Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum - America's "Bigfoot Professor"

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William Parcher

Show me the monkey!
William Parcher
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Bigfoot Believer Guy

Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, Ph.D. - Idaho State University, Associate Professor of Anatomy & Anthropology, Adjunct Associate Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Dept. of Occupational and Physical Therapy, Affiliate Curator, Idaho Museum of Natural History.



Internal communication at ISU...

I am sure that most of you are aware of the recent AP (Associated Press) story in which D. Doug Wells and myself are quoted concerning "Bigfoot." The story contains some inaccuracies. There is no movement afoot here to sanction Dr. Meldrum for his interest in "Bigfoot" (at least that I am aware of) and if there were I would be against it. That is what tenure is for. I am merely exercising my right as an academic and a scientist to question the evidence, which is less than great. Debate is part of peer review and is what academics do.

As you can imagine I got deluged by email and phone calls as a result of this story. Bigfoot aficionados are a sensitive lot. I am fully expecting to show up on /Countdown /as today's worst person in the world any day now.

If you are interested in the scientific basis for Bigfoot I encourage you to check out the publisher of Dr. Meldrum's book /Sasquatch - Legend Meets Science/ (http://www.tor.com/). I would also encourage you to have a look at the /Journal of Scientific Exploration/, volume 18, for what passes for peer review in this area.

Enjoy your break.

Martin (Hackworth)
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Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, Ph.D., Biography/Resume at ISU
 
Skepchick interviews Jeff Meldrum Part 1.

Part 2.

Jeff Meldrum: Science is by nature conservative. The recent rise of the skeptical movement has made it fashionable to be ultra-conservative, even to the point of cynicism. Therefore, something that has been labeled as fringe, as pseudoscience is deemed unworthy of consideration. One prominent skeptic has pronounced that the “science” begins only after a body is had. Well, if science sat around on its collective hands until the proverbial “bodies” in question turned up, there would have been much less discovery made in our history.

I sense a shift in attitude on the part of some of my colleagues, near and far. We have learned a great deal about the evolutionary and natural history of the great apes. We have learned a great deal about the evolution of hominin bipedalism. There continue to be startling discoveries of new species, to the extent that the editor of Scientific American suggested perhaps it was time for cryptozoology to come in out of the cold. And we have a generation of scientists that have grown up more familiar with the possibility of sasquatch. Sometime it takes the passing of a generation before a novel proposition can sprout to serious consideration.
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Meldrum@skepchick said:
Science is by nature conservative. The recent rise of the skeptical movement has made it fashionable to be ultra-conservative, even to the point of cynicism. Therefore, something that has been labeled as fringe, as pseudoscience is deemed unworthy of consideration.
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Been through his book and could not find a single piece of reliable evidence to back his thesis. Decades-old anecdotal data, quite oftens suspected of being hoaxed recycled and packed with lots of usually baseless speculations. Is that all he can provide? This is pseudoscience and no ammount of whining against skepticism will change it. Basically what he is asking is to lower the level of evidence quality. No way. He should collect better data or accept that there's not a single shred of reliable evidence supporting his claim - its a belief, nothing more, nothing less.

Meldrum@skepchick said:
One prominent skeptic has pronounced that the “science” begins only after a body is had. Well, if science sat around on its collective hands until the proverbial “bodies” in question turned up, there would have been much less discovery made in our history.
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Appeal to emotion; the old "Columbus and Galileo" blahblahblah we are tired of hearing from woos... Is that all he can provide? Its not skeptical's fault that the evidence is so poor. If bigfootery had a single piece of reliable evidence -and we all know it does not take a body- the situation would be diferent. Got at least one piece of evidence able to pass through a basic QA/QC?

Meldrum@skepchick said:
I sense a shift in attitude on the part of some of my colleagues, near and far. We have learned a great deal about the evolutionary and natural history of the great apes. We have learned a great deal about the evolution of hominin bipedalism.
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What this has to do with the actual subject? So far none of the above brought bigfoot closer to being a reality instead of a distant possibility.

Meldrum@skepchick said:
There continue to be startling discoveries of new species, to the extent that the editor of Scientific American suggested perhaps it was time for cryptozoology to come in out of the cold. And we have a generation of scientists that have grown up more familiar with the possibility of sasquatch.
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A statement that perhaps he was not aware that would be used by some to bring validity to their cause in the absence of good datsets. Note that time passed and cryptozoology is still in the cold. And the responsability lies on the very shoulders of the cryptozoologists.

