I’m, European and more interested in European wildmen than in American Bigfoot, Himalayan Yeti etc. So I’d like to ask: How many of the samples, analysed by Bryan Sykes, he received from Russia. Russia has probably the most intensiv research in this field since many years – among such samples who could not determined, were samples from Russia too?

What about such hair samples from Kemerovo/Siberia (world press reported about) Takjikistan and the Caucasus for example – - Igor Burtsev talked about in Russian TV and declaired: We have many samples from different Russian regions (my Petersburg penfriend wrote me about) – - Russian TV reported not only one time that Yeti hair has been found in Russia and it was microscopic examined and the result: No animal, no men, but primate like…. Hair from these samples must exist yet in Russia! Has Bryan Sykes analyzed hair from especially such samples too? Or: why not?

I’m very thankfull for every information in this connection.
Best regards from Europe to all readers,

Luis B.

I’m feeling like Melba Ketchum at the moment. Good thing I wasn’t writing scientific papers today…;-p

Having read that one, I’ll just echo your review. Of course it has its brief moments. As the Chinese say, even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then…

Note that Sykes published his peer-reviewed paper (not a flawless system, but the best we have) before coming out with a book.

At least the admission is made. Peer review can actually quash important new information because the “peers” aren’t ready for it yet, as Meldrum and Bindernagel and Mionczynski can attest.

Too often in cryptozoology, people do the reverse. Also too often, the science is sloppy: Sykes and colleagues dismiss the contaminated samples and the overall toxic mess of the Ketchum sasquatch DNA study.

No argument here either. Really, it’s impossible to make heads or tails of Ketchum; and it’s largely her fault. She made too much of the wrong kind of noise in advance; her presentation was chock full of flaws, including the wrong kind of response to critics; and, well, Melba, just what did you get the ‘samples’ from? We can’t see that, can we? But we know straight from your mouth that you’ve done lotsa hanging out with the Big Folk that you can’t prove are real. Submitted as science, by an alleged scientist, that is understandably gonna set scientists’ teeth on edge. I get it.

The new findings do not prove there is no sasquatch, yeti, etc., but they do prove no one has gotten a genuine hair sample, which does lengthen the odds against these putative primates. Sykes has taken the best-quality evidence primate hunters could supply him with and showed that almost all of it is irrelevant.

Bad wrong here. OK, up to “etc.” is correct. Otherwise, nothing of the sort has been done. We don’t know that “no one has gotten a genuine hair sample.” Many have been sent in; many have been thrown out, most without testing. Do we have only people’s word on that? Right, which means in all probability sloppy science by the testing labs, which is totally on them, unless one has a major propensity to call liars anyone speaking what might be uncomfortable truths. It sure isn’t scientific to label people liars when the evidence has been tossed or lost. The first Denisova sample was cut in two and sent to two labs; one has never been heard from again, so don’t tell me it doesn’t happen.

He has, though, established a database of results that will come in handy for identifying and future samples: negative findings do matter in science.

Or rather, positive findings of something else. No argument here. And of course, nothing can be said about samples that are either contaminated or for whatever reason yielded no usable DNA.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2014/jul/02/genetics-evolution-dna-analysis-yeti-sasquatch-bigfoot-zoology-primates