 Hey everybody, tonight we're debating whether or not Bigfoot exists and we are starting right now. Ladies and gentlemen, thrilled to have you here. If it's your first time here at Modern Day Debate, my name is James Coons and I am one of your hosts for tonight and we want to let you know that we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science, religion, and politics. And we want to let you know folks, no matter what walk of life you are from, we hope you feel welcome. And in addition, we are thrilled. We have many more debates coming up and so hey, if it's your first time here, consider as well hitting that subscribe button for reminders of those upcoming debates. And what I'm going to do here is I'm going to kick it over to Erica quite quickly, who is linked in the description. She's at the YouTube channel, Gutsick Gibbon, and I oftentimes refer to her as YouTube's favorite daughter. She is very beloved, very loved by everybody here at Modern Day Debate and so thrilled to have her back. And what she will do is introduce our guests and explain the format and then she'll actually get them going into the actual format for the debate. So thanks very much, Erica. The floor is all yours. Man, James, you know I love being here. Listen, I have my haters. As much as I love coming on here, every now and then I get someone sassy who's trying to hate on me a little. But that's okay. We all got thick skin here on Modern Day Debate. I am so psyched to be here. We've had some killer debates here this week. This is the one I've been waiting for. I've been excited for this one ever since I heard that it was happening. I actually asked James, please, you have to let me come on and help co-moderate this debate. I have to be here for this. My background is primatology and anthropology, so I was very much interested in the conversation that's going to be happening today. I think we're going to start off with just letting everybody introduce themselves. So Dr. Meldrum and Maddie, whichever one of you wants to go first will do those intros and then we'll hop right into that opening discussion or opening statements rather, which are going to be 12 minute opening statements roughly and then 50 to 60 minutes of open discussion followed by a Q&A. So would either of you prefer to go first and introducing yourself and telling us a little about your background? Okay. So just by way of introduction, I'm a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University here in Pocatello, Idaho, southeastern Idaho, right in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. And so I primarily teach human growth anatomy in the health professions programs. That's my bread and butter. I get to stick my hands in some other topics now and again, occasionally down in the anthropology department and some other biology related courses like evolution and so on. My research focuses on primarily the evolutionary anthropology and functional morphology in the broadest sense, but more specifically questions about the pattern and process of the emergence of human bipedalism. What it is that sets us apart, those adaptations for tottering about on two limbs instead of four. And that is really what has drawn me into this question of the possibility of another bipedal hominin of some sort. And so I think I'll leave it there. All right, Maddie, tell us about yourself. Hey team, I'm Maddie. You can find me on the internet at Science Side Up. I talk about mostly like physical sciences. So my background is in, gosh, okay, I have a bachelor's in math and earth atmospheric and planetary sciences from MIT. Then I ran off and joined the Navy and I taught nuclear physics to kids in the Navy for four years and now I'm in graduate school studying meteorology. So over at my channel, we're doing a series on climate dynamics right now. If you want to come learn some science of the atmosphere, I think it's super fun, but pretty broad topics over there. And I am super excited for tonight's conversation. Sick, so hey man, so am I. All right, we're going to hop right into those opening statements. So we're going to start with Dr. Meldrum and I don't know, are you sure your screen or do you need to do it? No, no, this is fine. No, this is fine. Just a little brief kind of set in the orientation. I'm often asked, do I believe in Bigfoot? And sometimes I surprise people with my response when I say no. And I allow that to hang in the air, pregnantly for a little bit of pause and let that sink in. And then point out that in the vernacular, that question connotes an acknowledgement of a position of faith, an acceptance of things in the absence of evidence. And that certainly has no place in our discussions in science or my pursuit of this very interesting question. I explained to them, no, I haven't accepted the existence of something in the absence of evidence, but I'm very close to being convinced that something does exist on the basis of the evidence. And then proceed to lay out what some of that evidence is. So I'm excited for tonight, the opportunity. It's always in science, ideally we rely heavily on peer review, on having our colleagues look at something because it always helps to have another set of eyes to look at something from a different perspective and a different background. And that is an important point too. Even as an individual looking at evidence, it's absolutely critical to have an informed, to draw informed conclusions or drawn informed opinion about a piece of evidence to understand its historical context. What was the knowledge that framed that particular piece of data at the time that it's being discussed? We now have the great advantage of 2020 hindsight looking at a lot of accumulated expressions and opinions. And sometimes people, well intended or not, take things, we have that phrase, you've taken it out of context. As we discuss some of this evidence, like the Patterson-Gimlin film, as we'll come to later, I think, it is absolutely critical to, in order to understand not only what's on the film, but the reaction to it from the scientific community to discuss what the mindset of the scholars at that time, what was the prevailing paradigm against which this evidence was being considered? And has that changed? Has that changed? And does that change the conclusions that we draw? You know, my goal in participating in something like this and my goal in writing a book was not to convince people of the existence of Bigfoot, but rather, I mean, that may be the conclusion that's drawn on the basis of the evidence. They may come to a similar conclusion that I have arrived at. But my objective as a science educator is to present the evidence in as objective and even handed away as possible. If I may indulge, if you'll indulge me, the back cover of the dust jacket of the hardback edition of my book has an excerpt from the foreword. I was just delighted beyond description when Dr. George Scholar agreed to write the foreword to my book. And he paid me one of the highest compliments, if I can put it in his own words. He said, Jeff Meldrum is a scientist and an expert in human locomotor adaptations. In Sasquatch Legend Meet Science, he examines all evidence critically, not to force a conclusion, but to establish a baseline of facts upon which further research can depend. His science is not submerged by opinion and dogmatic assumption with objectivity and insight. He analyzes evidence from tracks, skin ridges, film footage, and DNA. And he compares it to that of primates and various other species. He disentangles fact from anecdote, supposition, and wishful thinking, and concludes that the search for Yeti and Sasquatch is a valid scientific endeavor by offering a critical scrutiny Sasquatch Legend Meet Science does more for this field of investigation than all the past arguments and polemics of contesting experts. That really, again, like I said, I was tickled, delighted beyond words at his willingness to even read my manuscript, let alone provide such an endorsement. But that really captured, I was all the more delighted that that was the take home message he got from the book. So tonight, I'm looking forward to intellectual conversation about the nature of the evidence and the interpretation of its historical context and see where that points as curious, inquiring minds. There you go. Awesome, sweet. All right, Maddie, hop on into it. OK, well, this handsome boy is Chester. He's probably going to come in and out throughout tonight. He's very good. So about what you might have noticed that in my little brief scientific background I gave about myself while it is kind of broad and cover touches on a lot of fields, none of those fields are anything like biology or zoology or anthropology or anything in the life science. So I'm certainly not trying to come in tonight as like an expert in any of those things. And I certainly don't claim to be. But what I do bring tonight is I am very good. And I've had a lot of training in just kind of like the understanding what it is, like what types of evidence do you need to support a scientific claim? And so my goal for tonight is to sort of be an audience surrogate. Really, I don't have a strong opinion one way or another on whether Bigfoot exists. It's not something I have a lot of evidence sitting in my back pocket about. And so I would like to give Dr. Meldrum the opportunity to convince me tonight. I'm hard to convince about things. And so I'm kind of here to like ask questions and see where the evidence holds up and to do that from a fresh perspective. So that's kind of my goal for tonight. And I do, as we're moving into the open discussion section, I want to ask a couple of questions if that's OK, because I want to make sure that I kind of fully understand what the claim is. And so my understanding is that the claim of what Bigfoot is, the sort of Bigfoot is our colloquial name for the existence of some novel species of hominid or something which is genetically distinct from humans and other primates. And that some basic characteristics are that this creature is like large, taller than the average human, generally covered in hair, and specifically it's bipedal, which would also separate it from other hominids. So is that a fair summarization of what the claim is? Yes. OK. Yeah. So can I respond to that right now? Yes, please. So right, in part, it's going to depend on who you ask. One of the things, the phenomenon that has occurred amongst the community of the Bigfoot enthusiasts, if you will, if we can label them such broadly, there. And it's always been present, but it's become much more distinct and intense of late, it seems. But there's this parting of the ways between what has been described as the flesh and blotters, if you will, those who see the possible existence of Sasquatch as another large primate, distinct in the ways that you mentioned. While the other group, for various reasons, which range from, in my opinion, a resignation due to the inability to find conclusive evidence to other alleged personal experiences or worldviews, see Bigfoot as the manifestation of something very paranormal and even parapsychological, ranging from stepping through interdimensional portals to time travel to shape shifting to being capable of mind speak on a higher plane of existence. When you name it, there's a following of that particular view. And I would say, while acknowledging or making the point that those who live in glass houses don't throw stones, I'm squarely in the biological camp. I mean, for me, the bottom line is, is there a biological species behind the legend of Sasquatch? That was kind of the theme of the book, Legend Meets Science. There is no question that the legendary figure exists in not only Western Americana, but interestingly from some of the earliest colonial times. There were reports of wild men that didn't have the terms Bigfoot or Sasquatch, but they are sometimes overlooked because the journalistic depictions of a wild man often were interpreted as just a person, a hermit, a recluse, someone who was unkempt and had long beard and flowing hair and ran around in the woods. But when you read carefully, a lot of these describe gorilla-like creatures that leave large footprints, 16-inch footprints, and such. And so the phenomenon is there. Whether there is a creature, ever was a creature, or still is a creature, a species behind that legend, that's the question, I think, that comes to the fore. And not just here, but of course, the question always arises, well, what about the Yeti? Even Scholar here made reference to the Yeti. What about the Yeti? And then there's the orang pendek, and there's the al-Masti. And the list goes on. There seems to be characters not universal. That's what's interesting too. There seems to be a biogeographical basis for the persistence of many of these wild man creatures or figures. But they have certainly been part of human history from the very get-go, from Gilgamesh and Incadu forward, in Western civilization at least. So OK, so then what we're going to talk about tonight, Ray, and what I think, and this is me, again, I'm clarifying to make sure we're on the same page, kind of the evidence you're going to present is for the their exists or has existed or did exist, right? A species of primate, which is a distinct species from human, which spoken about in these legends, maybe some of those writings. But we're going to kind of assume this is something that we as, we're all scientists in the room, that we as scientists can discuss intelligently. And so keeping away from that paranormal aspect or flesh and blood evidence and certainly like journal entries, that's certainly valid evidence of taken as a valid type of evidence, right? Ethnographic evidence certainly has its role. And I mean, the fact that indigenous populations in these areas where these species presumably reside have deep rooted traditions as well is another important, important aspect. I devote a whole chapter in my book to Native American traditions. No, I don't want to say mythology, even folklore is a little bit loaded. I mean, folklore is more reasonable because that sort of just builds the layers of varnishing an elaboration of just like they do with any biological entity that plays a role in there, sort of, whether it's a Pantheon or just a worldview of the natural world. It plays a role, but that's one piece and that's certainly not my expertise either. And so I'm squarely planted in taking the trace and physical evidence that would suggest the existence of such a creature. Okay, so would it, what, if we can, I want to move into kind of talking about what that evidence is. So if we were gonna kind of go through kind of one piece of evidence or one group of evidence, where would you wanna start? Actually, if you'll indulge me again, just for a minute, before jumping into that, to establish what I was talking about as far as context and again, because especially since I sort of front-loaded this with the paranormal and the anecdotal and ethnographic information, it's really important to realize that the suggestion of the existence of such a creature isn't out of place. I mean, this is why paranormal is so antithetical to what we're going to talk about. Now, back in the 60s, when this started to capture the public attention and some evidence like the Patterson-Gimlin film was brought before the scientific community and was evaluated by panels of experts at the time, there was a particular context. One of the things in anthropology that was gaining traction at that time was a notion which had been borrowed from ecology, which had also incorporated it from microbiology. There was a, in the 1930s, there was a microbiologist who suggested the, it was Gauze, who suggested what he termed the principle of competitive exclusion. In working with microbes, he quickly discovered that you could culture these things quite successfully. But sometimes when you combine two species in the same medium, one would drive the other quickly to extinction. It has become a classic example, two species of paramecium, for example. Well, the new discipline of ecology glommed onto that principle, and it became very central to their discipline in the niche hypothesis, the niche theory that no two species can occupy the same niche. Well, a new anthropology discipline grabbed onto that and said, well, hominins are very unique by their braininess, their bipedalism, their material culture. So there can only be one hominin in that niche at any given time. So in the 60s, human evolution was seen as this single file straight line succession of species, one being superseded by the other. So when these scientists who viewed in 1967 the Patterson-Gimlin film, they weren't evaluating what was on the screen because in their minds, there couldn't be another bipedal hominin out there. It countered the paradigm that they were operating under. So they were simply looking at a rationale to negate it, to reject it. Okay. Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt, but I didn't want to ask the clarifying question. So the common kind of model of human evolution that's presented in most say, like high school level textbooks is the March of Progress diagram. And I do understand that that's the kind of thing. Right, that's really not a very good way at looking at evolution, right? It's not really a straight, nothing's going to happen in a straight line. Things are going to branch out. You'll have kind of different species, try out, go extinct, whatever have you. But so the idea, so and I certainly wouldn't argue, and I don't have, I'm not of the opinion that like human evolution, like humans evolving has to be this like unique, crazy thing. All right, yeah, not now, yeah. And so that's, I think what you're saying is that, that's not the current view of evolution, that sort of linear progression is an outdated view, but when the evidence from that like video was initially evaluated, that linear evolution was the model. And so was outright rejected because of that, like you're saying historical contact. So, and now we have a very bushy tree, one that has new branches added on almost an annual basis as discoveries keep rolling forth. And the other aspect dimension of that is not only is it very bushy with many contemporaneous species, but many of those branches have persisted until more recently than would have ever been allowed for or acknowledged as a possibility just 20 years ago. So, we've got good solid evidence in the fossil record of Homo erectus about persisting in the islands in the Indonesian archipelago until about 25,000 years. The discovery of the Hobbit was a real game changer for people's mindset. We've got- I can't be gay. Sorry. That's great news for my Dungeons and Dragons game. That's right, yeah. But so the point is the question, whereas before Bigfoot would have been just something kind of floating out there in the ether with no context, now there is a context and it's not, so anyone who says, as someone actually did to me an anthropologist said to me, they can't exist therefore they don't exist and it doesn't matter what evidence you think you have. How's that for a starting point, for a conversation kind of dampens it. That's a difficult starting point. So I think maybe I asked earlier what the specific claim was and I think maybe we should break here and adjust that a little bit because so certainly other like hominid species that are not humans as we exist right now have existed and co-existed with humans. So I think the specific argument here is that this would have to be like what we call Bigfoot would have to be one of those species that existed to modern times. So at least 20th century. Precisely. So I adopted a term that was coined actually by a Russian hominologist by his own labeling called relic hominoids. So relic in biology is used to describe a population or species that has persisted from a time when it was more widespread or more common. Hominoid can have a vernacular of human like but in a more precise taxonomic sense it's the super family that includes all of the apes both lesser and great apes and humans. So you're right. In characterizing the question of what is Bigfoot I see it as a persistent relic hominoid one that almost certainly has a circum-pacific distribution because we have remarkably similar evidence and anecdotes coming from Asia. Okay, I'm sorry can you say circum-pacific you mean exist on both East and West sides of the Pacific Ocean? Yep, exactly. And but also potentially other branches of that bushy tree. So maybe we've got in the form of the Russian almas which has a very different description more still covered with hair, bipedal but much more human-like in size and capable of tool use, capable of language even it seems based on anecdotes and interacting with local populations in a very different way than this giant ape of Bigfoot. We have the potential connecting the dots between the Ibu Gogo of Flores, Indonesia or Orang Pendek, Ibu or and due to there's a names from almost on every island all throughout the Southeast Asia but putting, trying to connect in dots between it and the hobbit homofloresiensis. We have the Yeti if there is in fact a hominoid involved there. It could be a relic, just a great ape. It's the few pieces of foot predicaments we have for the Yeti show a very divergent big toe a very ape-like foot. I mean, it's clearly not a denizen of the snows of the high elevations but it's inhabiting, it would be presumably inhabiting the subtropical forests in the valleys and is only seeing its footprints or seen as it's crossing passes from one valley to another. Anyway, so there are multiple branches multiple iterations of relic hominoids which, you know, there was a time there was a time when I was kind of reluctant to even broach that topic. It was one thing to be discussing and investigating one form but then to suggest, oh, there might be, you know anywhere from four to five or six of these out there. Now on the other hand, again, given context it actually bolsters in my opinion the fact that there are these global occurrences but which have distinctive differences which have really have a rational context within our growing understanding of the pattern of hominin and hominoid evolution. It really makes for a stronger case for each one individually in some ways. So stepping back then from that the evidence that I would marshal to bolster the case for at least considering the possible existence and persistent existence of such species, given my background and expertise and the nature of the evidence itself it's the footprint evidence that is by far the most compelling for me. I have over 300- Before we dig into the footprints I wanted to play devil's advocate on one point that you brought up earlier. And that was the connection between that sort of, I'm sorry I'm gonna mess up terms but the sort of different branches of that hominin evolution and the existence of these like legends globally and that like kind of our modern understanding of how evolution works, bolstering those claims. If I was gonna play devil's advocate to that what I would say is we also, that sounds very similar to me of the kind of global or near global appearance of dragon legends. And there's some discussion that we didn't find the first fossil ever in the 1800s, right? So fossils have certainly been around people could have dug them up. And so there's some thought that like people dug up saw a giant like dinosaur fossil or saw that and that kind of spurred some of these legends. And so you could think of something very similar of seeing maybe seeing the fossils or bones of these other hominid species that humans found and so, and then these legends come out of those. So to play devil's advocate to that point it would be another perspective would be not necessarily the persistent existence of those species but the ancient existence of those species or other things could. And if all we had were anecdotes, I think you would be absolutely justified and I wouldn't be probably sitting here having the conversation with you because it's in my mind, well, it's like I was actually confronted by a past chair, department chair who did not take a shine to my enthusiasm for pursuing this line of inquiry. And at one point he literally confronted me and said, well, after all, Jeff, these are just stories. And I took a step back. So I said stories that apparently leave footprints, shed hair, void, scat, vocalize, are witnessed by not just every Joe on the street but by sometimes by very experienced outdoors persons, trained scientists, observers and so forth. I said, it's a little more to it than just stories. So you have to, I felt it's a reasonable expectation for science to grapple with that evidence rather than just simply brush it aside as just being nothing but anecdotes. This has been one of the things that has been problematic. I even wrote a paper with a colleague, the late Dr. John Bindernegel who was a Canadian wildlife biologist who was one of the few colleagues of mine who openly pursued this question. But we wrote a paper that addressed the problem of associating the question of Sasquatch with cryptozoology because of the stigma that's attached with that fringe discipline. If the nature of the evidence wasn't so different and distinct, we might not have been justified in writing such a paper. But when it's lumped in with the typical poster children of cryptozoology, the Yeti, the Loch Ness monster, and not to trivialize the potential. I mean, we've seen some really interesting science addressing the Loch Ness monster recently and using environmental DNA techniques to identify a potentially novel species of the eel, freshwater eel that might be at the root of some of the sightings of a creature in the Loch. But anyway, I didn't mean to die. Let's get into some footprints. Sure, yeah. Okay. So footprint evidence. For those people, those scientists who have taken a serious look, like Dr. John Napier, a primatologist, Dr. Grover Kranz, a physical anthropologist, it was the footprints primarily. Napier, in his words, in his book, he was one of the first to really, someone with his credentials and position to write a serious objective evaluation of the evidence for the Obama snowman in the Sasquatch, said he was in the end convinced that there was something to the question of Sasquatch and it was the footprints. He said something is leaving these footprints. And so we've got this trace evidence, not physical evidence, granted, it's trace evidence, but we have multiple examples now. Like I said, nearly 300 catalogued in my laboratory. We've got multiple examples of single individuals, repeat appearances of single recognizable individuals. But we have a diversity, a demography, if you will, of the species with apparent male and female and juveniles and infant examples of footprints that are hard to stink from human. There have been claims of hoaxing in the past. The Wallace family were in Northern California, at least Ray Wallace and some of his family members were down there during the late 50s and early 60s and his heirs have laid claim to having hoaxed many, many of these footprints. If you take the time to look up some of the examples of their very crude carved wooden feet, which they allegedly strapped their boots and tromped out these footprints, you'll see that they're very distinct, very different from the examples. I certainly trust that you are able to distinguish between a footprint left by a real person and a crappy wooden cutout, right? So that's not something I'm gonna say. So when you say footprints, help me out. What do we got? We got, you're doing field work, you're going out, or people that research for you or whatever other researchers, and you're going into like the forest and you find footprints in the mud? What does that field work like? Well, sure, most discoveries of footprints and most encounters for that matter, almost exclusively are happened by chance, by happenstance. It's very difficult. I go out yearly for at least a month at a time in often in very remote areas to do field work, to try to collect new evidence. And on some occasions have been successful. I've found probably about half a dozen sets of footprints, sometimes in very remote areas. The first set that really pulled me into this was in 1996, I was shown them by another investigator who had found them by accident. And took me out, showed me these tracks, they were very fresh. And we're not talking about just one isolated footprint. In this case, it was a long line of tracks, 35, 45 tracks. So yes, they're found under a variety of circumstances. These are not just enlarged facsimiles of the human foot, but they show very distinctive and remarkably consistent characteristics to the trained eye who that recognizes the underlying anatomy and the surface anatomy for that matter as well. But yeah. Can you help me out? How do you know that they're not? Cause I know some of the claims are based off of the size, but like, Kayla Neal's got a real big foot. So like, why is Kayla Neal's foot, why is she Kayla Neal wearing a gorilla suit, walking barefoot through the woods, not a reasonable explanation for that? So why, how do we know they're not human? Because of the distinguishing characteristics, even if size is not the limiting factor. And if you look at the distribution of human foot length, when you get above 12 inches, you're down to fractions of a percent. So those NBA basketball players are really very rare individuals in the human population as far as foot dimensions. The average big foot track, adult big foot track is about 16 and a half inches in length and much broader. And this is where the difference would be, even if Shaquille had a 16 inch foot, it would be much narrower. It would be distinguished by one of the very consistent human characteristics. And that is the development of a pronounced longitudinal arch and the differentiation of the ball, the halicle metatarsal phalangeal joint, the ball right at the base of the big toe. The Sasquatch tracks are probably on average about 25% wider than a human of similar length. And that makes sense as an adaptation to disperse this greater weight. I mean, not only they are not simply, again, enlarged human figures, even there, as you know, the mass increases to the cube of linear dimensions for a surface area to the square. And so there have to be, if this is really a giant bipedal creature, then there would have to be anatomical differences, namely the lack of the arch that avoids the concentration of plantar pressure beneath the heel and the ball and greater breadth for greater surface area and different behavioral aspects. The other way to avoid excessive ground reaction forces on these tissues is to, for example, walk with a compliant gait, a groucho gait, in other words, with the knees and hips and ankles flexed. And interestingly, when we look at the Patterson-Giblin film, she exhibits those very characteristics of gait. Not only the footprints are distinct, but the aspects of the gait and the kinematics that are evident in the film as we watch it to watch the foot move through a step. They're remarkably distinct in that way. So there are other aspects, the toes, the human toe proportions and configuration is very distinct from that of the Sasquatch. The Sasquatch has more sub-equal toe pads of greater length. So there's the toes of these footprints. So human foot, right, our toes are getting, pinky toes real small. You're saying that these are generally, all of the toes are kind of longer than you would expect. Longer and greater surface area. And you're right, one of the immediate tells of a human barefoot, a shoe-wearing human walking barefoot is that little pinky toe that gets turned completely on its side almost, pressed in, nail pointing to the side instead of