Meldrum@skepchick said:
Sometime it takes the passing of a generation before a novel proposition can sprout to serious consideration.
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Not without reliable evidence - unless we are talking about beliefs. Since we are not, got at least a really good dataset to back your thesis?
 
Correa Neto said:
Been through his book and could not find a single piece of reliable evidence to back his thesis. Decades-old anecdotal data, quite oftens suspected of being hoaxed recycled and packed with lots of usually baseless speculations. Is that all he can provide? This is pseudoscience and no ammount of whining against skepticism will change it. Basically what he is asking is to lower the level of evidence quality. No way. He should collect better data or accept that there's not a single shred of reliable evidence supporting his claim - its a belief, nothing more, nothing less.


Appeal to emotion; the old "Columbus and Galileo" blahblahblah we are tired of hearing from woos... Is that all he can provide? Its not skeptical's fault that the evidence is so poor. If bigfootery had a single piece of reliable evidence -and we all know it does not take a body- the situation would be diferent. Got at least one piece of evidence able to pass through a basic QA/QC?


What this has to do with the actual subject? So far none of the above brought bigfoot closer to being a reality instead of a distant possibility.


A statement that perhaps he was not aware that would be used by some to bring validity to their cause in the absence of good datsets. Note that time passed and cryptozoology is still in the cold. And the responsability lies on the very shoulders of the cryptozoologists.


Not without reliable evidence - unless we are talking about beliefs. Since we are not, got at least a really good dataset to back your thesis?
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"...that is an old skeptic game, to ask for evidence." (N.Burghstahler- confidant of Prof. S.Hawking)
 
Regarding the question 'Should there be more scientists involved in Bigfoot Research.

TY at the Bigfoot Discussion forum, had this to say, I thought it was meaningful.

Ty said:
*A few nights ago I heard on an internet radio show Dr. Meldrum describe the Memorial Day footage figure as an "obvious female(Sasquatch)" with "gyrating breasts" and a "baby peering over it's head" as it approached the woods. He says these features were pointed out to him by Rick Noll at Noll's home on a large flat screen TV.
He also said on the same show that MQ raises the bar of how evidence comes to light.

Not to mention him(Meldrum) being pictured in front of an elk lay pointing out Bigfoot body parts.


*A few weeks a go I heard Dr. Bindernagel on an internet radio show say the "Jacob's creature" was most likely a young Sasquatch passing through.

*A few nights ago on MQ's SA 2; Out of 3 scientists Curt Nelson (former BFRO member) was the only one who claimed to have found primate DNA in the screwboard material.
That turned out to be a bust.

I'm sure we're all aware of Dr. Fahrenbach's recent commentary.

Sorry, but if these are the type of scientists this phenomena can only attract, then no, there is not a need for more in my opinion.
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http://bigfootdiscussions.invisionz...php?s=&showtopic=3092&view=findpost&p=1400440
 
Drewbot said:
Regarding the question 'Should there be more scientists involved in Bigfoot Research.

TY at the Bigfoot Discussion forum, had this to say, I thought it was meaningful.
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That guy is an idiot. Read his posts, all he does is complain and take potshots at Bigfoot researchers.
 
I'm often in need of a good laugh, so I've been watching the new episodes of Monster Quest (Hitch's current avatar shows how a bird's beak can appear to be a horselike snout, a fact missing from the Jersey Devil episode) and stuff from the "Paranormal TV" section my cable service's "On Demand" menu. Going there led to a a snippet from an episode of short-lived 2002 "In Search of" revival discussing Bigfoot. Not only do they show the Freeman video and some interview footage of Freeman without a hint of skepticism, but Dr. Meldrum offered some insight on why he feels the Freeman video is worthy of note: The forearms are disproportionally long and the head doesn't seem humanlike. Considering that Patty supporters are often quick to bring up that Patty's "long arms" can't be due to extensions due to the forearms not being disproportionate* like they would be with a simple extension device, I'm amazed Dr. Meldrum could make such an argument regarding the Freeman film.

As for the head issue: Masks can easily make a person's head seem "less human." Or if he's referring to its placement on the body, I once did a post explaining how it could be done.

