Meldrum’s laboratory houses more than 200 casts relating to Bigfoot. As he pulls out drawers and talks about the casts, Meldrum shows ones with the hallmarks of hoax and others that intrigue him because of anatomy, hair striations, musculature and an apparent midtarsal break—a pair of joints in the middle of the ape foot that have less mobility in the human foot because of the arch. He brings out a particularly controversial piece called the Skookum cast that he thinks may be of a reclining Sasquatch and others think may be of a reclining elk. “There is a chance we are wrong,” he says. “But with the footprints, I feel more certain.” Discounting the unusual casts “isn’t scientific in the least,” Meldrum maintains, and “it is irresponsible.”
“He does bring more scientific rigor to this question than anyone else in the past, and he does do state-of-the-art footprint analysis,” notes David R. Begun, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto. Todd R. Disotell, a New York University anthropologist, agrees: “He is trying to bring rigor to it.” Both researchers collaborate with Meldrum even though they do not accept his hypothesis that a large apelike creature exists. “If he hands me a feces sample or a bloodstain or a hair shaft, I am willing to do what I do with anything I get,” Disotell says. “I go along with this because I am either doing good science, finding alternatives or debunking, or I have the find of the century.” Disotell gets Bigfoot jibes over beers sometimes, but nothing similar to what Meldrum experiences: “I think what is happening to him is a shame.”
In his famous “Cargo Cult Science” lecture in 1974, Richard Feynman described scientific thinking and integrity as “a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards” to raise and examine every doubt, every interpretation. This kind of thinking, critics say, is missing from Meldrum’s Bigfoot work, whereas it infuses his fossil and primate gait research. Meldrum’s principal critic from his own field is Daegling, who concludes that the “evidence doesn’t look better on deeper analysis, it looks worse.” He adds that “this isn’t about Bigfoot—it is about how scientists go about doing their work and how we should be self-reflective and self-critical.”
Meldrum responds by saying that most people do not see him critically sifting through all the evidence that comes his way—and discarding most of it. But if he is at times frustrated and beleaguered by skeptics, it appears some in his community are beleaguered by his exhortation that more researchers accept his interpretations or become involved. In reviewing Meldrum’s and Daegling’s books in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Matt Cartmill of Duke University concludes that if the chances of Bigfoot’s being real are one in 10,000 (his admittedly wild guess), then having one physical anthropologist on the case seems a reasonable allocation of professional resources and that Meldrum does not deserve scorn or abuse. But Cartmill, who notes that he is “mortally certain” there is no Sasquatch, is irked by Meldrum’s trying to guilt-trip those who do not do Bigfoot work and his disparaging them as lazy or aloof.
The tension is inevitable for science on the fringe, says Trent D. Stephens of Idaho State who co-authored a book with Meldrum on evolutionary biology and Mormonism. As he puts it: “The stuff that is on the margins, the stuff that isn’t popular—we scientists are horrible at judging it. And we say our mistakes about the fringe are all historical; we claim we are not making those mistakes today.”
The fringe has produced wonderful science, and it has produced wonderfully abysmal science. It has never been a comfortable place to live.
This article was originally published with the title Bigfoot Anatomy.
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17 Comments
Add CommentThe Sasquatch flap is but one bit of evidence showing that scientists are just as capable of being wrong, and refusing to admit it, as any other group of people. Compare and contrast a creationist's objections to evolution with that of a Sasquatch skeptic some time, and not how much the two compositions resemble each other. The similarities in reasoning, logic, and in the use of language. Any field of doubt where the doubter relies upon appeals to authority, belittling the other side, and a refusal to consider readily available evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProof is not invalid simply because you refuse to accept it as being valid.
