On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a date always reserved for the release of earth-shattering scientific discoveries, Nacogdoches veterinarian Melba Ketchum announced that she and her team from DNA Diagnostics had “confirmed the existence of a novel hominin hybrid species, commonly called ‘Bigfoot’ or ‘Sasquatch.’”
“Sasquatch nuclear DNA is incredibly novel and not at all what we had expected,” Ketchum said, because Sasquatches are absolutely real and not the figment of a Nacogdoches veterinarian’s fever dreams. “While it has human nuclear DNA within its genome, there are also distinctly non-human, non-archaic hominin, and non-ape sequences. We describe it as a mosaic of human and novel non-human sequence. Further study is needed and is ongoing to better characterize and understand Sasquatch nuclear DNA.”
The Chronicle has some strong words for that “further study”:
There are several significant issues with this. First is this line from the news release, “Full details of the study will be presented in the near future when the study manuscript publishes.”
That is a massive red flag. Real research scientists almost never pre-announce their research findings. That is, they don’t go public with big news until it has been vetted by peer reviewers and, at the very least, been accepted for publication. In this case Ketchum is stating a discovery as scientific fact before other scientists have studied her evidence. In effect she is using the mantle of science to confer credibility on her discovery, without actually deserving the credibility.
And in case you were wondering:
Ketchum calls on public officials and law enforcement to immediately recognize the Sasquatch as an indigenous people:
“Genetically, the Sasquatch are a human hybrid with unambiguously modern human maternal ancestry. Government at all levels must recognize them as an indigenous people and immediately protect their human and Constitutional rights against those who would see in their physical and cultural differences a ‘license’ to hunt, trap, or kill them.”
So put down the guns.
