Bigfoot and the so-called "Bigfoot professor" have found their way into the news a few times the last few days.

Jeff Meldrum, aka the Bigfoot professor, was the focus of a couple of articles that made some headlines recently. Both seem to make the same point that I have before, namely, that as long as he's doing real science, and searching for the truth, why is it that his fellow professors are so against him?

The first article, while I don't completely agree with it, centers around these three main points:

One, unlike the study of, say, intelligent design and other forms of creationism, researching bigfoot does not come burdened with a political or religious agenda that trumps the scientific method or leads a researcher to distort data. Meldrum is not hell bent on using his status as a public university professor to promote a sectarian agenda or “prove” some right-wing point.

Two, Meldrum’s research is not hurting anyone. Dr. John Mack, the late, controversial psychiatrist who taught at Harvard, became convinced that alien abductions were real and wrote several books on the topic. I think Mack committed a form of malpractice. The people who believe they are being abducted by aliens suffer from a form of neurosis, and Mack, instead of helping them, fed their delusions by saying, “Yes, you really are being sucked out of your window at night and probed by evil gray aliens.” This is irresponsible. Harvard never cracked down on Mack, but in my view the university would have been justified in doing so. Meldrum’s work looks harmless by comparison.

Finally, there is a small possibility that Meldrum’s research could result in significant findings. I believe the possibility that the sasquatch exists is very remote — but there is a case for the creature, and Meldrum should have the right to make it. By contrast, people who try to debunk Darwinism, prove that the Grand Canyon is only 6,000 years old or deny the Holocaust are wasting their time since there is no possibility their “research” will ever add anything of value to science or history.

So, by this author's definition, Professor Meldrum practices science.

The second article takes a very similar tone. What Professor Meldrum does is science in its purest form. He's searching for unknown answers to questions.

Recently in the media, a particular academic at a university in the United States has been called to task by many of his peers for his support of a Sasquatch event that was held at the university. Indeed, many of the comments from his peers were pretty disparaging to sat the least. The gist of their comments was that the investigation of the Sasquatch was not a topic for "serious" science, and any scientist who did such an activity was not a scientist at all but a quack. I have always been bothered by this attitude of most academics and scientists, as from my point of view, it seems to be in opposition to what their professions are all about, namely the searching for facts within the natural world to produce useful models of reality.

Well said, I believe. At least, in the end, while Professor Meldrum may have to deal with pretentious colleagues who refuse to believe what he's doing has any scientific merit, the dean of sciences at ISU believes in what he's doing, and that should keep Professor Meldrum at the university doing exactly what he's been doing for a long time to come.

While Professor Meldrum is getting most of the press in the Bigfoot research realm lately, there are other professionals looking into the phenomenon. Stanislaus National Forest's archaeologist Kathy Strain is, literally, digging for evidence of Sasquatch. While she's never seen a Bigfoot herself, she's collected countless eyewitness accounts, cast footprints, ancient pictographs and other evidence, and calls herself a believer. She has spent hundreds of off-work hours dedicated to researching the animal, and believes that eventually rock-solid proof will be found.

If proof is ever found, it will be because of hard work from professionals like these two dedicated scientists.