue ?

[parnassus]

Meldrum jumping into the DNA race.

Quote:

Without much fanfare or hyperbole Dr. Jeff Meldrum mentioned a DNA study to parallel Dr Melba Ketchum's current DNA Study. We had heard this news at the Pacific Northwest Conference on Primal People (Sasquatch) held Richland, WA earlier this May.

Our initial reporting stated Dr. Jeff Meldrum is working with Bryan Sykes on a parallel Sasquatch DNA research. Bryan Sykes is professor of human genetics at Oxford University. His company, Oxford Ancestors, traces human genetic backgrounds. Sykes's books include the New York Times best-selling The Seven Daughters of Eve.

[AlaskaBushPilot]

From the article:

Quote:

We are also in the process of reaching out to some known hybrid-offspring of human and Bigfoot joining. Because this work is being done by scientists using scientific method and Bigfootology being the only actual scientific organization, the outcomes will not be questioned or doubted critically, because the scientists involved are at the top of their field.

"We have also grafted an ostrich head on top of an elephant, increasing the speed of the elephant to approximately 120 mph, a result that cannot be questioned critically..."

[parnassus]

am I reading this right, they have identified someone who claims to be bigfoot's baby? Tell me more!! I hope to read about this soon in the National Enquirer Tattler World News Daily Relict Hominoid Inquiry.

[TheJackal]

Known hybrid offspring ? I like how that statement is matter-of-fact just thrown into the article. It's like it's common knowledge that the "hybrids" exist. OK, show us your hybrid !!

Also, I love the logic how the paper will not be questioned because the scientists involved are top notch. Give me a break. Again, that's not how science works. Even the best scientists don't have all the correct answers. Any study, paper, whatever will be criticized, regardless who was the author. I don't care if you had Linus Pauling as your lead author or Melba Ketchum. Just because they have a "name" that doesn't mean that the science is irrefutable. How many "name" scientists have had theories that were later proven incorrect ? Also, I go back to my favorite example of Jan Hendrik Shon. He was the "shining star" of physics until his papers were discredited. If we had applied the "he's a top notch scientist so we shouldn't question his work" logic, then he would still be cranking out fudged data.

[mustbeso]

Originally Posted by TheJackal

Known hybrid offspring ? I like how that statement is matter-of-fact just thrown into the article. It's like it's common knowledge that the "hybrids" exist. OK, show us your hybrid !!

Also, I love the logic how the paper will not be questioned because the scientists involved are top notch. Give me a break. Again, that's not how science works. Even the best scientists don't have all the correct answers. Any study, paper, whatever will be criticized, regardless who was the author. I don't care if you had Linus Pauling as your lead author or Melba Ketchum. Just because they have a "name" that doesn't mean that the science is irrefutable. How many "name" scientists have had theories that were later proven incorrect ? Also, I go back to my favorite example of Jan Hendrik Shon. He was the "shining star" of physics until his papers were discredited. If we had applied the "he's a top notch scientist so we shouldn't question his work" logic, then he would still be cranking out fudged data.

The guy down the street has a Prius. Does that count?

[AttorneyTom]

Of course there are many known examples of human/BF "hybrids" that we all see in ordinary life !

That nice lady at the bank with the excessive amount of lip hair, my son's rock throwing classmate with the pointy head that we dont see anymore , my wife's friend that doesnt allow anyone to take her picture, and also, the tall neighbor that keeps smacking his trees with baseball bats and herds feral cats.

They are everywhere !

[parnassus]

Jeff went hunting has died of dysentery will be giving a talk on Sasquatch on the Oregon Trail, Friday June 1st and Saturday June 2nd at 7:30 p.m. in the Allinger Community Theater, Montpelier, Idaho, home of the "National Oregon/California Trail Center" and 2700-odd meth labs sheep sagebrush jackrabbits rattlesnakes potato heads devout Mormons.

What mormons tourist trap total idiots chamber of commerce wide spot in the road is running this meeting?

I may or may not make it; of course, I have the option of either of two nights, so....

I know what you're thinking: is there a app for that. Yes.

[AttorneyTom]

If you go would you please bring us back some of those BF cookies ?

[The Shrike]

Originally Posted by TheJackal

. . . I don't care if you had Linus Pauling as your lead author or Melba Ketchum. Just because they have a "name" that doesn't mean that the science is irrefutable. How many "name" scientists have had theories that were later proven incorrect ?

