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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 11/03/2006 : 22:43:06
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Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I just had to use the same title as The Onion article, which was so funny, it had been twice linked to in our humor forum.
This is side-splittingly funny stuff, too, but appropriate for the Pseudoscience forum. Because this guy's real, unlike The Onion's fictitious "[M]averick chemist Theodore Hapner [who] managed to disprove two of the three laws of thermodynamics and show that gold is a noxious gas..."
"This guy" (the real one) is Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, a Professor with tenure, and an anatomist holding a PhD. And his chosen field of scientific study is Bigfoot.
Jeffrey Meldrum displays what he
describes as a casting of a foot-
print from a 'Bigfoot' creature
in this file photo.
quote:
Bigfoot research makes professor a campus outcast
POSTED: 5:14 p.m. EST, November 3, 2006
POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) -- Jeffrey Meldrum holds a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences and is a tenured professor of anatomy at Idaho State University.
He is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Bigfoot, the mythical ape-man of the Northwest woods. And Meldrum firmly believes the lumbering, shaggy brute exists.
That makes him an outcast -- a solitary, Sasquatch-like figure himself -- on the 12,700-student campus, where many scientists are embarrassed by what they call Meldrum's "pseudo-academic" pursuits and have called on the university to review his work with an eye toward revoking his tenure. One physics professor, D.P. Wells, wonders whether Meldrum plans to research Santa Claus, too.
Meldrum, 48, spends most of his days in his laboratory in the Life Sciences Building, analyzing more than 200 jumbo plaster casts of what he contends are Bigfoot footprints.
For the past 10 years, he has added his scholarly sounding research to a field full of sham videos and supermarket tabloid exposes. And he is convinced he has produced a body of evidence that proves there is a Bigfoot.
. . .
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2006 : 22:59:41 [Permalink]
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| Well, reading the rest of the article, it looks like he's at least applying his science correctly. Hopefully, he not blinded by his need to believe. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2006 : 23:54:48 [Permalink]
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I don't know, Wooly.
It seems the good Professor has invested an awful lot of certainty in his belief he's proven Bigfoot real. "I place legend under scrutiny and my conclusion is, absolutely, Bigfoot exists."
And he's been extremely lucky in finding footprints, scat, and hair from Sasquatch as well, at least as compared to some real nut-case believers who have come up empty-handed time and again.
The article says he has over 200 Bigfoot footprint casts, and implies that he's personally found footprints at least twice. But has DNA testing, or the evaluation of other scientists supported any of his evidence?
Lastly, a couple of his statements ring of claasic point-makers in the Crackpot Index:
"'It used to be you went to a bookstore and asked for a book on Bigfoot and you'd be directed to the occult section, right between the Bermuda Triangle and UFOs,' Meldrum said. 'Now you can find some in the natural science section.'"
[They all laughed at Darwin, Einstein and Mozina. But look at them now! Left unsaid is that "they" also used to laugh at John Wayne Gacy in his clown costume.]
And:
"Meldrum wonders aloud how much longer he will be on the faculty. But he said he also dreams of one day bringing back a bone or a tooth or some skin, and silencing the 'stuffy academics.'"
[Those jealous boneheads persecute me now, but one day I will show all my enemies who is the real genius. Then they shall fall to their knees in awe before me! Mu-hahaha!]
Some of you know that I love the idea of real Mad Scientists. Please don't disillusion me about Meldrum being one!
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 11/04/2006 00:08:46 |
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McQ
Skeptic Friend
USA
258 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2006 : 06:26:35 [Permalink]
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Recently I watched a special on Discovery that featured this guy. It was a full court press for believers. It was so biased and pro-Bigfoot that I was tempted to start believing again, (like when I was 10 years old). The show really made you want to believe in Bigfoot, largely due to the total support of fabricated and hoaxed stories, as well as Meldrum's bold statements of belief.
I think the best parts of any believers stories are when they show the Patterson film and simply state that a man couldn't walk in that fashion. Who are they kidding? It looks exactly like a large man walking in a nice fur suit!
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Elvis didn't do no drugs!