upward. And you can pick that out almost immediately in a human footprint. Whereas the Sasquatch, without that confining shoe-wear history, has a much greater range of not only splay of the toes, but even of the metatarsal heads, which we see evidence of in humans to a degree in ethnic populations that have habitually been unshored. So, yeah. I have a question. Please, please, yeah. Okay, excellent. Okay, so when I'm, so if I was, I saw a footprint and I knew enough to know like that's real big, it's way bigger than my foot. And that doesn't quite look human to me, right? So kind of the thought process I would have or that I'm trying to process this evidence with is, okay, so we have an observation. We have an observation of a footprint that doesn't quite seem to be human, right? And so what is certainly an explanation for that evidence would be not human, right? But my question would have to be like, why is the best explanation if not the, I'm not gonna hold you to the only explanation, right? Cause like magic, but like, so why is the best explanation a different species when as you're saying that, I'm thinking, so you mentioned that it is certainly rare for a human to have a 16 inch long foot, but it is not unheard of. It's certainly pretty much. Pretty much and no one. World pressure though is 18 and a half inches when measured diagonally, I looked it up. Right, and how far could he walk? Those individuals that are that big, you know, as when giantism expresses itself and you get a foot like that, almost invariably they have remarkable breakdown of joints and extremities and they walk with crutches or canes and yet they can walk at all. I mean, like the individual I'm thinking of would have been Robert Woodlow. He lived in the 1940s. He's in the Guinness Book of World Records. He certainly was at least somewhat mobile. I mean, Andre the Giant, also a good example. He certainly had giantism. And so... And died young as a result of it as well. Right, but you can die young and leave footprints of love. Yeah, oh sure. Right, so that's not, that's the, so if we know that like basketball player with flat feet who doesn't like shoes, is a, like, that is a type of person that could very feasibly exist. Right, so I said flat feet because you mentioned like the distinct arch and that most human footprints have a distinct shape because like we wear shoes. So, but why can't there be, so why is, you know, a person with a genetic mutation that we know to exist, such as giantism and other like strangeness of the feet? There's a lot of diversity in how humans, you know, some people have six toes. Sure. So I guess why is a, certainly a rare person, right? But why is a human with giantism? So not, and like again, my question is, so these are two separate explanations for the same evidence, right? To me, a human with a genetic mutation or something such as giantism or a basketball player that doesn't like shoes is more reasonable because we know that person exists. So why do we need like to quote Sherlock Holmes, right? Whatever you've all, oh no, I'm gonna butcher it and I love Sherlock Holmes. That's all right, I know what you mean. Yeah, so like it's the, whenever you've ruled out everything that's like rational or reasonable then the extraordinary explanation that's left over must be true, right? And so that's kind of what I'm looking for here is that sort of proposing an extraordinary answer, right? And so my question is kind of why are these like, why is something more ordinary? Like how do we rule out the ordinary and are only left with the extraordinary? So, yeah. Right. Are you familiar with the movie's signs? I am, I love that movie. Remember that scene when the sheriff arrives after the thing has been running on the roof? I mean, the conversation that the younger brother had with the sheriff, this reminds me of that. Well, ruling out a large Russian Olympian, what is the likely? Right, right. So yeah, so. Yeah. So that, I mean, I think it becomes a bit of perception as to which is the more extraordinary explanation in my mind to require to appeal to an extraordinary genetic mutation or NBA basketball player out in the middle of the woods, walking around barefoot to leave footprints. That's a little more extraordinary than the possibility, given all the other evidence. Yeah, and that's the thing. There's this problem of reductionism and isolating individuals. There was Michael Schermer, well, I think it was if I'm attributing this correctly, took exception to any eyewitness account because he was saying you can sit and pick and pick and pick and dissect that individual account. And so it goes in the waistband and then you do that to the next one. So a pile of an incredible anecdotes isn't worth anything. Well, that's absolutely wrong. If you have consistent threads, especially in an era that predates the internet and social media, when people didn't have any concept of a public idea of what Bigfoot was, what the icon entailed, and yet these same descriptions independently keep popping up. I mean, that's important pattern. That's important replication and the attitude of Schermer is absolutely wrong. So again, if we isolate this one instance of a Bigfoot print and you try to explain that one away with this extraordinary, well then you've got to be able to apply that to all the others. So you don't have this rare instance of this rare individual leaving this one rare footprint, but you would have to invoke all of these rare instances repeating themselves through decades of time and over a huge geography and found described by independent people repetitively. And so I mean, then it does become in my mind to become that becomes extraordinary. And besides the fact that, again, we're not looking at the footprint of an NBA basketball player because, and you acknowledged and I'm grateful to you for making that acknowledgement that not only can I tell the difference between a carved wooden board strapped to a hiking boot but I can also tell the difference between a human footprint and something that is atypical of a human footprint, completely atypical of a human footprint. And so we're not just looking at a big human footprint. I've got examples of some of the big basketball players here at the university who came in when they would take a class, I'd give them a couple of extra points that come into my lab and make a mold of their foot. So I've got some 13 and 14 inch human footprints and they look like bananas. They're so narrow and arched and you hold one of those up to one of these 16 inch by seven inch, you know, flat, broad, immensely broad feet and there's just no comparison. Oh, there's a comparison, but I mean, the contrasts are so vivid, so evident that you really, you really can't. If we want to... Go ahead. Gotcha. And I... Sorry, the dog jumped up, run away. Okay, thanks. So for me, the part of the footprint that would convince me that this isn't human is what most things in scientific science land would convince me of, which is to see, I certainly accept your expertise but to... What's the word? Definitively, definitively say that those like, aren't human, what I would really want to see would be a journal, you know, scientific journal discussions of like, hey, we found this series of papers looking at a series of footprints, right? So obviously this isn't something that we can do in a debate or a type discussion, but like that's... So I'm not 100% convinced because I'm being very skeptical that these like can't be human, but I do like to say like, what would convince me and what would convince me would be to see sort of a scholarly consensus, not necessarily that these are bigfoot, but these footprints or these series of footprints are not human and see kind of multiple scholars agree on that point. Well, that's the problem though, isn't it? Because when you have a hypothesis and we don't have to limit this analogy to Sasquatch, I mean, you can look at the history of science and there are numerous different examples where we just had to hear a little aside. I just served on an academic freedom subcommittee. We were tasked with revisiting and revising and re-drafting the university's policy on academic freedom. And this one member of the committee had drawn heavily from a particular source, although she asserted some of her own verbiage, which was what caused the catch, but she wanted to include this final wrap-up statement of the responsibilities of academic freedom. But the phrase that I objected to was that, faculty had the responsibility to convey information which is generally accepted in their discipline. And I said, wait a minute, that's just absolutely antithetical to the whole point of an academic freedom policy because there are numerous theories or hypotheses that are out there that are very unpopular or that even, what do we do? 51% agree with this hypothesis so we can teach that, but if there's only 49%, there's not a majority, then we can't mention that in class. So there are academic papers that have been published. I have been successful in getting some published, but I'm up against a wall because there are very few people who are capable or willing to objectively evaluate a paper on the merits of its evidence without grappling with the implications. See, it's just like the early viewings of the Patterson-Gimlin film. They're looking at there and they're sitting there and they're saying, gee, if we say this is real, we're going against, I mean, that overturns the prevailing paradigm. That isn't the consensus of our discipline. And so they come out and they say really ridiculous things for someone for an anthropologist to say. One of them said, oh, it has hair on its breasts. Primates generally have naked breasts, therefore it must be fake. Well, this gentleman must not have been married and he must not have been getting any. If you have goosebumps on your breasts, ladies, you have hairs on your breasts, to put it bluntly. It's the most inane statement for an anthropologist to say. Another one came out and said, well, it's got breasts like a female, but it walks like a man. So it must be a hoax. Well, why do human females walk like human females? Because of the obstetric constraints of a large birth canal that spread the acetabula apart and give them that little waddle, that little walk. If you have a small brain, a big foot would have more man-like hips. So the things that they were saying to try to justify their rejection were just, they were totally baseless. I certainly agree that any time you have, maybe French isn't quite the right word, but science is always evolving. What we understand is, especially when you're on, when you're on kind of the frontiers of science. And so certainly you have a very, you're pushing a rock up a very steep hill. And I, in terms of having papers, and so the fact that you've been able to have papers published, I think lands credence to your points. But I know we've been talking for quite a while and that the most interesting bit of evidence to me that you brought up that I'd be really interested in talking some more about was specifically DNA. Because to me, that would be, that would be sort of the silver bullet of, you would think of, because, again, not a biologist, but it's pretty easy to tell, like human, not human, right? Well, actually not. Actually not. Okay, well then let's learn some about DNA. Well, I mean, if we're dealing with a species that is, say, a hominin, as opposed to, say, something like an extent gigantipithecus that's more aligned with the Pongidae, then the difference between us and them is gonna be really small. Now, yes, we can tell the difference between us and Denisovans and us and Neanderthals, where we've been able to extract DNA from those fossils, but it's a very small amount. So what happens, all I'm saying is, what happens is much of the DNA work that has been done to date has been underwritten by a documentary. And they only have a limited budget, so they only look at maybe a mitochondrial gene, and what do they come up with? Almost all DNA that's been attributed, extracted from hair primarily, when successful, and it's very challenging. The hairs that are attributed to Sasquatch, one of the unifying characteristics that exists, it seems, is the lack of a cellular medulla, the central shaft of the hair, where there's the remnants of cellular nuclei. Okay, sorry, because I think we're gonna get into some weeds and you're already kind of losing me in some specifics, so I kind of wanna, again, thinking of playing like audience, I'd make it a little bit, survey. Okay, all right, so the point simply is, we're talking potentially about a species that may be so close to us that the difference may be a tenth of a percent. Okay. And in order to detect that difference, and I consulted recently out of frustration with numerous geneticists, disinterested or otherwise, and their consensus is, yeah, to separate species like that, you're gonna want to do the entire mitochondrial gene, I'm gonna at least a half a dozen to a dozen nuclear genes. So we're talking about a major project that has never been undertaken. Let me just back something up really fast. So just so that I can make sure that I understand. So let's say I went on vacation to the Amazon and I came home with two beetles and I think that they are of the same species of beetle, that they're the same kind of beetle, or sorry, whatever, I just tried to make up a simple animal, I don't know. And I also think that they are a unique species, right? This isn't anything. Lots and lots of beetles exist, I know it's a beetle, but I think this is a distinct species of beetle and I wanted to prove that with DNA. So what I would, can you give me like the, explain it to like a college freshman or maybe high school student, how do we do it? Well, sure, you would, of course, you would extract the DNA and then you would look for distinguishing markers that differentiate those potentially very closely related species. And in some instances, that's very straightforward. Once you find those points on the genome that harbor the distinctive differences in nucleotide sequence, okay? And that, it could be that straightforward with a potential Sasquatch sample, tissue sample, like hair or scat or skin or blood, if someone would actually do that. Now, I've reached out and offered to finance, I've got people who would pay for it, to a number of different labs and what I continually run into, as we talked about, is they're unwilling to take it on. There's so much pressure, publish or perish, that the reputable labs, even those, and especially those working in hominoid, systematics or DNA sequencing for various projects, they don't wanna do it. They don't wanna do it because they don't want to have a graduate student or postdoc spinning their wheels, so to speak on a risky project like controversial like that. And they don't want the stigma that's associated with, even acknowledging that there may be some possibility. Okay, so sorry, just to step it back a second. So we sequenced the DNA of my beetle in this hypothetical example. And then we compared it to the DNA of like lots of different other beetles. And we found that like this bit, this little part of the genome is distinct and isn't in the other beetles. Is that the simplified version of what we're talking about? Basically, yes. I mean, you're looking for derived trait. You're looking for some type of genetic, okay, so. Precisely. When if we're gonna move over to a bigfoot, what I'm hearing you say is that you have some DNA samples that you think are attributed to, you have like hair or something which you could distract DNA from that you believe to be attributed to bigfoot but have been unable to get it sequenced because of reluctance from the labs. Is that an accurate summary? Pretty close. The one that we just, you're right on except for one little caveat in there. And that is we're not confident