Always on the lookout for creditable stories about fringe science and ideas, this particular item caught my eye.
There has been a lot of debate over the merits of Melba Ketchum’s Bigfoot DNA Study, specifically regarding the idea that the creature is a human hybridized with an as yet unknown primate. This result raised more than a few eyebrows and several red flags with me over my understanding that the hybridization process created sterile offspring. Mules, for example being a sterile hybrid of horses and burros.
Geneticist Eugene McCarthy not only dispels that particular idea, being an expert in hybridization, but goes one step farther to suggest from his study that humans themselves, possibly even many of the species on Earth today be the result of hybridization.
Here is an excerpt, you can find the Full Article on MacroEvolution.Net.
Human Origins
Are we hybrids?
BY EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD GENETICS — This article is a bit different from others that have appeared on this site, in that it’s about some of the findings of my own research. I’m a geneticist whose work focuses on hybrids…
Here, I report certain facts, which seem to me to indicate that human origins can be traced to hybridization, specifically to hybridization involving the chimpanzee (but not the kind of hybridization you might suppose!). You can access detailed and documented discussions supporting this claim from links on this page. But the basic reasoning is summarized here, without a lot of citations and footnotes.
So why do I think humans are hybrids?
I’ve spent most of my life (the last thirty years) studying hybrids, particularly avian and mammalian hybrids. I’ve read thousands, really tens of thousands, of reports describing them. And this experience has dispelled some mistaken ideas I once had about hybrids, notions that I notice many other people continue to take for granted.
For example, one widespread, but erroneous belief that keeps a lot of people from even considering the possibility that humans might be of hybrid origin is the notion that all hybrids are sterile. This assertion, though I’ve heard lots of people say it, is absolutely false.
My current work documenting hybridization among mammals shows that partially fertile natural hybrids are common, too, in Class Mammalia. And yet, it seems most people base their ideas of hybrids on the common mule (horse x ass), which is an exceptionally sterile hybrid, and not at all representative of hybrids as a whole.
Guilty.
It goes a ways to explain some of the seeming leaps and/or gaps in the evolutionary tree, and while I admit to the same prejudice McCarthy describes regarding the possibility of humans being a hybrid as discussed in the article, it would seem to open the door just a little crack to let in the possibility of the proposed origins of the Bigfoot. Ketchum’s research aside.
McCarthy himself had no comment on the Ketchum/Bigfoot DNA controversy, having no knowledge of it prior to my contacting him. But in parallel, his work would seem to support the idea of, if not Ketchum’s specific findings. Of course by that reasoning it can, and probably will be said to support the Ancient Aliens idea that humans are the result of Alien Hybridization experiments.
Take the good with the bad.
Related Links from the Article:
Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World,
Dr. MacCarthy’s current work documenting hybridization among mammals
A detailed documentation on fertile hybrids
A PowerPoint presentation summarizing data on hybridization in birds
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