Well, Pauling for one. I wonder if he'd prescribe mega-doses of Vitamin C to treat people who think they've seen a bigfoot?

[Natural Born Skeptic]

Originally Posted by parnassus

Jeff went hunting has died of dysentery will be giving a talk on Sasquatch on the Oregon Trail, Friday June 1st and Saturday June 2nd at 7:30 p.m. in the Allinger Community Theater, Montpelier, Idaho, home of the "National Oregon/California Trail Center" and 2700-odd meth labs sheep sagebrush jackrabbits rattlesnakes potato heads devout Mormons.

What mormons tourist trap total idiots chamber of commerce wide spot in the road is running this meeting?

I may or may not make it; of course, I have the option of either of two nights, so....

I know what you're thinking: is there a app for that. Yes.

Would you please go, sit in the back, and just laugh really really hysterically throughout his speech until you get kicked out? Record it for us of course so we can see it.

[parnassus]

Originally Posted by Natural Born Skeptic

Would you please go, sit in the back, and just laugh really really hysterically throughout his speech until you get kicked out? Record it for us of course so we can see it.

I'd be happy to. Of course, I probably would have a number of people laughing with me. This would truly be "gorilla theater."

[AttorneyTom]

Originally Posted by Natural Born Skeptic

Would you please go, sit in the back, and just laugh really really hysterically throughout his speech until you get kicked out? Record it for us of course so we can see it.

I would not waste my time at this one. Looks really boring to me ???

[HarryHenderson]

Originally Posted by parnassus

Jeff...<brevity snip>... app for that. Yes.

Did we ever get the final forecast of the BBP (Bigfoot Bitches™ potential) for that gig? I mean, Montpelier, Idaho? That sounds like a pretty low percentage burg. I'm thinking serious sausage fest. It's near Preston, Idaho though, so maybe Napoleon Dynamite™ will show up too?

[parnassus]

actually dated a girl from there, briefly, until I figured out that they never take off the magic underwear.

[GT/CS]

Originally Posted by jodie

There is something specific that can be looked at and that is his research not related to bigfoot. Is it as rigorous? Research can get messed up for a lot of different reasons that include miscalculating the mathmatics, performing expirements incorrectly, picking the wrong form of analysis, and so forth and so on to also include deliberate fraud.

The research that immediately comes to mind for me that fall into the fraud category is that related to the Dalkon Sheild research. The guy omitted data that affected the efficacy rating. The same thing happened with the research for the connection between autism and vaccines.

If there is a difference in rigor between what he does regarding bigfoot research and what he does for non bigfoot related research then I think you could definitely draw some inferences from that, does that exist?

I sincerely don't know since my take on Dr. Meldrum is that he is an expert in locomotion, anything else he comes up with is no better or worse than my own opinion. I'm not a big fan and don't take what he says outside of his expertise with any serious consideration so haven't read much of his material. However, I've not heard anyone ever say he was anything other than mistaken.

I don't have a reply to this but it was in the wrong thread so I moved it here.

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Merldumb has peer-reviewed journal publications outside of bigfoot. He has no peer-reviewed journal publications within bigfoot.

That is sufficient proof that nothing in his bigfoot "research" has scientific merit.

[OntarioSquatch]

The man you call "meldumb" is actually a Professor at Idaho State University with a PH.D.

And to top it off, he specializes in Anthropology.

[Resume]

Originally Posted by OntarioSquatch

The man you call "meldumb" is actually a Professor at Idaho State University with a PH.D.

And to top it off, he specializes in Anthropology.

So what?

[ScannerHead]

I guess the "so what" is that for a place that professes a higher standard of debate and enlightenment, it stoops to childish play-ground antics of name calling to demean people in order to make them appear unqualified to be taken seriously.

That's what.

[Resume]

Originally Posted by ScannerHead

I guess the "so what" is that for a place that professes a higher standard of debate and enlightenment, it stoops to childish play-ground antics of name calling to demean people in order to make them appear unqualified to be taken seriously.

That's what.

So what manner of objective physical evidence do you or anyone possess to corroborate the existence of a hypothosized undiscovered contemporary North American primate?

That's what.

[rockinkt]

Originally Posted by ScannerHead

I guess the "so what" is that for a place that professes a higher standard of debate and enlightenment, it stoops to childish play-ground antics of name calling to demean people in order to make them appear unqualified to be taken seriously.