that we have any DNA sample. We have tissue samples, potential tissue samples. But that's the problem. You know, as an anatomist, I look at this hair under the microscope and I can't attribute it to any other mammal out there in the woods except a human. But it's distinct in some ways from human. For example, it's got a warrant tip that's apparently never been cut. It's got an acellular medulla consistently across samples which only appear in some individuals of humans, especially individuals with very fine blonde hair. Toe heads often have an acellular medulla. The medulla gives more stiffness, more coarseness to the guard hairs of other mammals. And so on those rare occasions when we do get DNA, what happens is when they test it, it comes back as human. And it's explained, rationalized as like contamination or misidentification. But the third possibility that isn't discussed, as the elephant in the room is, did you test it enough to really differentiate it from human? If it were different, could you recognize that it was different based on the test? That was actually gonna be my question. My question was gonna be like the margin of error of the test compared to the difference from the species to, because it would be a very large number if it had a 1% margin of error. But if the difference between the species you're looking at and a human is 1% difference, then the differences would be within the margin of error of the test, right? If that was actually where I had immediately jumped to. And it's not just the error of the test, but rather, you've got, here's a real simple example. You have something like an advance calendar with all these little doors that are windows onto the gene sequence. And your test is only opening one door. Now, if there are only, and you've got say a hundred doors and you've got maybe five differences that distinguish the Sasquatch from human, but you can only turn one door because that's the only test you're going to do. Well, what are the odds? It's like going on the price is right and playing Plinko or something, you know? What are the odds of that door you turning? Finding, what you see looks just like human. It's identical to human. And so the parsimonious response would be the less extraordinary answer is it's human. Well, maybe it's not because you just, because you haven't turned open enough doors and that's what I was getting at in discussing this with other geneticists is giving the potential closeness, the potential almost identity between these two samples. You've got to do a lot of testing to be sure one way or the other. And we're not to that point yet. So one of my big pushes in my personal research is to the burgeoning field of environmental DNA where you can go out and take a soil sample or a water sample and they can use this shotgun approach, you know, and identify with these probes all these different potential species out there. And then when there's an indication of such they can do it more extensive examination. Real quick guys, I just wanted to let you know, oh, sorry, James and I, we're probably having the same ideas because they weren't about 50 minutes by my account 52-ish for the open discussion. So just letting y'all know where we're at. We're not to that. One thing too with that is that we, this is something I think the audience would definitely find interesting is the Patterson-Gimlin film is something that we haven't discussed too much in terms of like the critiques of it, the defenses of it. And so what I would like to do is if it's okay with you guys, just as kind of bringing this as a kind of a key point up to the front of the screen in a literal way. So what I can do here is if you guys are okay with it, I can screen share both in the Zoom just so you can see the window that I have here as well as what I have here is on OBS I'm gonna flip it over so that people can see it as well. So if it's okay, I would just like to show people just a short clip of what you guys are seeing here on Zoom as well. And then if it'd be okay for us to talk about those critiques and this is like I said, a very short clip. So it's only a few seconds that I'm gonna show but something that I think the audience, like I said, would find really interesting. So, sure. Own sightings here in Australia. We don't call them Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Here we call them Yowies. So let's have a look at this famous footage. So that snippet right there that I just showed is from that kind of classic film that I think a lot of people recognize in pop culture references and other places. So wanted to see if I could get your guys' kind of feedback on that. So what I'm gonna do is switch it over and thanks so much for humoring us on this really interesting topic. Sure. If you don't mind, I'd kind of like to start because I know you have a lot more to say than I do. So I sort of wanna bring up. So again, as with the footprint, what I'm seeing here is this is like we have an observation. We have an observation. We have a video of some type of bipedal, furry creature. And so then what is the best explanation or the most reasonable explanation or maybe not the most reasonable. Let's say what's the best explanation for what we just saw. And to me, so the video by itself, so why is again like Shaquille O'Neal or his grandpa maybe, because that was in the 70s, wore a gorilla suit and went for a hike. So why is that or even like a human, we know that there exist genetic mutations which cause like lots of excess hair to grow. And so the, if we assume that it's not faked, I'll grant all of those things. Like we saw this video of something. So why is the best explanation for that, the existence of sort of a novel, a new novel species would be kind of my main question. If I was trying to look at that very objectively. And again, we could talk about whether or not it's faked like all day long, but if we're gonna make the assumption that it's not faked. Yeah, well, that's a generous starting point for the bottom position. But I think it's more interesting if we, you could fake anything, right? No, actually not. You can't. You really can, especially when you're limited by the resources you have. And here's where the context is so important. You know, because you're a generation that's been raised with CGI and these animatronics and all this remarkably amazing stuff. This is 1967. This is the same year that the first, not the remakes, the first Planet of the Apes was released. Now think about the costumes there. John Chambers got an honorary Oscar for his pioneering work creating these simplistic little injected foam rubber appliances that made the contours of the face of these apes. I mean, that was unheard of previously. I mean, before that, you had these ridiculous looking costumes like, oh, the, I can, Mugatu, I got it. The Mugatu on Star Trek. Like remember the ape with the horn that bites Captain Kirk? And you can see the seams. You can see the neck and everything. I mean, it's so transparently fake. You know, it's interesting when, and I don't mean to digress with the hoax, but for me, the question devolves more meaningfully to that than it does to, again, to invoke some extraordinary human individual. It would be an individual that is, that has never been witnessed before or since. There are reams and reams of data, anthropometric data, the dimensions and proportions of people, various ethnicities that have been measured for military in order to make uniforms, et cetera, the ergonomics of aircraft, cockpits, et cetera, et cetera. And you can go and look up. And not just the height, this creature was, you know, given that 14 and a half inch foot, 15 inch foot scale, this creature probably was just at or slightly under seven feet tall. But probably if you measure the proportions and the volume that's evident there, it weighed nearly 800 pounds, you know? If you just, because what you don't see in that view is the on-foss, the AP, the anterior posterior view. This thing has 36 inch shoulders. It has, you know, a chest that, well, it has a thigh that I could put my chest inside. You don't get the sense of the dimensions, but there are no humans alive, present or past that could even fill a suit, fill the volume of that creature. Okay, I might have to push on that a little bit. So I've done some research. I did my undergraduate thesis on measuring craters on the moon. And what was very cool was I got to use satellite data, like satellite altimetry data to like measure these craters. And that was kind of a big deal because before this particular satellite, all we had was photos from Apollo era, right? Which is kind of what we're talking about. And if I'm thinking about what you're able to, what I was, what was able to be able to do, right? Cause I had read a lot about getting data out of kind of like historical footage from that time. And this would have been like the absolute best cameras and things, certainly not what, you know, local just average Joe could have been able to afford. You could not tell if a crater was convex or concave, right? Like you couldn't tell if this was a mound or a crater half the time, right? And so given the quality of the footage, I am very unconvinced that you are able to determine those types of things that you're describing given limitations of like perspective angle. And when I say anything can be faked, I mean, like with, you can do a lot, there's only so much data you can pull out of a picture. There's also data you can pull out of a pixel. And so I'm very wary of granted, I would need to be able to say like, to be able to talk about like, hey, those methods, I'm not sure about that, but I would need to read a lot on the methodology if we're thinking like scientific paper type of thing on how that was determined, but I'm very wary of the technological capabilities of being able to pull that kind of data from a camera. Well, I guess I don't know exactly how to respond to that. It's the make and model of the camera we're known. The film stock was the best finest grain stock available in 1967. The film is in focus contrary to all of the comment. I'm foiled, I get 4K video, right? And so like I'm not, anyway. Well, remember this is not a video, this is a cinematography, this is an emulsion film. Yeah, it's a series of stills. So it stands up under scrutiny much, much, much better than a video image does, even granted the quality that you're describing, but someone's video camera off the shelf, interlacing between fields and so forth, there's a lot more noise than what you have in this. The blurriness, there's some motion blur because the film was shot at a lower frame rate than was typical for broadcast standards at that time. Instead of 22 frames per second, it's been determined and quite convinced by independent means that it was somewhere between 16, 18 frames per second. But what you have is you've got a 16 millimeter film frame, you have a creature on that film, that exposed film that's 1.8 millimeters tall and you're blowing it up to that size on the screen. That was a pretty good clip that he showed, but that's not the best quality of the image that we have to work with. But anyway, so I would just come back and say that I'm quite confident. Yes, there's a margin of error, the graininess of the film when you enlarge it. Now for pre-graining-ness folks out there, grain would be comparable to pixels, but it's not discrete squares of data. It's the crystal in nature of the chemical emulsion on the plastic film platen that responds to the exposure to light. And so when you blow it up, it starts to get grainy, the image, the boundaries are a little bit hazy. So there is a margin of error, I'll grant you that, but even allowing for that margin of error on there, we still can, I mean, we can, you know, we can put calipers on that foot as it comes up and shows the sole of the foot. We have the corresponding footprints from the sandbar, from the location that have been documented quite extensively actually. Over 12 casts were made of the prints and photographs and so forth. And they can be lifted from the film as well. So, you know, sure there's a margin of error. So we could be off. Okay, so what you're saying is that because my biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest thing right there was, if you have a two dimensional image, right, how do you measure anything? How do you like, you know, how do you tell if something was six feet tall or 12 feet tall, right? Because it has to do with perspective and you lose that third dimensional data, so you have to compare it to something that you know the height or the size of, and you know the distance from and there's trigonometry. Exactly, yeah. Well, we have the ready-made scale in the length of the foot. And as long as we can confidently associate the foot on that subject, whatever it is, with the footprints that are seeing being left and were documented after the fact, and I'm quite confident. I mean, you can put the cast right up to the outline of the foot and it matches point for point. So we have that scale. And then they've been able to using photogrammetry. You don't go back to the scene with a Jacob staff and with various people who have done this, models standing in place or walking in place, using the same type of camera, they with trigonometry calculate where the photographer was standing. And then you can superimpose those frames and convince yourself that, or not convince yourself, demonstrate mathematically that, yes, it was bigger and bulkier and much more massive than the human subject walking in its stead. So anyway. So I would certainly give, I would certainly grant the height of the creature, right? Based on everything we just talked about. I'm very skeptical. I'm very skeptical of max calculations on a volume calculation. Well, we have views when it's walking at an angle. We have views when it's completely on its side. We have views of it walking away and trailing with a complete backside, parallel to the film platen. So it's not like we're trying to extrapolate from just one perspective, but there are multiple perspectives. And so those dimensions, I mean, even if you only had two dimensions and you underestimated, just imagine that the body, for approximation that the body was a series of cylinders, the torso, the head, the extremity segments were just a series of segments and extrapolated from that, you can come up with a pretty good ballpark estimate of the volume. And then we know the relative density of typical muscle and bone tissue. And again, it's a ballpark. But the number you floated for the weight was like 800 pounds. And I'm thinking, a person I threw out earlier would have been Andre the Giant. And I know he weighed like 550. Well, I'd be surprised he was that much, but... Well, that's what Wikipedia said. That's it. He could have been 550, yeah, but... Yeah, and so like if we're thinking, because when we're comparing that, something like that, like margin of error is gonna matter, right? Because margin of error here, how big the margin of error on that mass estimate tells me if we're in a range which is possible to be human or not, right? And I think that really, really, really matters here. Well, it does. It does. What's my rule out? Could this be a human? Yes, right, you're right. But again, we're kind of back in the middle of it. You're right. But again, we're kind of back, we've spiraled back to the same position we were in the footprint discussion. And that is, what are the chances that Roger Patterson was able to conscript an Andre the Giant to go down to Bluff Creek with him? And why would he go clear down to Bluff Creek to do this, to pull this off? When there's lots of other locations that would be much more convenient to him. And it just, I think that it begs the question, the real question, what are we looking at there? And is it what was expected in 1967? Or was it at odds? It was interesting