Professor's Bigfoot Research Criticized

Is there a real live man ape alive in the wilderness regions today or not? Well the jury is still out for me on this one but I'm glad to see an academic taking a serious look and researching the evidence. It pains me that this man is punked by his peers because of rather dissmissing the evidence out right he actually is investigating it.

www.comcast.net.../2006/11/03/513149.html&cvqh=itn_bigfoot

Should a scientist be outcast and made of for being a Bigfoot researcher? Why are people so close minded?

www.cnn.com...

Also on www.cnn.com... there is a poll "Do you believe Bigfoot exists?". PLEASE VOTE!!!



[edit on 4-11-2006 by classified material]

You know what? I read this

"Do I cringe when I see the Discovery Channel and I see Idaho State University, Jeff Meldrum? Yes, I do," Hackworth said. "He believes he's taken up the cause of people who have been shut out by the scientific community. He's lionized there. He's worshipped. He walks on water. It's embarrassing."

And all I hear is - I want to be special too! *kicks his can down the road*

Then I read this

gets funny looks and the silent treatment from other scientists, and is not invited to share coffee with the other science professors

And all I can think of is poor little Rudolph not getting to play any reindeer games.

What a bunch of immature, arrogant mullet-heads.

Take heart Meldrum. Some day your bright shiny nose will save Christmas - and maybe prove Sasquatchy.

We haven't seen anything about HOW he does his Bigfoot research.

I've had a look at some of his papers, and frankly I can see why the other professors would be a bit leery of him.

He takes all the evidence as being true. He doesn't examine it ... he explains it as though it's all completely true and nobody in the world would hoax these. This is bad science.

Let me give you a solid example from one of his online published papers:
www.isu.edu...

The first set of tracks (Blue Mountain) -- first row, rightmost image in the composition, we see a track that frankly looks like it was cut out of plywood and strapped to someone's foot. The sole is as flat as a planed board and there's no roll (from walking) to the print. This is not a "flat foot" but rather a fake. Those of you who have tracked animals in the wilderness can see from the mud around the track that it was made not by something walking but by someone setting their "foot" down like you would make a stamp.

The third row of those pictures shows yet another impression that should be dismissed or investigated carefully. Here, the "foot" has a rounded bottom.

You can't walk well on feet that are round at the bottom. It doesn't distribute your weight properly. The foot shape is also wrong -- the toes emerge from the foot parallel to each other (or nearly so). Kick off your shoes and look at your feet to see just how different a foot looks from those tracks.

Nor does he discuss the differences in the feet.

If you absolutely believed the information, then you would have to conclude that there were several species of these.

Instead, he treats them uncritically. These are all "Sasquatch." These are all genuine. Even the ones with the impossible toes ("deformed toes.")

This is true of all his research. He does some good work on the Oligocene and on foot bone variations in anthropoids. People present him with bones, and he takes their material and accepts it as true and representative and draws conclusion from them.

The difference is that nobody is trying to fake Oligocene metatarsals.

However, as we all know, there are a number of faked Bigfoot evidences.

His colleagues find him an embarrassment because he accepts all evidence (no matter how bad) as true -- including evidence that was subsequently debunked. For example, in that paper, there are two sets of footprints that look plausible but the rest have some real problems.

I don't blame them for having problems with his research.

Haselhof, who researches crop circles, is another PhD whose work is on the fringe -- but he doesn't get half the flak BECAUSE he will call hoax if the evidence clearly warrants it.

What a bunch of immature, arrogant mullet-heads.

Yes it makes you wonder how much more knowledge mankind would have if not for the arrogance and ego's ridiculing the true mysteries of our time.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." Albert Einstein

With all due respect, there's a lot of scientists out there not following the scientific method and I don't see them getting black-balled. The only difference I see here is his pet theory is big, hairy, stinky and elusive while theirs is dark matter...or some other such band-aide on an intellectual hemorrhage.

