The Scott Carpenter File III: " 'Main Stream' Study Published in the Journal Nature Supports The Findings of the Sasquatch Genome Project"

NOT!!


The title is from Scott Carpenter's blog (link on right), the latest in a long line of bad thinking by Scott in support of Melba Ketchum and her DNA study. 

Scott takes the position that because a recent article in Nature shows that Denisovans,  Neanderthals, modern humans, and possibly another unknown hominin hybridized, hybridization between modern females and an unknown male primate producing a sasquatch a la Melba Ketchum is therefore substantiated.  Come again?  How so?

Carpenter says, "A study published in the Journal Nature appears to support the general findings of the (Ketchum's) DNA study. "  and again "The results are extremely similar to Dr. Ketchum's results, a genome that shows hybridization with modern humans and a unknown hominin."  That's all?

Yes, the results are similar, but only because the respective authors both claimed they pointed to hybridization.  A paper on horses, asses, and mules would be equally similar.  But it's the differences that Scott ignores, the main one being that the subjects and samples are different.  Ketchum has no DNA from her "unknown" primate, to compare (as analogous) with the DNA of Neanderthals and Denisovans.  She can't make a figure, like the one reproduced by Carpenter, showing percentages of intermixing between these and modern humans.  AND MOST OF ALL, there is no primate DNA of any kind in two of her three so called "complete" nuclear genomes (Samples 26 and 140, see below).  (Her Sample 31 is completely human).

Repeated attempts to encourage Ketchum and her followers to disprove these counter arguments have yielded no satisfactory analytical response from them.  Only overreaching comments about their "experts" and their "qualifications," their "special software," and the lack of "qualified" critics of their work.  The only other data I received from Ketchum was a comparison of Sample 26 to humans, BUT TO NO OTHER ANIMALS.  This is a game of relative comparisons, not single comparisons.  Melba's "experts" should know that.

After that monumental failure to reason, Carpenter goes on once again to lambast the editor's of Nature and their reviewers for unfairness and unprofessionalism.  We've heard that before, so I won't repeat it except to suggest here that this was his real motivation.  Unfortunately his reasons are again inadequate, as I will subsequently show in a thorough "review of the reviews."

No Scott, NOTHING - no independent scientific study - has ever supported Ketchum's findings.  On the contrary, reviews of her data and repeat experiments on Sample 26 definitely show that this sample is a bear and that Sample 140 is a dog. (See links to Huggins, Sykes, and myself at right.)   Her Sample 31 is human, with little chance of sufficient other primate DNA to match the very different reported physical and behavioral characteristics.  

Carpenter's latest blog is just another of his prejudiced, misinformed, uneducated drivel.  Don't believe it.