Just wondering if someone on the board can explain to me what the skeptics say in regards to hair sample analyses turning up as unknown animal or unknown primate. Do they give a scientific explanation as to why these results are obtained if there is no such thing as BF. Do they attribute it to poor sampling methods or what? I understand that you cannot tell the DNA is from BF without known BF DNA to compare it to but what do they attribute the hair sample to?

Speaking only for myself, here's how I would approach a report of DNA analysis on a purported sasquatch hair sample that returned the result "unknown animal" or "unknown primate":

1) You're right, "unknown animal" or even the more compelling "unknown primate" does not mean automatically "sasquatch." Maybe a hoaxster planted siamang hair but the analysis couldn't pin it down as such. Could human hair ever come back as "unknown primate" if there was some problem with the sample or the analysis? Does "unknown" necessarily mean "heretofore undescribed" or could it just mean "can't tell?"

2) Let's say the researchers did, in fact, determine that they had a hair sample for which there was conclusive evidence that it came from an undescribed primate. Can other researchers with similar expertise independently corroborate (sp?) that finding?

3) Let's say #2 is correct, and at least three independent labs verify that they've got a hair sample from a reported sasquatch sighting area that is definitely primate in origin, but definitely not any currently recognized species. Now what you have is a tremendous amount of evidence, unless it's just hearsay. Show me the paper. A finding this significant should be written up and submitted to the journal, Science. If it doesn't get published, then there is probably some flaw in the method, analysis, or interpretation. If the author feels that he or she was treated unfairly by a journal editor too close-minded to entertain the possibility of the creature's existence, then post the original manuscript plus whatever comments came back from the Editor.
Saskeptic

Even if one got a hunk of flesh to get some DNA,
the result would be "unknown primate".

Until one is killed or found dead to compare hair and DNA to,
it is the same old story.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but hair alone only yields mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are essentially bacteria that formed a symbiotic relationship with humans (and other animals) millenia ago, and make up a large percentage of our cells, and they generate our energy. Their DNA is their own. If you cloned mitochondrial DNA you'd get a mitochondria. Since it is passed maternally it is useful for tracking closely related people, but it can't give the entire genome as you'd find in nuclear DNA.

If you had nuclear DNA from BF (flesh, blood or hair root), then you could actually compare it to the genome of humans and apes and compare and contrast. You could not do the same with Mitochondrial DNA.

(Someone claimed here that there was a new way to get nuclear DNA from hair - withot roots - but I haven't found that info).

Do you demand someone else to build the foundation?

Whose house will you build afterwards?



There is already overwhelming evidence that sasquatches exist.

Okay, no proof.

However, people are convicted of capital crimes daily (somewhere in the world) on evidence that is "beyond a shadow of a doubt" (that's the "language" here).

We have that in sasquatchery. We are at or beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Again, do you believe, or must you rub your nose in a carcass?

Comparative analysis of known primates with an unknown hair sample under the microscope simply proves again, it is similar to this or that, but it is still an unknown primate.

Same as with a tissue sample. So what if it proves to be 99.9% similar to a chimp or human. It is still an unknown primate.

There have been many samples examined and not matched with any known animal and classified as, you guess it, an unknown primate.

What is interesting is if unknown primate hair samples or tissue samples from California matched with a sample taken from Ohio. Now we're talking.

That would be REALLY interesting! I wonder if it will ever happen?