That's what.

Medrum deserves no respect here or anywhere else.
He has been shown how the "dermal ridges" in his casts are almost certainly the result of casting artifacts and yet he continues to spout the lie about dermal ridges occurring on putative plaster casts of Bigfoot tracks.

Meldrum has also been shown that tracks he is using as evidence of Bigfoot are hoax tracks made by known hoaxers.
He continues to sell these discredited plaster casts at conferences knowing that they have been discredited. That is fraud.

He behaves like a complete imbecile to get face time on TV and lots of money and this mocking of real science is amply demonstrated on the MonsterQuest TV show "Snelgrove Lake".

Meldrum also wrote a paper that he allows the world of Bigfootery to believe is important all the while knowing that his paper is worth squat as it is just in a local periodical with no peer review or any other scientific standing.

Parcher came up with the numbers regarding Meldrum's grants from organizations to continue his "quest" to find Bigfoot and they were pretty high. Going from memory - the amounts totaled almost $500,000. Yet Meldrum continues to sit back and allow people at conferences he attends and a Bigfoot forum he is a member of to continue with the lie that there is no money for the scientific study of Bigfoot - now or in the past.

Meldrum is a fraud by definition, a liar by omission, and a pathetic excuse for a scientist given the position he holds and the responsibility for rigorous scientific standards that goes with it.

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Originally Posted by rockinkt

...

snip for brevity ...

Parcher came up with the numbers regarding Meldrum's grants from organizations to continue his "quest" to find Bigfoot and they were pretty high. Going from memory - the amounts totaled almost $500,000...

Wow, what a scorcher. Seeing it all in one place is damning. Ouch.

Matter of fact too the forum has avoided my pet term for Merldumb. So don't blame the forum for something the retard out in the woods is doing by himself. He should be called MerlSmart for the cash he's scored. I wonder how much of the cash he takes is reported to the IRS - the cash off the plaster casts he knows are fake.

Roger Patterson, that shining star in 'footery for his hoax film... A million dollar tour with DeAtley until the Ice Man Hoax burst their Bubble. That's like $7 million today. Outsold Simon and Garfunkle in the same Utah auditorium at the peak of their career. $67K gross in one night. That's nearly half a million dollars today: one PGF show.

It's all about the money, notoriety, so many other schemers over the years trying to carve out their niche. Botique niches nowadays, the latest of which is the DNA piffle. Oh yeah Merldumb is in on that now too, isn't he. Until he's a member it isn't a rule violation so I am sticking with it.

hey, welcome OntarioSquatch.

[AttorneyTom]

He specializes in that apparently well paying specialty of .. "Anthropology of Something That Is Not Proven to Exist" or as I like to say.. well the .. The "ASTINPE".. sorry that is the best I could do ?

Anyway.. yes. Welcome !! Now I have that "Little Eva".. and "Grand Funk Railroad" song noise again ! Makes my dermal ridge just take right off. pology with an a in the front would probably be a good thing for the topic ?

[Jodie]

Well god forbid I piss anyone else off for asking legitimate questions but.....and here it comes so take it with that grain of salt I've been hearing about......

Isn't Anthropolgy a little bit on the subjective side anyway? I mean seriously, without DNA and a crystal ball isn't it kind of like trying to make a best educated guess on what happened based on other best educated guesses?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/sc...hropology.html

And then there is this:

http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropol...-moving-ahead/

So what did they ever decide? Is it like nursing where we just lumped all of these things together from other disciplines and called it a science?

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by OntarioSquatch

The man you call "meldumb" is actually a Professor at Idaho State University with a PH.D.

And to top it off, he specializes in Anthropology.

What happened to him?

[Correa Neto]

Can be found selling casts of alleged bigfoot footprints at bigfoot meetings...

[The Shrike]

Originally Posted by Correa Neto

Can be found selling casts of alleged bigfoot footprints at bigfoot meetings...

. . . And if any of those are Wallace or Freeman casts, then he's knowingly selling hoaxed casts that he's using his academic position to portray as authentic.

[Correa Neto]

And if this is true, then "Meldumb" would not be a good nick, for it would not describe with accuracy the nature of his role within bigfootery...

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by Correa Neto

And if this is true, then "Meldumb" would not be a good nick, for it would not describe with accuracy the nature of his role within bigfootery...

Is he being dumb all the way to the bank?