Meldrum is a genious ahead of his time. His work will shine for centuries afterwards.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeldrum is a crackpot of the first order. He will be laughed at for the entire 15 minutes of his fame.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBlack Holes, Dark Matter, Quantum Mechanics are a few topics that brought scorn by the scientific community before they were acutally shown to exist. I don't think Dr. Meldrum is in the same catagory as those two Redneck Bafoons from Georgia who claimed to have a dead Bigfoot. Those are the idiots who are responsible for most everyone thinking the subject is a load of garbage. I think Dr. Meldrum is someone who is interested in the "Possibility" of its existance based on physical anatomical features presented in the casts. I don't think he deserves to be shunned by his colleagues because of his thories but I find that typical in people who are afraid to be original.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Meldrum is a "faith-based" "pseudo-scientist" who accepts only "evidence" that tends to support his ideas. His laughable mis-interpretation of the "Skookum cast" is a good example. Comparing his claims to actual scientific advances is fallacious; he uses hoaxed/fraudulent data, and substitutes circular reasoning for proof. Meldrum is worse than your "Bafoons" because he masquerades as a scientist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Meldrum is a "faith-based" "pseudo-scientist" who accepts only "evidence" that tends to support his ideas. His laughable mis-interpretation of the "Skookum cast" is a good example. Comparing his claims to actual scientific advances is fallacious; he uses hoaxed/fraudulent data, and substitutes circular reasoning for proof. Meldrum is worse than your "Bafoons" because he masquerades as a scientist who seeks the truth; in reality, he is not a truth seeker; like the creationists and the global-warming deniers, he seeks only to validate his beliefs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're an idiot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 1971 two friends and I left the small town of PeEll, Washington. We traveled from the tiny town of Dryad thru timber land to the Pacific ocean. We left the last day of school and ended up staying the night basically in the middle of nowhere. The road that we choose to camp on was a dead-end looging road with a small turnaround at the end. The road was quite steep to this location and we could see thru the moonlight the lower area which was clearcut. We were surrounded by old growth on three sides. We slept in the bed of the truck under the canopy with one person on a raised platform and the other two on the bed of the truck surface. We had only been in our sleeping bags for about 20 minutes and had just stopped some small talk when something lifted the back of the truck up and slammed it back down two or three times. We looked out all side , back, and front windows and saw nothing. After the initial shock one of my friends got out with his .22 rifle and yelled that we were armed. Me and my other friend got out and we all looked down the road leading to where we were and could see nobody nor any vehicle. The moon was bright and the road was very visable. The three of us have never spoken about this to each other to this day but I have told my wife and kids. There is more to tell but I don't want to write a book on the comment page. I had two more incedents in the Willipa hills to go along with this. I have allways wondered what it was that night. There is much more to tell. The other two incounters were even more scary and involved. Does anyone want to listen?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm very curious to hear the other stories!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven if you bring the evidence that's beena asked for university scientist can't be trusted anyways. I have offered to introduce a couple of anthropologists to the beast itself apparently they're to busy looking at plaster than to see the proof right in front of them
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStupid mobile anyways I go to the same spot all the time in fact when this text was sent I'm hearing them howl. The only reason you don't have public proof is cuz science today is lazy. Oh by the way when is someone gonna calibrate a carbon dating machine. And to think I'm goin to school to join these jerks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven if you bring the evidence that's beena asked for university scientist can't be trusted anyways. I have offered to introduce a couple of anthropologists to the beast itself apparently they're to busy looking at plaster than to see the proof right in front of them
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto: Fingers1973, You should set up a free blog, post your stories there and com back here and share your link to it. Also go to http://home.clara.net/rfthomas/bf_classics.html and/or the BFRO site to see if they would like to post your stories. Also I would like to just express how much I admire Dr. Meldrum for having the curiosity and courage so far exhibited. I believe! -Todd C Homer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto: Fingers1973, You should set up a free blog, post your stories there and com back here and share your link to it. Also go to http://home.clara.net/rfthomas/bf_classics.html and/or the BFRO site to see if they would like to post your stories. Also I would like to just express how much I admire Dr. Meldrum for having the curiosity and courage so far exhibited. I believe! -Todd C Homer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe claim --
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Black Holes, Dark Matter, Quantum Mechanics are a few topics that brought scorn by the scientific community
before they were acutally (sic) shown to exist."
is seriously incorrect.
1. Dark matter has never been observed.
2. Black holes are unobservable by definition, and
3. Quantum mechanics is only an interpretation -
not an observation as was asserted.
References:
ScienceBasedCosmology.com/glossary.htm
http://kicp.uchicago.edu/research/cosmology_glossary.html#A
http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/IUP/GlossaryA_E.htm
Anyone.....scientist or not, should be ENCOURAGED to press the limits and stretch the boundries in any area of research or interest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere would we be without the "pioneers" in ALL fields of research !!
If you want to look at one specific field of study with more "evidence" then could ever be seriously studied in one persons life time, look at Egyptology.
What we are "sure of" has changed dramatically since Howard Carter unearthed Tut's tomb, and the controversy still rages over many (if not most) conclusions (i.e. the date & Pharaoh attributed to the Sphinx).
I applaud Dr. Meldrum's courage and tenacity and am fondly looking forward to the day he and, his research, is vindicated !!
In closing I offer this challenge......find one, just one, Native American culture devoid of belief in this creature ("Kecleh-Kudleh" meaning "hairy man" in my native Cherokee) Sasquatch or Bigfoot to most others.
How naive we are to stack our limited 250 year experience of destroying their (stolen) land, up against their thousands of years experience existing in harmony with it.
Yes, Please.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this