when, go back to John Napier again, in his book where he came down favorably on the side of the possible existence of Sasquatch, he was negative on the film. He couldn't justify or rationalize that feeling except on one point that he iterated, that he stated clearly in his book, he said, when I look at what's there, he said, from the waist up, it's generally like a grade eight, like a gorilla. From the waist down, it's typically human. He said, it is almost impossible to conceive that such a hybrid of structure would exist in nature. So one half of the other must be false. Well, if one half of the others false, the whole thing's a hoax. Well, about a year later, the book was published in 1973. A year later, the popular press was heralding the announcement of the discovery of Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis, one of the more complete specimens that absolutely demonstrated the bipedal adaptations of lower extremity in this early bipedal hominin. And how did the popular press describe it? Or how was it described through the popular press? From the waist up, it looks just like a chimpanzee. From the waist down, it looks just like a human. Isn't it interesting how evolution has put together this unexpected combination of traits? Well, now, wait a minute. Just a year ago, that was the lynchpin. That was the lynchpin to the rejection of the film by John Napier. What if he'd waited a couple of years before he published his book? That would have been an indefensible argument against the film, because now, we know that early hominins combined those very characteristics that we see in Patti. In fact, if I was gonna write an introductory anthropology text, and I wanted an illustration of what I envisioned or what science envisions early hominins to look like, the combination of characteristics, the unusual limb proportions, the combination of more ape-like craniums, small brain, big, deep jaws. I mean, a robust australopithecine, I could use that picture and it would be absolutely perfect if it didn't have the stigma attached to it that the current notoriety carries with it. In 1967, we didn't have that concept of what early hominins looked like, but now, it's absolutely in lockstep with what we think. How is that? Is that just coincident? I mean, you know, and I can go down a whole list of these things where what we see in the film, combinations, unusual combinations of traits, the flat face with reduced canines, that doesn't make sense. Canines only got smaller as the hominin dentition, or jaws got smaller. A foot that has a flat flexible instep, but a non-divergent big toe. That's an unheard of combination of traits. Well, it was until my interpretation related to Holy Prince is finally starting to get some traction, that the early hominins did walk on flat flexible feet, clear up through Homo erectus, you know? All the, no, give Roger that he got one thing right by pure chance, but he got six right by pure chance anticipating unusual combinations traits, which we now fully accept in the hominin fossil record, but didn't know about in 1967. I mean, I would have expected, I would have expected a miniature King Kong, like you said, a Shaq O'Neal, Shaquille O'Neal in a gorilla suit. You show me a gorilla suit that comes even close to that. What we'll do is if Maddie, we can give you the last word and then we want to jump into the Q and A. So thank you both, Dr. Meldrum and Maddie. Want to remind you folks, their links are in the description. I have put them there and they're there so that you can either hear more or read more from our guests. We really appreciate them. And so this has been a great time. And so as I mentioned, Maddie, we'll give you a chance to respond and then we'll jump into the Q and A. Okay, I actually, I'm gonna accidentally, I think make a point for you because I wanted to summarize something you just said because it was taking me a second to understand. So is what you're saying that there were six specific traits observed in the video we watched, of the creature in the video we watched that like humans specifically don't have and like a gorilla that escaped from the zoo wouldn't have had, right? So there's six specific traits that are like humans don't have this, no other like living primate has these things or like let's just stick with humans. Humans don't have these things. Combinations of traits. Combinations of traits. Okay. And the video came out and since then we've discovered those specific six traits in now extinct, dominant species. Is that what you said? Okay. That was, so that's really cool. I know, it is, it is. I mean, that's, you know, we sit because you can sit and like I said, you can sit and debate the intricacies of the detail and argue, well, it could have been hoaxed or no, it couldn't have. But when you step back and you consider it in the context, this broader context, it's like, how could they have possibly come up with this in 1967? I mean, not only the costume aspects, you know, we can talk about that, but I think we want to get onto something else here, but the anatomical traits, it just, I mean, you know, I'm as convinced as I can be short of having stood there on the sandbar at the time this occurred, that this is the real deal. If all I had were the footprints that they cast and photographed from the site, I would be convinced. But to have both of them in tandem and all these other characteristics, it's just, it blows my mind. I mean, anyone who says, oh, that's just a man in a first suit is simply wearing their ignorance on their shirt sleeve. That's all I can, I can't put it any more bluntly because it is not just a man in a first suit. It's anything but, you know, and the attempts have been made to try to replicate it and they're laughable. I mean, with today's materials, they didn't have four-way stretch fur, they didn't have foam rubber, they didn't have the spandex, you know, that used in undergarments to make these armatures of musculature and so forth. They just didn't have those things back then. So when you see a costume and attempt with just regular fur cloth, it looks like hairy pajamas. And it hangs like hairy pajamas with, you know, like my shirt with pleats and folds and straight lines instead of contours because they didn't have form-fitting, you know, materials back then. Anyway, sorry, you get me going on that one. Will, where do you want to take it, Paige? I just wanted to clarify that point and I'm good to move into questions if that's what we're at. You got it. Did you say like past tense or future tense? Did you say you want to clarify a point or? No, no, no. He clarified. Gotcha, okay, thanks very much. And we'll jump right into it with Loris K. Psalms 25 says, Dr. Meldrum, I saw a show with a forensic hominid. Oh, and by the way, Erika, in case you didn't see, I sent you the question list in Twitter. So they said, Dr. Meldrum, I saw a show with a forensic hominid ridge print specialist who evaluated all of the ridge print evidence for Bigfoot and determined it was a living species. Is that evidence documented? Yes, well, yes, it just not fully published. There's some examples that are provided in my book. This was not Dr. Officer, Jimmy Chilcutt, who was a latent fingerprint examiner who also, to his credit, was very interested in the implications of very, very variation in primitive, ridge detail in non-human primates for his interpretation of human. So he, on his own time, he would go and literally fingerprint great apes, chimps, gorillas, and orangs while they were anesthetized for their annual physical exams. He said one time a guy came in and said, what, your fingerprint in the apes? He says, yeah, I'm trying to solve the banana hives. But anyway, he did. He was quite impressed with what he saw. I mean, when I turned him loose in my lab, he quickly identified those which had some trace expression of dramatic lithics. They're rare because you have to have a substrate that's fine enough to pick up that fine detail in the print. It has to survive long enough for that print to be discovered and it has to be cast by someone that is skilled enough to carefully make that cast so that it transfers to the cast and is preserved. And isn't over and vigorous with brushing or cleaning, washing and destroy that fine detail. Anyway, but we haven't written up the results for a formal publication that it has been mentioned, like I said, in my book and elsewhere. But he did. I mean, after his first day in my lab, we went to lunch. We were sitting there and he got very reflective and he's looking off in the distance. And he turns to me and he says, Jeff, these things really do exist. What are you gonna do about it? Doing what I can, you know, I'm trying to understand them better, learn more about them. But I mean, like I said, it's not my goal to, I'm not proselytizing or trying to make converts. I'm just analyzing the data, evaluating the data. On the stoner, Lynn has a question for you, Dr. Meldrum, and they asked, if you believe in any other cryptids, and I think they're mostly referring to like non-hominin cryptids. Yeah. Well, they must have missed my little sermonette about belief because I wouldn't admit it in those terms. I mean, I'm curious about other cryptozoological entities or cryptids, but certainly I didn't enter into this investigation as a cryptozoologist. I entered as an anthropologist and biologist and it's the hominin or slash hominoid, perhaps, nature of this question that has attracted me. So others are just avocational or passing interests. I think it's fascinating when new species are discovered, demonstrates that there still are spaces that harbor yet to be discovered, fauna, and that's always intriguing to me. Gotcha, and I have a question. Thanks for that answer and thanks for that question. New one from Fact-Based Living just came in, so I'm gonna quick kind of interweave this in our question list, Erica, and feel free to read the next one on the list right after this. This was, you asked, we have done hundreds of mosquito surveys, none have turned up unknown primate DNA, yet we have found many other new species this way. Does Sasquatch have, let's see, I think they're asking like, why would this be? And maybe you feel, maybe you think that this might be answered by what you earlier mentioned, but I'll give you a chance to respond to it. Well, no, that's fascinating. I'm intrigued to hear that and where they're conducting their research and how extensive it is because part of this project that I'm hoping to get off the ground once we get past COVID and can get out in the field more consistently, also included in addition to sampling water and soil, we were also going to do surveys, collection, mass collections of mosquitoes with that very thought in mind. So please ask them to reach out and email and they get in touch with me directly. I'd love to talk more about their project with them. So that raised a couple of the points. Where are they doing it and how extensively are they doing it? Because if you're in the wrong place, you're not going to be sampling mosquitoes that might have bumped into a Sasquatch. The other thing is the rarity factor. I mean, if we hold the non-existence at bay for just a moment, if they exist and we're wondering why sample hasn't been found, a common denominator to a lot of those questions about where is the conclusive physical evidence? Where is the remains? Where are the bones and body? I think that common denominator is their rarity. We're talking about a large body primate with a natural history that I think we can safely infer for the sake of discussion or consideration from those variables bracketed by characteristics of living gradients and humans. So they're probably rather long-lived, reproducing frequently and developed slowly. And so they're sustained with a lower number than other animals that are lower in the food chain, for example, like ungulates or rodents or so forth. I mean, for example, without going into the details for the sake of time, but taking clues from their possible behavior, solitary behavior based on the appearance of put prints of single individuals and eyewitness sightings and so forth. And the amount of calories an animal that size would need at home range that would be suitable without, again, it's hard to say without going in and not going into it. But say taking my home state of Idaho, I would come up with an estimated Sasquatch population for the sake of conversation, a straw man, if you will, of about 150 to 300. But there's 35,000 black bear estimated in the state of Idaho. So I'd be really interested to see if they're in similar habitat, then how many samples of black bear DNA did they get from their mosquito sampling? And if there's a magnitude of order less of Sasquatch out there, then what are the odds that the Sasquatch is gonna turn up in such a survey? That's an apologist's explanation, but I think it's a reasonable one to at least entertain. Well, and that's, I would certainly grant it. I was just wondering if it's certain. Please, go ahead. Sorry, I think normally I- Sorry, I think we're in our slow, I'm getting this literally. Oh no, sorry, is it bouncing around? What I'm just gonna say is that- I think there's a delay. Yeah. Okay, I think I'm live. What I was gonna say is that, again, while still being very skeptical, we have to, it is impossible to prove a negative or all but impossible from a science standpoint. So it is certainly true that like, just because we haven't found one doesn't mean they can't possibly exist. Right, yeah. It can remain agnostic or skeptical, but right, you can't, it's difficult to prove a negative, yeah. All right, the next question- Right, right, and science land, if you don't do that. I am so sorry there, I'm so sorry there. I think there's a little bit of a delay that it's causing us to overlap. So I'm really sorry I interrupted you eight times, just then. The next question is from Caleb. And Caleb says, let me see here, let me just scroll back up. Caleb generously has asked my thoughts on Bigfoot, I guess, because these guys know here are a modern database that I do love human evolution and primates and things like that. So I appreciate the opportunity to ask a question because I certainly do have one. I think that, I think this has been a really interesting chat. My question would come less from the angle of the evidence that exists in the vein of the Patterson-Gimlin film, which I do think is a very strange film, and more from the perspective of if there is a North American primate living here on this continent, how would it have gotten here, you know, transmitting over from either Africa or Asia? And in your opinion, would it be more in the vein of a gigantic Pithecus Blackii-type specimen or some like, like a parenthropine or something in the Australopithecus, the Grasa Australopithecus group? Well, I think there are two reasonable, no hypotheses to entertain, and you touched on both of them, one being as was suggested very early on by some investigators, I think John Green was the first to propose a Gigantopithecus. We know there was an ape that's the right size in the right place at the right time to be a reasonable ancestor. The problem is we have a very meager fossil record, Jaws and Teeth, but it exhibits adaptations in those Jaws and Teeth that are also suggestive of some of the anatomy that we see in the Patterson-Ginwin film. But we don't have a femur. I mean, if someone would walk out of one of those Vietnamese cages or tiny cages with a gigantic femur that was obviously from a biped, I mean- Wouldn't that be nice? That would be amazing, wouldn't it? So far just Jaws and Teeth. And the only reason we have those is because porcupines dragged them into the caves and chewed up the soft bits and the hard bits persisted. But had we not limestone caves and porcupines, we'd have absolutely no knowledge of Gigantopithecus whatsoever. The other possibility. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to add something quickly to that because I'm curious about this. Because for me, my main deal is, because we find even large primate species have been found somewhat recently. The Vinobo was mid-1900s. I believe the Billy ape, which is another pentrongliditis subspecies was, you know, early 2000s. So for me, it's less that. And it's more that we have no fossil record of large hominids in North America. And if you're finding them in Idaho, maybe, look, if you think there's some in Idaho, I think that's a bit strange because if they're in the Pacific Northwest, I would get on board with like, okay, that's a hard area to fossilize. But if they're all over the place, why have we never found any fossils, do you think? Right. Well, and they're not, first, they're not all over the place. There is a good ecological basis for the, and I won't say credible, I'll say substantiated reports of encounters or evidence for Sasquatch in North America. And it bears a remarkable resemblance to the distribution of black bear across North America. And that was brought up in a published paper, an editorial in the Journal of Biogyography that where they were actually testing software packages for ecological modeling and to demonstrate a cautionary note about not treating these packages as black boxes where you don't know what it's doing to your data, they tested some ostensibly bogus data, namely bigfoot data garnered from databases online. But what came out was a remarkably coherent pattern of distribution that was tied to bioclimatic factors that were very similar to distribution for black bear. And to get the editorial published, they, because one of the authors was a very, was an enthusiast, a very, very proponent of the existence of bigfoot actually, a GIS specialist who grew up in Colorado. But he told me on the side, he said, Jeff, you more than anyone should know, if we suggested at all that this data actually suggested the possibility of Sasquatch, it wouldn't have been published. So we had to tongue-in-cheek say that the possible explanation for Sasquatch then was, given the congruence of these sightings with black bear distribution, they were simply misidentified black bears. Anyway, so a rule of thumb I propose to people is you can just simply ask, does the habitat, does the region you're in or you're interested in, does it harbor black bear or has it ever historically or present or has the habitat been encroached upon and degraded and populations sprawl and so forth enough that it's extirpated the black bear? So they're not everywhere, first of all. But in the conditions for fossilization in Idaho, at least Northern Idaho, or in those areas where there's dense coniferous forest historically, those are typically in very, create very acidic conditions, acidic soils. And unless you have a circumstance like in China where the porcupines are dragging the remains or some concentrators dragging the remains into a more conducive environment, namely a limestone cave or where there are river sediments or with enough alkaline environment that it's going to preserve bones. They're going to vanish. They're going to be gone. They're going to be chewed up and what isn't chewed up is exposed to the environment and quickly is obliterated. The other point is that they probably have only been in North America for geologically a fairly recent period of time. They must have in either case, whether they were gigantipithecus or whether they were a paranthropine of some sort, they had to have come from the old world, from Africa perhaps, Asia perhaps, or most certainly through Asia. And as was the case with 75% of the mammal species that now inhabit North America, they came from Asia. And they got here from across the Bering land bridge, which contrary to popular conception was not always an Arctic tundra. There were periods of time as demonstrated by pollen core samples from the continental shelf. That was a corridor of coniferous forests, even mixed deciduous and coniferous forests that extended from Southern China all the way into the Southeastern United States at times. And so what a little red panda is, red panda, the little raccoon panda, well, they're part of that community, that faunal community of which gigantipithecus was a member, just as an example. Well, we have fossils of the little red panda in Washington state and in Alabama. So if a little panda could make its way across the Bering land bridge, I'm certain that a giant bipedal bait could as well. So that's where they probably came from. Now the pranthropus, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, I'll cut it there. I'll cut it there so we can make a different question. Thank you for the answer. Super interesting. I just, while you were speaking, I pulled a picture of a red panda up and I'm like, that's also not only the longest traveling perhaps, but also the cutest animal, really cute. Let me just add, see, because people have this notion, when they say migrate, they have this image of these little animals packing up their bag or their knapsack and striking off for the horizon with a destination in mind. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about this inexorable expansion of a habitat and then the animals that live in that habitat just naturally spread to fill that habitat and eventually they spread from one continent to the next. So it's not a, I always hate to use the word migration. This is even a problem with hominin evolution. Homo erectus in some books is labeled the migrating hominin as if suddenly now they're longer limbs and more human-like body proportions equip them for that perilous march across Asia. Well, if you look at the first appearance of Homo erectus in Southeast Asia and its earliest appearance in Africa, they only had to move about two miles every generation, not every year, every generation for them to eventually get into Southeast Asia. I mean, there's no march, there's no, there's no Exodus, there's no, you know, it goes back to these human evolution narratives that they has gotten so much press. This, you know, the triumphant hominin suddenly has the adaptations to conquer. I just got excited because you touched on my field for half a second of tailio climate. Yeah. Yeah. Of climate cycles and when you would like not naturally not have ice in the, like where we now have Arctic tundra and we wouldn't have it, fun things like that anyway. And it wasn't, even during the ice ages, it wasn't uniform ice coverage either. There were periods where there could have been pockets of these forest corridors that the creatures, you know, and I think originally that was, they were coastal, the coastal rainforest, temperate rainforest, I think was their primary habitat. And as they exploited resources like salmon, these major rivers like the Frasier, the Columbia, the Klamath, you know, there are salmon that make it all the way up into central Idaho along those waterways. And I think an animal that exploits that kind of resource seasonally would just, you know, follow them inland. If they're generalized enough, like a black bear, I mean, black bear able to inhabit quite a variety of habitats, but they still seek out the mountain or the forests. Super. Thank you very much. And I have to ask this cause Tuss beat box, I didn't get to ask for a question in a prior debate. I owe you one Tuss and thanks for all your support. Tuss had a question for Dr. Meldrum. If Bigfoot is so close to a human, would it be immoral to capture it if we actually did encounter it? Well, sure. We've wrestled with those same ethical questions with the great apes and there's, you know, there's a huge movement to limit the exploitation of great apes for medical research and whatever. And so, yeah, it's going to be a similar scenario. But you know, when people ask, well, what would be the implications if one is discovered? Well, one way to kind of get a good handle on that is just to look in, look back in history. What was the unfolding of our attitudes towards the discovery of, or surrounding the discovery of gorillas? And the impact that had on our view of ourselves and our biological identity and history. And I think it'll just amplify some of those same kinds of discussions and, but it's not going to rewrite the text. But it's like I said, it's, there's a slot right now just sitting there vacant waiting for someone to discover them or to recognize them. Some would argue they've already been discovered. It's just acknowledge them and put them in that slot. I mean, there's a place, a context for it now. You wouldn't have to create anything new, really. Just add a chapter. You bet, thank you. And then, oh, Eric, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Oh, no, listen, by all means. I think the next one is from Conastoner Lynn who asks, Dr. Jeffery, you convinced of a humminous specifically or could Bigfoot be a type of bear or some other previously thought to be extinct mammal? I think they're referring, they haven't parentheses like the Yeti. I think they're referring to that environmental DNA study they did a while back where they found a polar bear. I think it was a Russian polar bear. Well, yeah, that's, there's a big story. When you bring up the Yeti, then the potential conflation with bear is very real because the indigenous population's perception of the Yeti is very nebulous. Well, with nature, I mean, the boundary for them between the natural world and the spiritual world is very fluid. And so they perceive in their own writings, they talk about the Yeti being the spirit of the mountain and that spirit can manifest itself corporeally in any variety of ways. And this is why, being interested in footprints, I did a very, with the assistance of a student that had an interest in footprints, we did a very thorough survey of all the known footprints attributed to the Yeti. And what we found is a large fraction, a significant fraction, the majority were unintelligible. They were indeterminate. They were attributed to Yeti because they couldn't, they couldn't identify them as anything else. So it must be a Yeti, right? Then there was a large number of the remaining that were clearly bear. There were only two that potentially represented a hominoid. And of the bear, I would ask myself, are these Sherpas that disingenuous? Because there are some classic cases. Frank Smith found some excellent clear footprints and the Sherpas were adamant. Oh, Yeti, Yeti, you know, Said, Yeti, Yeti. And he took pictures, sent them back to England and they said, looks like a bear. And I finally, I got, I tracked down. And Frank never would publish any pictures of his accounts. I tracked down his heir, his son, and he was kind enough to share a page proof of a bunch of the photos. And they were absolutely 100% bear. So what were these Sherpa thinking? Well, to them, if you find bear tracks up in this, which themselves are inexplicable at these altitudes, going over these huge, you know, these high passes, it must not be just a bear. It's the spirit of the Yeti. Or if a pilgrim makes his way up from one monastery to the other and crosses over a pass and they find those footprints, it must be a Yeti, you know? And so that makes it very problematic. Over here, no, I don't think it's some kind of species of bear or, I mean, there's a very clear and distinct differentiation in the description and so forth. There's clear differentiation in the, in our indigenous populations, I should say North American indigenous populations between their depictions of a bear in totem poles, for example, has all the characteristics, ears on top of the head, snout, canine teeth, whereas the buquas, the wild man of the woods has a flat face, broad, flaring nostrils, large, squared off teeth, ears on the side of its head, hair all over it, you know, I mean, it's very distinct. Thank you for that. And Jay Mixon, thanks for your question, said, are there any quote unquote pieces of evidence other than the media and footprints? Media, I'm not sure if they mean like media more broadly or the video that we showed earlier, they say that point back to this species, for example, are there any droppings or tree markings and how do we know if the droppings are human or Sasquatch or whatever else? Right, well, when it comes to droppings, scat, the usual problem is not suffering human from Bigfoot but separating Bigfoot or Sasquatch from bear. They're both large omnivores and as such, their scat will reflect what they have been eating seasonally or even within the past week, you know, their gut passage time is probably a lot longer than ours is if the other grade eights are representative of that kind of adaptation. And so, you know, if they're eating berries, it looks like cobbler. If they're eating lots of greens in the springtime, then it looks like manure, it looks like hay. You know, if they get into a carcass, then it's black and tarry from all protein. And even the girth, you know, the shape and the girth, they're not the consistency. It also varies with diet, varies with size and there's enough overlapping body size that it's hard to differentiate. So we have it again, I've dealt with so many samples of scat. I've had to tell people, don't send me your samples. I had one enthusiastic investigator sent their sample, apparently it was frozen when he put it in mail. But in August, it arrived quite thawed and I got this telephone call from the secretary, Dr. Milderman is a package for you and it's dripping. So unless you find a sample right between two footprints and it's still steaming because the mucosal cells that are slept off with that evacuation only will survive the bacterial action of the gut flora for about eight hours. And so unless you, it's very fresh, it's still steaming and you can get it and stabilize it in some 95% ethanol. Please don't bother sending it to me. I'm taking a nice picture and you want to air dry a sample. Something that just crossed my mind and I wonder if this would be especially supportive in terms of it being actual scat from a big foot is if you find that it does have the size proportions that are like, this is not a human, way too big, I'm assuming and if you at the same time have what looks close to like human DNA and it's like, oh wow, like you could say it excludes itself from being human because it's too big and it excludes itself from being bare because it's human DNA. That's a interesting thing. You're in the discourse now. Now you're in print and keep. This is super interesting though. But we've got a lot of questions so I want to, sorry for my, I usually don't put any of my two cents in or thinking about. I liked hearing it, I liked the thoughts. You got James excited. Yeah. This is, I've been telling people for like a month, I've been like, you guys, this is like some of the most interesting kind of content that I think we've had in a while. And so it's, I mean, anyway, okay, sorry. So next question, this one comes in from, oh, Farrah or was it a, Jay makes and thanks for your question. No, we got that one. Okay, Erica, so sorry. Go ahead. Oh, no, no, no, we're good. There was one from Snake was right, Snake was right, said, donated for the Erica debates, Bigfoot fun. Bigfoot would kick my butt in a debate, 100%. I've heard that the Bigfoot, she's quite the debate bro. From Benthoven, no relation for both of you. They, Benthoven asks, let's say you found a skeleton. How would you personally tell that it's Bigfoot? How, like, what would your criteria be? Well, if it's a skull, like that one over your shoulder there, there's a myriad of characteristics that would clearly distinguish it. We would expect that, you know, there's an interesting graphic that I created where I took a blow up of that Patterson-Gimlin film. So I had just the bust here and blew up to scale a robust Australopithecine, the composite Zinjantropus or Pyranthropus Boisei. And