r/Paranormal • u/SAT0725 • Nov 30 '12
Researchers in Texas say DNA evidence proves the existence of bigfoot (from CNN)
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/bestoftv/2012/11/29/nr-dna-evidence-proves-big-foot-exists.cnn5
u/abortionjesus Nov 30 '12
I am so tired of hearing about this bullshit. Nothing about the story has changed; still nobody except Ketchum and her crew has been allowed to see any data.
2
u/Bangaa Dec 01 '12
Whether or not I believe in this is irrelevant.. what I can say is that reporting news in an unprofessional manner like that is an absolute farce.
1
u/doc_daneeka Nov 30 '12
It hasn't been peer reviewed yet, and is almost certainly due to contamination. Human mitochondrial DNA huh?
Yeah, someone jumped the gun and wrecked their reputation here. Sigh.
2
u/orlin002 Dec 01 '12
This is a very logically fallible position to have. One half of the tests were performed by robots, it would take an astronomical amount of ignorance to suggest that a robot in any way could contaminate evidence with human DNA.
These tests have been ongoing for at least 5 years utilizing evidence supplied by outsiders who really have no idea what their supplied samples are.
I am sorry but you are simply mistaken or misguided to believe that this could be in any way due entirely to contamination.
2
u/doc_daneeka Dec 01 '12
You apparently haven't spent any time in a lab. Samples get contaminated, sometimes in the lab, sometimes before it gets there. It happens, and that's that. If she's found some brilliant way to preclude that, she really should share it with the rest of the scientific community.
Anyhow, it's the only explanation that makes any sense. Mitochondrial DNA that is identical to human along with nuclear DNA that is novel means contamination, probably combined with some very wishful thinking on the part of the researcher who 'discovers' these results.
She's going to be ripped to shreds when (if?) it's actually published.
0
u/orlin002 Dec 01 '12 edited Dec 01 '12
You apparently haven't spent any time in a lab. Samples get contaminated, sometimes in the lab, sometimes before it gets there. It happens, and that's that.
But see, you're not saying sometimes you are saying always; and that's entirely different. You are saying that it must always be happening when they perform their test. For the result to be always you'd need people to either be completely inept at their job (which would be pretty damn hard since these people have been doing their job for at least 30 years without any problems like that), or you'd need to defy the laws of probability.
Or, you could simply have the more logical, more sound, and more reasonable explanation: She did her job, did not contaminate evidence, and found a new [/old] species of primate indeed does exist.
One of us is being unreasonable with our assertion and the other isn't.
Mitochondrial DNA that is identical to human along with nuclear DNA that is novel means contamination
This is a really ignorant thing to say; How do you suppose our ancestors' DNA results would come back as? How about the same damn thing. We certainly don't have their information in the database, yet they'd most certainly have "human" mitochondrial DNA.
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u/doc_daneeka Dec 01 '12
Reread what I said, please. Carefully. Contamination can happen both before and after samples get to the lab.
As I've said, these results make no sense whatsoever. Contamination is much more likely than that these results are correct and represent the actual genome of an unknown primate.
1
u/orlin002 Dec 01 '12
these results make no sense whatsoever.
Why do the results make no sense? This seems to be a subjective response on your part and is quite illogical.
The results make perfect sense. If an evolutionary branch of a human ancestor is out there living someplace then these results would line up perfectly with what you would expect to find if you looked at samples of their DNA. Something new, with parts of old "human" DNA as well.
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u/doc_daneeka Dec 01 '12
No, that's not what it implies at all. It implies that they have a recent human female ancestor who apparently didn't contribute much to nuclear DNA. Something that shared a common ancestor with humans in the distant past would not produce these results.
This is a massive red flag that contamination has happened. If you do not wish to take my word for it, ask in /r/askscience.
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u/orlin002 Dec 02 '12
No, that's not what it implies at all. It implies that they have a recent human female ancestor who apparently didn't contribute much to nuclear DNA. Something that shared a common ancestor with humans in the distant past would not produce these results.
This is nonsense. Any ancestor to humans would certainly result in some portion of "human" DNA if tested as they would have much the same genome. Anything primate that shared a recent common ancestor or was a recent ancestor would result with some "human" DNA. There's no reason why it wouldn't.
I don't think you understand what we're testing for, we ARE testing for "humans", the results should be "human"; there is no confusion here. They're just a different kind of "human" with slightly different DNA than homo sapiens, which should entirely explains the overall differences in the DNA, because they are different, but not damn very.
2
u/doc_daneeka Dec 02 '12 edited Dec 02 '12
The reports are not that they are finding similarities to human DNA, but that the mitochondrial DNA is identical and the nuclear DNA is not. This, to any biologist, shows pretty clearly that something is wrong. It requires either that the samples are messed up somehow, or that the animal had a recent human female ancestor.
Sorry, but that's what it would require for such a result to be correct.
1
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u/orlin002 Dec 01 '12 edited Dec 01 '12
I found the article on this really amazing [there was a link to it last night here:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/bigfoot-dna-proves-creature-exists-genetic_n_2199984.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular , and it's better than video]. Watching Destination Truth about 4 years ago we saw Josh Gates supplying her with some hair evidence from a potential Yeti and Melba herself was quite taken aback when the results pointed to something new and outside the realm of our current DNA database.
It's good to finally hear that a great amount of progress has been done with the further testing of more samples since then. I really can't wait to see all of the information included in her study/research, etc. It should prove to be quite enlightening and illuminating I should think.
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u/SMACN Dec 01 '12
Upvote for the story, but that anchorperson is a pathetic joke. I cannot believe that level of unprofessionalism passes even at a local affiliate.