20-Mile skeptikal argument

[hoggworks]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Of course not .... it is unimportant in the sense of whether the dog goes to the window because it hears another dog, the postman, a child kicking a ball ..or your suggestion of a similar sounding car doesn't mean anything more since similar sounding cars do not necessarily arrive home at the same irregular/random times the owner is coming home

Much of the experiment is in attempting to determine which events are related to the owner coming home, and which aren't.

Also, you're making a broad generalization, there. No one says that the number of cars that sound like yours would be absolutely consistent and predictable throughout the day; it could indeed be that during a one-hour test, in the last ten minutes a car that sounds like yours drives within audio range but doesn't drive through earlier in the test. The point is that it's a reasonable thing to try to control for, but which wasn't controlled for.

Say that throughout the hour, you have six different things (neighbors walking, cats, squirrels, similar cars, the dog missing its owner, sounds from neighboring houses that the testers don't hear but which the dog do) that cause the dog to go to the window. Say for sake of argument that they do indeed happen fairly regularly, with each of these sources of noise happening every 5 minutes (12 events in a single test). Suppose that the only things you control for are neighbors walking, cats, and squirrels. Suppose that the other, the dog missing its owner, neighboring house sounds and similar cars happen at the 5, 10, 45, 50, 55, and 60 mark. Suppose that the cats, squirrels and neighbors walking just happen to all be near the centre of the testing period. In that case, the dog would indeed be returning to the window during the return period, but that would be due to normal, rational events not controlled for.

Am I saying I know for certain that this is what's happening? No, of course not, but I'm certainly not jumping to the absolute that it must mean psychic behavior, because there's no evidence.

At BEST what Sheldrake has is an interesting effect that has yet to be defined, with NO reason to assume psychic behavior.

No ones knows why a dog goes to the window but the dog ..... but if the dog is going to window more when the owner comes home than at others times when the owner is not coming home .... experimentally over random short, medium or long durations away ...then the dog is most probably reacting consciously or unconsciously to what the owner is thinking or planning to do.

That's, quite frankly, a ludicrous statement to make. Because there's a question you don't have the answer to, it must necessarily mean psi? What if the dog is simply reacting to stimulus that aren't being recorded in the test? What if there's a construction site up the road, and the dog is reacting to a cement truck that's coming in and out through the day? What if two dogs are fighting sporadically throughout the day, far enough away that humans can't hear it easily, but that dogs can?

Seriously, Open Mind, this God of the Gaps mentality is weak-sauce.

Maybe so but it is all irrelevent. It would be a cause of the dog being unsuccessful only, increased noise .... . as similar cars going past have to coincide with the owner coming home at irregular short, medium and long durations away to explain the data.

Which is what I'm suggesting as a possibility, yes. I love your habit of misinterpreting what I say, then restating what I actually said as though you just proved something.

The dog owner came home in a taxi, the owner didn't leave in a taxi.

Fair enough, but that doesn't change what I'm saying. If the dog is used to the car sound meaning owner returning, if it hears it at all, it'll probably go check it out.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

No one says that the number of cars that sound like yours would be absolutely consistent and predictable throughout the day;

Controlled for, Sheldrake tested different times of day

it could indeed be that during a one-hour test, in the last ten minutes a car that sounds like yours drives within audio range but doesn't drive through earlier in the test. The point is that it's a reasonable thing to try to control for, but which wasn't controlled for.

It was controlled for.....lucky coincidences would even out over many experiments - Sheldrake did over a hundred experiments with first dog (then replicated results with another dog) ...Wiseman did only 4, his results plotted on graph match Sheldrakes.

Say that throughout the hour, you have six different things (neighbors walking, cats, squirrels, similar cars, the dog missing its owner, sounds from neighboring houses that the testers don't hear but which the dog do) that cause the dog to go to the window. Say for sake of argument that they do indeed happen fairly regularly, with each of these sources of noise happening every 5 minutes (12 events in a single test). Suppose that the only things you control for are neighbors walking, cats, and squirrels. Suppose that the other, the dog missing its owner, neighboring house sounds and similar cars happen at the 5, 10, 45, 50, 55, and 60 mark. Suppose that the cats, squirrels and neighbors walking just happen to all be near the centre of the testing period. In that case, the dog would indeed be returning to the window during the return period, but that would be due to normal, rational events not controlled for.

Controlled for, these events have to coincide with the owner coming home..... if the dog spends longer at window when the owner is not coming home, that would support the skeptical hypothesis the dog is not reacting to owner coming home.

At BEST what Sheldrake has is an interesting effect that has yet to be defined, with NO reason to assume psychic behavior.

This is the 'nothing but something else' argument. So far skeptics have confidently claimed other explanations that when re-analyzed still don't explain the results.

That's, quite frankly, a ludicrous statement to make. Because there's a question you don't have the answer to, it must necessarily mean psi?

In the absence of an alternate 'normal' explanation, yes it indicates psi.

What if the dog is simply reacting to stimulus that aren't being recorded in the test? What if there's a construction site up the road, and the dog is reacting to a cement truck that's coming in and out through the day? What if two dogs are fighting sporadically throughout the day, far enough away that humans can't hear it easily, but that dogs can?