what's fascinating is that point for point, every landmark from the top of the head to the receding chin lines up. And so we actually were gonna do a project. I discussed the possibility of doing a project with Phil Muns, who's done a lot of analysis with the film and is great at anthropological reconstructions from fleshing out the skulls of primates, much as a forensic analyst would do. And I said, let's do the reverse. Let's take what we see on Patty and peel away the anatomy and what's the underlying skull? Well, it doesn't, if you're an anatomist, it doesn't take much to visualize and it would end up looking remarkably like the skull that we have in Pyranthropus. So it would be quite recognizable. It would be different than any other animal out there. One time I got a phone call and there was a gentleman who was working on putting a power line through the Rogue River country of Southern Oregon, really remote, wild country. And he said, I've got it. He said, I got the definitive evidence. He said, I even had a human osteology course when I was in college. And he said, so I know what I'm talking about. And so I thought, oh, this is it. This is really going to be it. And I said, well, send me a photo of it as soon as you can. So he did. When he got the photo, it was a moose skull with the snout just snapped off. So it made it look flat. But I mean, the teeth, the teeth, if all I had was the jaw or even just an isolated molar, I could tell if it was Sasquatch or not. The Y pattern, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, it would be different than any other mammal that's out there. And that in this case, it had the selenodont, the big, rasp-like teeth of an herbivore. And he was a little embarrassed to have it. But no, we'd be able to tell. But even if it was a limb bone, we'd be able to differentiate it. A limb bone or a finger bone or a toe bone or something would be enough. The skull would be fantastic. That's really interesting. And Erica, I might need your help on this next question in the list from Converse Contender. I don't know if I don't think I could pronounce these species that they're native to. Yeah, they're just their conditions. So real fast though, Maddie, did you want, that question was for both of you. So if you want, you can answer that too. I mean, I can try. So not my field. So I wouldn't identify it if I found a skeleton. I feel like that would be, I would call the police. But if you found a skeleton, I mean, certainly you guys are talking about lots of your field, really cool stuff that I did not understand a word of. But if you had an actual skeleton and not fossils, you would have DNA, right? And that would also be, because again, for me, like the thing that would no joke convince me would be DNA. So that, yeah, that's my answer. All right, sweet. Converse Contender asks, Dr. Jeff, any comments on the Raphite slash polydactyly? So I imagine that they're referring to polydactyly in general. Raphite? Mm-hmm. Is that like one of the race of giants? That's what we're talking about. That I don't know. I recognize polydactyly. At first I thought it said ratites. And I was like, I don't know that we're talking about ratites. Yeah, I'm not sure. The traditions about giants, one of the characteristics that's commonly mentioned is polydactyly with a sixth digit on the hand and feet and often double rows of teeth. Really strange characteristic. Again, there's a lot of enthusiasm for giants. I mean, there was a whole TV documentary series in search of giants and they, I mean, it was worse than finding Bigfoot or not finding Bigfoot because they never came up with any evidence. There's all these newspaper accounts, there's all these urban legends about museum vaults harboring the lost race of giants with the great, the mounds and so forth and not one piece of evidence. The Lovelock Cave with its giant skull. This person wanted me to drive out there. Well, I just called the curator and I said, just tell me. Because you know what? They used the old fisherman's trick. You know, if I want to show you the fish that I caught, I don't hold it up like this, I can take a picture. What do I do? I hold it up like this, you know? And so they had taken the picture of the skull with the scale way down on the ground and got up close. So the skull looked about 30% bigger than it actually was. It was an absolutely typical modern human skull. No characteristics. I kind of pressed her on it and finally admitted, well, you know, yeah, it's only this long. She said, but you got to realize, you know, where is the little museum? We're on, you know, the highway, the freeway took all the traffic away from the highway. I said, okay, that's fine. Just be straight with me. There's no bones. There's no, there's, you know. There's to be. Yeah, I respect, yeah, I respect that. But like I said, those of us in glass houses, you know, I don't throw stones. I'd love, I mean, to find a giant skull, whether it was a Bigfoot or whether it was a lost race of giants. But I'm not holding my breath on that one. Super interesting. It'd be sweet though. I, I'm gonna jump in with the next one. Dave, and especially to put Erica on the spot. Dave Dahlia for thanks for your support. Says we love Erica. Thanks so much for that kind of super chat. Thank you, Dave. Very kind. Okay, from Decepticons Forever. This is, they're kind of coming after you a little, Dr. Jeff, they say the population of cryptids dropped proportionally to the proliferation of 4K 60 camera phones must be the pesky 5G radiation. Well, yeah, that's always a question that's raised is with all the phones that are out there, why aren't there more pictures? And it's actually interesting. I mean, there's a lot of very sketchy, very brief encounters, you know, photo bomb events where they're taking a picture of the wedding or something and the big foot walks across the skyline, you know, one thing that's evident is most people are not very good with cameras. I mean, I must say I'm a recent convert to iPhones has recently joined those ranks and I still am kind of clumsy with it. I'm amazed when I see on TV, you know, these iPhones come out and they're immediately turned on and they're recording whatever is transpiring. But there was actually a Facebook page called Facebook find big foot and this host would invite snippets to be submitted and then he would go through and critique them. And over time, as he accumulated these, there were some patterns. I mean, there was a lot of just, you know, useless stuff that he blazed through with no issues but he would rank them and based on these criteria that started to emerge, when you looked at the top 20, it was really quite interesting. Any one by itself really wasn't that impressive and the very fleeting, very incomplete views, nothing like the Patterson-Gillman film that has set the bar so high. But when you took them all in a series, the consistency of some of these characteristics, the set of the head on the shoulders, the, you know, the massive neck muscles, the way the hand swung back, the way the foot was lifted high in that high step, the appearance of the sole of the foot, you know, things like that would show up over and over again. It was really kind of impressive, but, you know, I don't know, it's just- I was just gonna say, there's actually a reason I didn't, that's not a point that I brought up. And if there's one thing being in meteorology has taught me that Earth real big, and so I study the Arctic, right? So I look at a region that is 6,000 kilometers in diameter, right? I get two satellite passes a day and that is it, right? So even with satellites, even if we're not talking about the Arctic region, which actually with polar orbiting satellites, you get closer finer detail, but then you would say in like Idaho, Wyoming, the entire state of Wyoming has 500,000 people and there's more cows there, right? So like, that point actually isn't one that bothers me a whole lot and it's because Earth real big. And so if you're in a populated area, that's different, but if you have got a population density of more cows than people, it's a very different world. Right, and the areas that seem to be- Sorry, I'm supposed to be- Preferred habitat. No, I know. No, no, no. It's actually convergence, you know? The truth is the truth, so they will converge, but that's the point is, even with Native Americans, the Native Americans didn't go into some of these back country areas really, the mountains had resources that they would visit to collect, but they didn't live there in part because there were other things that lived there according to their traditions. So they hugged down the valleys and the river banks and the coastlines and there just isn't, there aren't many people in the air. And in fact, less so now than 50 years ago, there are fewer people that go, the backpacking craze has really tapered off. Hunters tend to be less in shape and so depend on four by fours or ATVs and there are fewer prospectors and fur trappers out there in the woods. We have definitely at least suburbanized from the rural parts of the terrain. And so it's left a lot of areas unmolested. Would you say that the Native populations didn't go chasing waterfalls and stuck to the rivers and lakes that they're used to? All right, all right. You're going to get booted out of here with jokes like that, both of you. You got a waterfall checklist? I know it's a beat like in Yellowstone. I've got a song lyric that I just played. Oh, oh, oh, oh. That's a really bad joke. Waterfalls, yeah. After the rivers and lakes and rivers. All right, yeah. I, listen, I liked it. I liked it when I hated it. We've got another question from Jay Mixon. Appreciate it, Jay. And then we've got it. We're going to wrap up pretty quick here. We've only got two more here that I see in the super chat list that came in last minute. Jay Mixon says, are there any comparative species we thought were long extinct to the extent of gigantipithecus, for example, that we later found in existence? Well, the classic example is the celacanth, which was thought to be extinct as a group of fish for several millions of years, not just a hundred thousand years, like with gigantipithecus. So yes, there are, there are examples of, pardon? Are there non-fish examples? Well, I'm trying to think that we're thought to be extinct, but then we're rediscovered. Or maybe. There have been some discoveries of things. Like I know the Okapi was one that was like mythical. And then they, they're like, oh, okay. The Okapi is like a real thing that is here and thriving, right? I don't know, I feel like by the time we were like, oh, this is what paleontology is. And here are things that have gone extinct. We were mostly everywhere by that point as a species. So I don't know, I don't know of an example myself. Yeah, I can't think of one right off that we're a terrestrial species was thought to be extinct and then showed up. Is there an example where like, maybe that species is extinct now, but like you thought it when extinct a million years ago, but really it only went extinct 100,000 years ago. Oh, well most. That kind of a similar story. Oh, that's, yeah, things like that keep happening. I mean, we know that from experience that what are thought to be first appearances in the fossil record and last occurrences in the fossil record are probably not absolute brackets. That you're sampling and the chances of catching that very last event or very first event is minuscule. So, yeah, I mean, the first appearance of Homo sapiens just got pushed back to 300,000 years, almost 100,000 years older than it was thought previously. So, yeah, yeah, I mean by a third. Yeah, because if it's a margin of error of like 10,000 years, if you're talking in geologic time skills, that's nothing. But I don't know, but 100,000 years I'm impressed by. I think something similar recently happened with Homo erectus too. I think it was a, oh, I can't remember. It was at a South African cave site, starts with a D. The cave site does. I can't remember it for the life of me. But they recently found a skull cap down there that is very Homo erectus in nature. And they were like, okay, if this is the case, we're pushing back the emergence of the first, you know, organized, any species are arbitrary. So, right, so it's like the first things that look kind of Homo erectus-ish. A lot earlier than we thought, which is cool. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we're just, you know, there was one, Bob Martin is a primatologist now semi-retired, I think. But he wrote an excellent book and made a comment in there where he, to try to convey a sense of how limited our understanding of the diversity actually is of primates. He made a comparative study of paleo-communities, their diversity versus extent diversity of similar communities of groups of taxonomically related species and so forth. And based on that, he estimated for the lower, you know, primate monkeys and prosimians that we probably only have an 8% sample of the diversity that actually existed in the past based on the diversity that's observable today. I know that myocene apes are even worse for that because their conditions for fossilization like Europe were just horrible. So it's like, we got this handful of myocene apes and we're like, look at all these myocene apes. So then someone's like, that's not even a fraction of them. Right, exactly. And that's just, you know, we talk about relic hominoids. The living great apes today are relic hominoids. They're on the verge of extinction. They're holding on by their fingernails. And, you know, during the myocene, there were hundreds of species of great apes across Eurasia and Africa. And so, yeah, it's... That makes me so depressed. That's so depressing. Oh, I know, I know to see that we're on the tail end of that and if that, you know, goes extinguishes that flame, that gene line. Super interesting. And Otangelo, thank you for your kind super chat. They said thank you for the guests. And we are, wanna let you know, folks, we, the only reason I was giggling at that is because we also had, we've had some, what are either imposters or bots in the chat tonight. And I have to be honest, if they're bots, I'm impressed at how sophisticated they are. I was giggling just because I was like, I didn't know people could put a... Did you guys know that people put bots of like fake accounts in the live chat and they're like talking? I didn't. Anyway, wanna say, we are thrilled about this debate, folks. We really appreciate you hanging out with us. Sorry that we, there were some questions left that we didn't get to. We do wanna respect the time of our guests. We really do appreciate them and we've gone over time. We wanna do recommend, though, you can find their links in the description. I have put those links there, you guys. And so highly encourage you to check out those links and wanna say a huge thank you to Dr. Jeff as well as Maddie and Erica. Thanks so much for being here today with us at Modern Day Debate. With that, we will kick it over to a post-credits scene in just a few moments. So I will be back, folks, just with some updates on upcoming debates. And with that, thanks for being with us and keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable, everybody. It's a great mood. I am so thankful. It's a community effort, you could say. And so we're really thankful that our guests were willing to come on tonight. It was a great time. Really friendly as well, which I love is that you guys, it's so civil. It was so civil and it was congenial. It was just everything. It was very relatable and fun. And so I just really appreciate our guests, both Dr. Jeff Meldrum as well as Science Side Up Maddie as it's just a true pleasure to have them. It's also, of course, a pleasure to have Erica got sick given. And so I do wanna give you a heads up on upcoming debates, you guys. So this is the little