*They forget that many people with arms as long as Patty's are known to exist. Also, slumping the shoulders forward and the position of the arm during a swing can also create the illusion of long arms.
 
AtomicMysteryMonster said:
I'm often in need of a good laugh, so I've been watching the new episodes of Monster Quest
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MQ never fails to not deliver, and that's what makes it so great. One of the highlights of this season was Meldrum examining footprint casts and essentially saying, "there's nothing here". When Meldrum takes a dump on your casts, you're in trouble.

The "new species are found all the time" argument is misleading, methinks. There's not a concerted effort to find something specific. It's more along the lines of walking through a remote patch of jungle and brushing a half dozen new species off your shirt. Then scraping some more off the bottom of your shoe. Usually the only reason these species haven't been found before is because no one was looking for them. Compare that to a 40 year search for an ape-sized creature using increasingly advanced technology. Or repeatedly combing over every square inch of a Scottish lake.
 
Post #5

So, Rick Noll had to point out to Meldrum the BF "features" of the MD footage. Interesting.

Didn't Noll also persuade Meldrum that the skookum elk lay was a BF impression?

Is Meldrum incredibly stupid or is Noll an incredibly gifted con man?
 
clayflingythingy said:
So, Rick Noll had to point out to Meldrum the BF "features" of the MD footage. Interesting.

Didn't Noll also persuade Meldrum that the skookum elk lay was a BF impression?

Meldrum is incredibly stupid gullible and Noll is a somewhat gifted con man.
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:D
 
Kilaak Kommander said:
MQ never fails to not deliver, and that's what makes it so great. One of the highlights of this season was Meldrum examining footprint casts and essentially saying, "there's nothing here". When Meldrum takes a dump on your casts, you're in trouble.
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Yeah, that was a riot!

The "new species are found all the time" argument is misleading, methinks. There's not a concerted effort to find something specific. It's more along the lines of walking through a remote patch of jungle and brushing a half dozen new species off your shirt. Then scraping some more off the bottom of your shoe.
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Agreed. And let's not forget "having genetic testing reveal that an animal is genetically different enough to be a considered a separate species."

Or repeatedly combing over every square inch of a Scottish lake.
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Oh man, now I'm thinking of episode featuring Robert Rines' belief that the Loch Ness Monster is dead since he isn't getting any more mysterious sonar readings. Gosh, it couldn't be that those readings were due to errors caused by less advanced equipment, seals, a side effect of seiches, etc. One of these days, I really should do a thread devoted to "Monster Quest" in general.

By the way, did you ever get to check out the records for the PGF at the Library of Congress?

clayflingythingy said:
So, Rick Noll had to point out to Meldrum the BF "features" of the MD footage. Interesting.
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I suspect that Dr. Meldrum would argue that no hoaxer would think of putting breasts on a costume or or having a fake bay sasquatch, so therefore the footage is most likely real. Now even though I don't think the MD footage really shows those two things, I do know that hoaxers can (and have) done that in the past. Ray Wallace and Ivan Marx both produced hoax photographs of female Sasquatches. In fact, one of Marx's pictures had a mother carrying a baby Bigfoot as well.

Although they're not hoaxes, several of butchykid624's humorous Youtube videos feature Bigfoot with breasts and erections (which also puts a dent in any attempt to defend the Redwoods footage by saying nobody could think of giving a Bigfoot costume an erection).

Didn't Noll also persuade Meldrum that the skookum elk lay was a BF impression?
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I'm not sure about that, but I do know that the fact that some features of the lay reminded him of Meldrum's hypothetical sasquatch anatomy. In other words, it's "Sasquatch: Legend meets Confirmation bias".
 
AtomicMysteryMonster said:
By the way, did you ever get to check out the records for the PGF at the Library of Congress?
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Yes, but it didn't turn up any surprises. All of the documents were filed by René Dahinden. The file copy of the film is a real beauty with rich, vivid color. It was in a generic container with no markings on the film itself. What stood out most was that I'm used to seeing the PGF heavily cropped. Patty is just a tiny, blurry thing in the full frame.
 
Ty - I just about fell off my chair when I read your JREF forum handle!!!
Awesome dude, just awesome.

I look forward to reading your comments and opinions on this board.
 
Thanks Rock....:)

The thoughts here are not unlike my own. I've always enjoyed reading this forum.
 