More on this from our friends at cryptomundo:

I wasn’t going to say anything about the article on the work of Dr. Jeff Meldrum. Hey, you all know about it, as mentioned here at Cryptomundo and elsewhere. I was hoping that the tempst in the teapot would go away. But I decided to put to rest some thoughts I have had during the day on the mini-mess in my attempt to move on and get back to the real news.

It is the Saturday before a major midterm election in the USA. So what does a hare-brained writer decide to spent his time trying to mess up? The answer is Jeff Meldrum’s life, apparently. I find the reporter’s actual interest in Sasquatch only marginal.

I now have seen that there are about 200 versions of this story spread by the Associated Press around the world. Luckily the majority of the mass media and apparently the general public are more interested in sex scandals, bad Republicans, Iraq, and the forthcoming election than they are about dwelling on this unfortunate piece of journalism.

From Jeff Meldrum’s point of view, of course, this article is not what he expected. He gave a calm book-related interview to the AP reporter, and then the news writer used it as an opportunity to make some silly remarks about Meldrum’s tenure being overthrown. That part of the article is untrue, as Meldrum’s tenure is not at risk. But, hey, we all have grown to understand that sensationalized reportage is used to sell newspapers and most reporters have shallow background knowledge of cryptozoology.

At some level, someday, I knew this was bound to happen to Meldrum. Considering Dr. Grover Krantz is dead, Jeff was due, especially now that his well-researched book is out, for an academic-style lashing in public. (The physics prof who is quoted tried to do it to Meldrum during the recent conference in Idaho, but few listened.)

[edit on 4-11-2006 by jbondo]

Continued:

Sadly now, however, on a broader scale, the AP is spreading this poison. Amazingly, the various headlines, such as “Bigfoot studies render academic an outcast,” seem much worse than the facts. But will the impact be far-reaching? I doubt it.

Yesterday and today, the only topics the anchors on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News have discussed are the election, the Haggard sex scandal, the election, Iraq, and the election. Not one reporter, whom I have heard, has mentioned Bigfoot or Meldrum, and thankfully, the way this story is written, it is not getting the attention it might in a slower news cycle.

In the end, all that most of the general public will remember are only a few points, including (1) somewhere a professor is conducting serious research on Bigfoot, (2) a couple nasty people at his university said nasty things about him, (3) one person at his university (who happens to be in charge) said something supportive, (4) the nice professor has written a new book, and (5) the papers are still talking about Sasquatch. “Readers” will have to read the whole article, but most will not, and those that are positively interested will be tempted to buy Meldrum’s book and skeptically look at what this reporter has to say.

Many of us who have lived and died in academia, however, understand that the environment can be fickle. If this press storm had happened at a time when people really would have been paying attention, Jeff could be in store for shaky times, in which he might have to rationalize his existence, just as Roy Mackal and Grover Krantz both had to do. Some of us without tenure, like me, have been quietly laid off.

But this article about Meldrum, I predict, will be less than a three-day wonder. The election news has and will overwhelm it.

Nevertheless, during this short confused time in Idaho, a word of encourage to Jeff, in the face of the usual media vortex of misplaced disinformation, to hang in there. My best wishes and thoughts of support go out to Jeff Meldrum and his family.

Loren Coleman

Originally posted by Valhall
With all due respect, there's a lot of scientists out there not following the scientific method and I don't see them getting black-balled. The only difference I see here is his pet theory is big, hairy, stinky and elusive while theirs is dark matter...or some other such band-aide on an intellectual hemorrhage.

Could you cite some who aren't following methods and doing good analysis of evidence? Not saying this doesn't happen -- more curious about who they are and if they are indeed tolerated.

Here at the university, the ones I know of pretty much get castigated, so I haven't ever seen any examples of what you're talking about.

Enlighten me, please?



...and nobody has any problems with his treating some obvious fakes (and some debunked stuff) as being real and presenting fakes as real on tv and in articles?


[edit on 4-11-2006 by Byrd]

I would say anyone who continues to add and subtract dark matter in order to try to make the Big Bang theory work, now wouldn't you? I don't know their names.