post-credit scene just giving you guys the rundown on what's coming up. So I don't know if you guys know this. This is a big one. It was a big surprise today. And I have to, Donald, if you're in the live chat, I have to give you credit because I appreciate you doing the effort. Is that, you guys, I don't know if you saw on our main page for modern day debate, but if you haven't, there's something special there. We, on our upcoming debates list, we do have a very special one, a rare one. As Donald took the effort, and we appreciate that again, Donald, Donald sought out none other than you guessed it. Kent Hovind will be returning. We haven't had him on for like a year, but I've linked that in the chat. And so you guys, that right now, I'm linking to the very top of the chat as, yes, Kent Hovind will be back. And thanks, Jay Mixon for your super chat, said great show and very refreshing topic. I couldn't agree more. Thank you, Jay, for your kind words and your positivity. We really do appreciate that. And yes, I am super excited though, is that, yeah, it's, thank you guys for your positivity. That seriously does mean a lot. It really does. And Dave Langer said, Maddie is so awesome. I have seen her on Skyler Fictions channel before. I hope you get her on here more often. We would love to. Maddie is a class act and Maddie is a thinker, a rigorous thinker. So we definitely want to have Maddie back on. And so it's absolutely, I see it in the chat. I'm not actually pregnant. I don't know. I mean, that's what seems like you guys are talking about. But at least minister is. But yes, we do appreciate you guys. I'm in a great mood. And so I am just excited is that, yes, we, oh, Donald Cronus has said he's sending a link to modern day debate on Twitter to a page about rediscovered animals thought to be extinct. Oh, that's interesting. So yeah, and they said link sent for Jeff via Twitter. I will send that to him. That is super interesting. That's fascinating. And by the way, the red panda, I'm still like in love with this red panda. It's super cute. But yes, is, and that's interesting. And it also, yeah, it just, it, it, that's funny. That's a good point that Dr. Melbourne made that it's not necessarily a single organism. It can be like generations that are resulting in animals moving from continent to continent even. And so really interesting. We really did appreciate that tonight. And so yeah, just stoked. Just say hello to you guys. And because I don't always get to, but I'm enjoying the times when I do. Liliadja, thank you so much for being here. Good to see you. Thanks for all your support too. We appreciate that. Calling the Wrens, good to see you again. Raptor Hovind, that's right. Your brother Kent Hovind will be on next Wednesday. Clinton Roche says, of the Hovind kind? Yes, indeed, it's been a long time. I think it's really been a year. Has it really been? Maybe more. Metal jacket, glad to see you again. Caleb, good to see you. Caleb, thanks for being, I'm very serious. I'm not joking. This is like for once in my life, I'm being serious. Thank you for always being kind and thank you for forgiving me and being so kind to me. And thank you Mark Reed, Rich in Hyde, Joseph Turcott, Jay Mixon, there he is again. Then King 101 and Joseph, we already said Joseph. Mark Reed, yes. I appreciate, thanks for hanging out with us, folks. We are excited, basically. Did you guys ever notice my thumb? On this hand, my thumb is all weirded out. It's all pushed, but anyway, it's okay, I'm gonna make it. But you guys, I am excited as, yes, Kent Hovind will be back this Wednesday. And on Monday though, we're gonna have a triple threat debate with David Fitzgerald. Has anyone heard of the mythicist, David Fitzgerald? Let me know in the chat if you have. Lily Adria says, please check in with Twitch chat. Oh, sorry, I completely, oh, Twitch folks, I'm so sorry, you guys, that I'm honestly, I admit, I'm so bad. Brooke Sparrow, thanks so much, says James. I was able to subscribe with my Amazon Prime account. Thank you for helping me figure that out. I'm happy to support your content. Brooke, thank you so much. Seriously, I really do appreciate that you took the time to support us that way, that you took time out of your schedule to do that. So seriously, that means a lot. I just feel so, I'm like, I know, the thing is, I know that you guys are busy. I know that you have a lot going on in your own lives. And so it's like, in nowadays, everybody's even more busy than, you know, it seems like 10 years ago, things weren't as busy, but everybody's just so busy. So I do appreciate you taking that time. Seriously, that means a lot. And it is true, Lily Adria, thanks for your help, reminding me to check out this chat. I'm so sorry about hiding you guys. It's embarrassing. But yes, let's see, if you didn't know it, folks, we have a Twitch account. You can subscribe for free if you have an Amazon Prime account. If you have an Amazon Prime account, let me know if you wanna become a subscriber on Twitch. Basically, it would give us an extra $2.50 a month, which you think like, oh, it doesn't even make a difference. But it actually does, because if we had 100 people doing it, which we have, I don't know, I think it's like maybe 25 right now. So like, let's say we build up to 100 people who do it. $250 a month is like, that could cover a flight. That could cover depending on who and what they're asking for, like a $250 honorarium maybe. And so yeah, I'd say it definitely is something we can use. It could also be things that we could use for in terms of like, we may do yet another overlay and like some of the channel art is a little bit admittedly outdated looking. So for example, like our banner on YouTube, looks like it's like an old GeoCities website page. It's pretty old. But I've thought about like, we might go into Fiverr and like order like a nice looking YouTube banner just because I think it does kind of give a, it gives a feeling or appearance of like competence. There's like this spillover effect where people see that and they're kind of like, oh, it's like, okay, it's probably a cool channel. And so, yeah, we might do that. But yeah, we do appreciate it if you guys want to help us out on Twitch. And I don't know if I told you guys, if you are on a podcast app, virtually any podcast app, you guys, we're on virtually every podcast app. Modern Day Debate is all over the place. Pull out your phone right now and check if you can find us on your favorite podcast app. If you can't. Oh, hey, just let me know. I'll work to get on there. I've had, once in a while I get someone who's like, hey, you're not actually on mine. It's called like, no one's heard of it, Ville USA podcast app. And I'm like, really. And they're like, yeah. And I like, I actually work hard to get on there because we do want to make it as easy as possible for you guys to hopefully enjoy the show. Whether it be here on YouTube or on the go via podcast. And Jay Nixon says, James, were you aware that the master of Kung Fu Panda was a red panda? Oh, I didn't know that. I haven't, I haven't seen the movie, I'm embarrassed to say. True story. And Lily Adjus says, please. Oh, we got that. Caleb, thanks for your heart. And Dave Langer says, is that Kung Fu grip? And Master Optic says, will you debate a flat earther? No. Hovind will be debating whether or not evolution is ubiquitous. That, if you want to see that upcoming Hovind debate, it is linked at the top of the chat. So I want you to know about that. Minister6667 says, you're streaming on Twitch too? Aren't you spreading yourself a bit thin? Are you not worried it may not allow you to pay attention to everything? Well, you're right about that. I, admittedly, am not great at keeping an eye on everything at the same time. But we hope that it's useful. People like Twitch more than, hey, totally cool. You can always watch us on Twitch if you like to watch live there instead. Donald Kronos says, hey, James, care to mention my upcoming debate? Yes, Donald Kronos and Kent Hovind will be debating. That is linked at the top of the description right now. So highly encourage you guys to check that out as it will hopefully be a good one. I'm excited about it. Who knows what to expect? But yeah, Tuss Beatbox, thanks so much. So you rock. Tuss Beatbox helped us right now. Want you to know, so she put, how do you use Amazon Prime to get a free Twitch subscription that you can use for modern day debate? Basically, what does it mean? I think it means you can use pictures, little emoticons in Twitch, plus you can watch ad free in Twitch. And it, frankly, it helps us is that, it is, like I said, it's about $2.50 a month, but no cost to you. If you have Amazon Prime, you have a Twitch subscription that you can use each month for free. It's no extra cost to you. And if you don't use it, just you could say goes to waste. And so I would say, hey, if you got Amazon Prime, that helps us out a lot. And then also though, I don't know if this is working. I don't know if people use it, but it's okay if they don't. You know, like different strokes for different folks. We have, you'll see at the bottom right of your screen right now. It says, use our Amazon link in the description. We have an Amazon affiliate ship. Basically, if you use the Amazon link that we have in our description to help support the channel. So it's right under that second main header in the description. If you use that link to get onto Amazon and then you search for whatever you wanna buy and you buy it within 24 hours, I think it is. We, it's like 3% goes to modern day debate, which we appreciate that, as that's a way that, you know, you'd pay the same either way. But it happens to be the case that Amazon would send 3% of that to modern day debate. So that helps. And you know, like I said, we're trying to think of like, hey, you wanna support the channel, but you're like, dude, I don't have like extra funds I can give, I'm on a budget. That's okay. I'm totally understandable. Kind of doing the Dave Ramsey thing. My hat is off to you. I think that's great. And so these are ways that you can help out without giving, without sacrificing anything from your budget. So we appreciate that. Clint Rosch says, the Wi-Fi is amazing. And then Stupid Horror Energy says, tell my Wi-Fi lover and beer, bring beer to 502. And Dave Langer says, you can also tip on Twitch with bits. Oh, I didn't know that. So then you can also tip. I'm still learning it. Very embarrassing. But yes. Oh, thanks, Tuss Beatbox. Tuss Beatbox just shared the link for Amazon and this is the Amazon affiliate link. So if you want to, basically, by the way, if you click the link at the top of the chat, I wanna let you know it also shows you all of the stuff that we use at modern day debate. So yeah, it's like not the fanciest stuff, but you can see, like for example, our little Twitch storefront, or not Twitch. Amazon storefront, if you do click that link at the top of the chat, basically is stuff that I personally vouch for, which is Audible gift cards, Southwest and Airbnb. I use all of those things as well as Amazon, obviously. And really interesting. But yeah, I'm a huge supporter of Southwest. They don't sponsor me or anything, but I just love them. Books related to stuff on modern day debate, those are some of my favorite books, really interesting stuff. So for example, if you guys wanna believe in free will, I would highly recommend try reading Alfred Meeley's, I think that's how you pronounce it. He's a philosopher down in Florida. His book is at that Amazon link and you can buy that. And so I would highly recommend you do it. It's basically, he makes the case for free will. And there's a lot of other books that I've read that I've really enjoyed that are in that list. And so you can check some of those out. There are, actually, yeah, there are a lot of topics related to the topics that we have debates on. And so if you get a kick out of them, let's see. Those are, I try to only vouch for books that I've read. And so you can see some, like there's one from Bart Ehrman, there's one from Lauren Krauss, there's one from Rodney Stark, who's a sociologist. I think he's, I can't remember where he's at. There's a few from, I've liked his work. Arthur Brooks, so yeah, a lot of interesting stuff there. And then, yeah, you can see the equipment that we use as well, so not very fancy. But we appreciate you guys. And so no matter what, I hope you feel welcome here. If there's anything I can do to make your day easier, send me an email at moderndatabate at gmail.com. I really do appreciate you guys. Want to let you know, I love you guys. You guys are hugely supportive, and that means a lot. And I just, yeah, I really hope that you would know that you're valued here, this is a community. We appreciate you no matter what walk of life you're from. You name it, Christian atheist, agnostic, gay, straight, black, white, it's like, you can name and name and name, like everybody. Everybody from every walk of life is welcome. And so we want to let you know that we appreciate you. And so thrilled you are here with us hanging out. And you're always welcome. We're excited about the future, you guys. We have a vision we are striving to carry out, which is that we would host fair debates on a level playing field where everyone can make their case. And believe me, beyond a shadow of it out, folks, we are going to do big things this year. Modern day debate is going to do epic things. And it's thanks to you guys. We appreciate you guys, you are super supportive. We appreciate it that you guys buy into that vision with us. So I appreciate you guys. I hope you have a great rest of your night. Thanks so much for hanging out. I've got to get groceries, because I've got to study all day tomorrow. And so I hope you have a great rest of your night. Thanks for all your support and love. I see those hearts in the chat. I appreciate that. I'm gonna go to the next pandemic pandas, calling the Rends, Mark Reed, King101, Lil Viagra. You guys rock. And so I really do appreciate it. Hope you keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable. We'll be back Monday night. There's a debate. And I don't know if I'll be here for that one because I'm going to be like, I've got to crush it in the next couple of days. But there's also a debate on Wednesday that I will be here for, as that's going to be an epic one. And then Friday, I think we've got one, We've got one booked for Friday and Saturday too. So thank you, K-1-0-1 says, James, take care, I wish you the best. Daylinger says, get Buffalo wings. Tess Beatbox says, good night everyone. Y'all are the best. Urschman says, peace. James Nixon says, peace. Rich and Hyde says, stay safe everybody. Appreciate you guys, hope you have a great night. And Joseph Turcotte says, good night James and fam. Thanks guys, hope you have a great night. Take care of yourselves. Be good to each other, be excellent to each other as Bill and Ted would say. Is that what it was, Bill and me? Okay, but anyway, yeah, appreciate you guys. And so I hope you have a great rest of your weekend and look forward to see you on Monday. And yeah, Mio Chan says, bye. Thank you very much, Mio Chan. Rich and Hyde says, 100K 2021. So sorry, it's like I say goodbye eight times but it's just that I hate leaving and I love just interacting with you guys. Rich and Hyde says, 100K 2021. Maybe, hey, you know, share this material, share these debates if you want to help us grow. That's one way to do it and we appreciate that. And yeah, we do have some big stuff planned you guys. We really do. This summer I'm anticipating we're gonna have some really cool stuff. I think some in-person debates and stuff like that. So Stripperlicker says, good night all. Sunday Warship says, crush it homie. Thanks you guys, appreciate you. Have a great night, great rest of your weekend. See you next time and spend a total blast.