--Penn Gillette |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2006 : 20:13:34 [Permalink]
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If he actually has scat and hair, then those items could easily be analyzed, and potentially contain some DNA from whatever animal they came from.
DNA or not, hairs can be used to help establish animal ID.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2006 : 20:33:17 [Permalink]
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Maybe Meldrum is a decider, not a tester, Dude.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2006 : 23:14:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
If he actually has scat and hair, then those items could easily be analyzed, and potentially contain some DNA from whatever animal they came from.
DNA or not, hairs can be used to help establish animal ID.
As I recall it only took a couple of weeks to test the hair sample from the Yukon sasquatch last year (it turned out be Bison hair). If he wanted to get his samples analyzed he could.
Since the Sasquatch/Yeti/Yowie/Yeh Wen etc is so universal (North America, Nepal, Australia and China), I think there is something behind the legend. I think it is the legacy of encounters between our ancestors and the Neanderthals. The Neanderthals grew bigger and hairier with each re-telling of the story.
My woo-woo theory is that they are extraterestrial tourists on nature holidays on a primitive planet. They are supposed to avoid contact with us primitives, but a view of them can't resist scarig the bejeebers out of some hapless human. |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2006 : 23:59:18 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ghost_Skeptic
My woo-woo theory is that they are extraterestrial tourists on nature holidays on a primitive planet. They are supposed to avoid contact with us primitives, but a view of them can't resist scarig the bejeebers out of some hapless human.
Hehehehehe:FORD Unfortunately I got stuck on the Earth for rather longer than I intended. I came for a week and was stranded for fifteen years.
ARTHUR But how did you get there in the first place?
FORD Easy, I got a lift with a teaser. You don't know what a teaser is, I'll tell you. Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets which haven't made interstellar contact yet, and buzz them.
ARTHUR Buzz them?
FORD Yes. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one's ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennae on their head and making beep beep noises. Rather childish really.
- Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1978 |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2006 : 04:23:11 [Permalink]
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I would like to ask Doctor Meldrum one, simple question: "Where are the corpses?"
Unless we are dealing with immortality, there has to be a population, does there not? Therefore, it stands to reason that all will sooner or later croak, and some few will be found by a hunter or a pot-grower.
I ask the same about the Loch Ness folderol.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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McQ
Skeptic Friend
USA
258 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2006 : 17:18:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
I would like to ask Doctor Meldrum one, simple question: "Where are the corpses?"
Unless we are dealing with immortality, there has to be a population, does there not? Therefore, it stands to reason that all will sooner or later croak, and some few will be found by a hunter or a pot-grower.
I ask the same about the Loch Ness folderol.
Obviously the highly intelligent Sasquatches hide their dead. They have ESP, allowing them to know where we humans are likely to look for the corpses. And the Greys help them move the bodies around so we can't find them. Sometimes they even take them away for the Sasquatches in their Star-cruisers.
As for Nessie. Come on, that can't be real. Geez! |
Elvis didn't do no drugs!
--Penn Gillette |
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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2006 : 15:39:43 [Permalink]
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| That is par for the course. I bet if Yeshua[Jesus] ,were here now he would be another Sylvia Browne or Binny Stein! |
Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
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skeptic griggsy
Skeptic Friend
USA
77 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2006 : 15:46:08 [Permalink]
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| Make that Benny Hill! What is interesting about me is although Iam a schizotypal, unlike my fellow ones, I abjure both the supernatural and the paranormal! |
Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. Logic is the bane of theists.Religion is mythinformation. Reason saves, not a dead Galilean fanatic. |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2006 : 20:57:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by morgan-lynn lamberth
Make that Benny Hill! What is interesting about me is although Iam a schizotypal, unlike my fellow ones, I abjure both the supernatural and the paranormal!
Ummmmm. Benny Hill was a really good physical comedian.
I think you're referring to that shameless charlatain Benny Hinn.
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/15/2006 : 21:00:47 [Permalink]
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V_D wrote: quote:
Ummmmm. Benny Hill was a really good physical comedian.
I think you're referring to that shameless charlatain Benny Hinn.
An even better physical comedian.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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