Hey TY, sorry for quoting you and evoking the "That guy is an idiot" response from Chains. But I thought your analysis of Bigfoot Scientists was spot on.
 
Well...he's going to be at the Honobia BF Festival later this year where the High Potentate (Ed Smith) is going to reveal the dramatic evidence (as pimped on MABRC) that's going to set Bigfootery (and the rest of the world) on it's ear.


Pardon me but doesn't this sound like paying .50 to see the bearded lady.

I understand later that evening the snipe hunt will begin in earnest.
 
Meldrum and Skeptics

Speaking of the relationship between Bigfoot, Meldrum, and the skeptical community, I might note in passing that I defended Meldrum during that 2006 flap in a guest editorial at Cryptomundo.

Looking over it now, it seems to me to give cryptozoology more credit than it has perhaps earned. It's not that anything I said is untrue, but my comments do sidestep a hard reality: bad research is bad regardless of the subject matter. Unfortunately, crypto research is very often spectacularly bad. I wish that weren't so, but it is.
 
LTC8K6 said:
I debunk it thusly: GIGO
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Yep, that's the size of it. We know the Bigfoot database is stuffed with hoaxes and mistakes both. The only filters for what goes into it in the first place are the guess-based preconceptions of Bigfooters.

Trying to conclude anything from the Bigfoot database is ridiculous.
 
clayflingythingy said:
Didn't Noll also persuade Meldrum that the skookum elk lay was a BF impression?

Is Meldrum incredibly stupid or is Noll an incredibly gifted con man?
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I think part of it is, these guys give each other way too much credit, in the same way LAL questions how could all of the "experts" who participated in the Skookum expedition be wrong and DY be right.

I've long considered both of their opinions on alleged bigfoot evidence to be on par with a "SweatyYeti/Coolfoot" type or just above the MABRC's collective level of objectivity.
 
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Here's the thing though, Ty, (welcome to the dark side BTW)...when has Noll ever expressed an objective opinion?
He might not be salivating over every tree bend or pile of brush but he wasted no time declaring the elk lay a BF impression. Not to mention his "expert" analysis of the MDF...

At least I've heard Meldrum retract some of his knee jerk opinions, I've yet to see Noll do that.
 
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Blackdog said:
but he wasted no time declaring the elk lay a BF impression.
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He did admit on the BFF that one the first things they did before casting was to pick out and toss the elk hairs.(while looking for BF hair)

Hmm *Noll and co. scratching their heads*..'I wonder what all these fn' elk hairs are doing in this Bigfoot impression? They gotta' go !..'

I've yet to see Noll do that.
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Although it probably would do wonders for his credibility; somehow I suspect, from the arrogance in his posts, you never will BD.

...and thanks for the welcome..:)
 
Kilaak Kommander said:
The "new species are found all the time" argument is misleading, methinks. There's not a concerted effort to find something specific. It's more along the lines of walking through a remote patch of jungle and brushing a half dozen new species off your shirt. Then scraping some more off the bottom of your shoe. Usually the only reason these species haven't been found before is because no one was looking for them. Compare that to a 40 year search for an ape-sized creature using increasingly advanced technology. Or repeatedly combing over every square inch of a Scottish lake.
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Not to mention that while there are plenty of 'new species' being discovered, bigfoot wouldn't just be a new species of hominid - by all accounts it would be a new genus. This isn't like a neanderthal clomping about in the back woods, after all.

And finding a new genus (or higher) of organism doesn't happen quite as often. Lastly, often when it's said a new species is discovered, it's less that a previously unknown animal has been found, and typically more than an organism is studied and found to be a species distinct to that which has been previously catagorised.

Athon
 
Tyinhell said:
I think part of it is, these guys give each other way too much credit, in the same way LAL questions how could all of the "experts" who participated in the Skookum expedition be wrong and DY be right.
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oooh, I want to comment on that sooooooooooo bad
 
Tyinhell said:
He did admit on the BFF that one the first things they did before casting was to pick out and toss the elk hairs.(while looking for BF hair)

Hmm *Noll and co. scratching their heads*..'I wonder what all these fn' elk hairs are doing in this Bigfoot impression? They gotta' go !..'
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I've been chuckling about this since last night. I could re-read it a hundred times and it would still be funny.
 
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