Still can't explain Sheldrake's results, these have to coincide with the random, non-regular return times. .

[hoggworks]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Still can't explain Sheldrake's results, these have to coincide with the random, non-regular return times. .

Open Mind, you don't seem to understand the point I'm making. You say that they seem to coincide with the random, non-regular return times as though it's a criticism of my alternative suggestion, but that IS my suggestion.

Seriously, if there are a LOT of potential other sources of distraction for the dog, then some of them will just happen to occur in the return time. You act as though the results of Sheldrake's trials are consistent, but that's simply not the case. I've looked at the results, and sometimes the dog spends a bunch of time near the window in the return period, sometimes doesn't AT ALL, sometimes goes BEFORE the return period. In short, it looks like a normal distribution based on a bunch of "random" events going on around the house.

And Sheldrake can't just say "I controlled for everything" when he plainly didn't. Did Sheldrake specifically say that he controlled for the existence of other cars in the area which could have confused the dog? Did he get all such car owners to NOT drive their cars during the test? I read the study, and if he did such a thing, he made no mention of it.


Part of my point is that there are so many things going on which we might not notice but which a dog would, and there are so many things which they could have tried to control for but didn't that it renders any potential results close to meaningless.

In the absence of an alternate 'normal' explanation, yes it indicates psi.

How do you know that he exhausted other explanations? Reading Sheldrake's work on this, he goes from the test immediately to psi, even though there are, as I and many others have pointed out, a huge number of potential normal explanations.

And even if there are no "normal" explanations, why should you just to psi? What if the dogs can simply hear the squeal of their owner's cell phones? What if it's purely rational and mechanical in explanation, but we don't know what it is? Mystery doesn't mean psi, it means mystery.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

I've looked at the results, and sometimes the dog spends a bunch of time near the window in the return period, sometimes doesn't AT ALL

Similarly often psychology experiments fail to work ... humans and animals do not react as predictably as machines.

sometimes goes BEFORE the return period.

(1) Yes but the dog is still spending more time at window when the owner is coming home than when the owner is not coming home.

(2) In these experiments, the owner (but not others at home) was told the irregular time to return beforehand. The reason for the owner knowing the return time was so that the owner could naturally occupy herself with normal activities. The alternative experiment would have been the owner was sitting waiting for hours on a phone call to return, under pressure trying not to think about going home while waiting ...

Sheldrake, quite correctly chose to test the claim under natural conditions unlike Wiseman who had the owner sitting waiting). The claim is not a super remote viewing dog who can see the owner on the road home ... it is a claim of empathy between owner's intention and dog, the dog responding to intentions of the owner to return home.

(3) In Sheldrake's testing of the second dog, if I recall correctly, the dog did not tend to go early.... but this was a different owner too, perhaps less stressed/anxious under test.

Did he get all such car owners to NOT drive their cars during the test? I read the study, and if he did such a thing, he made no mention of it.

OK, let us assume that similar sounding cars are driving by at times that correspond significantly with the owner coming home at irregular, varying times of day ... something else not explicable by classical determinism/mechanics is still occuring.

Part of my point is that there are so many things going on which we might not notice but which a dog would

The burden of proof is on the counter claimant to demonstrate an alternative explanation actually works..... there is an alternative explanation called cheating (training the dog to respond to clues e.g. owner contacts house on opposite of side of road to open window when owner is on way home) .... otherwise I cannot think of any other 'skeptic' non-cheating hypothesis that can explain away the data as not suggestive of psi existing. If skeptics can think of a non-cheating counter explanation, lets hear how plausible it sounds.

, and there are so many things which they could have tried to control for but didn't that it renders any potential results close to meaningless.

I disagree. Sheldrake tried to rule out reasonable alternate hypotheses... he didn't rule out all ridiculous alternate hypotheses..

How do you know that he exhausted other explanations? Reading Sheldrake's work on this, he goes from the test immediately to psi, even though there are, as I and many others have pointed out, a huge number of potential normal explanations.

Explanations that do not fit the data are not explanations.

[hoggworks]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

(1) Yes but the dog is still spending more time at window when the owner is coming home than when the owner is not coming home.

Sheldrake brushes that aside, when his theory is that the dogs to the owner's intent (which ought not to happen until they have, you know, the intent) by saying that the dogs must have known the owner was GOING to think it. Which is some Grade-A retrodicting, right there.

Or does Sheldrake think dogs can tell the future? If *that's* the case, why would the dog go to the window before hand at all? Why not sit still until right before the owner returns, which the dog knows the moment of?

(2) In these experiments, the owner (but not others at home) was told the irregular time to return beforehand. The reason for the owner knowing the return time was so that the owner could naturally occupy herself with normal activities. The alternative experiment would have been the owner was sitting waiting for hours on a phone call to return, under pressure trying not to think about going home while waiting ...

Why do you see a difference between a person thinking "must do this for ten minutes before going home" and "wonder when I'll be going home?" In both cases, the experiment occurs and the owner is engaging in stalling tactics. I'm not sure why one would be a sufficient filter.

Sheldrake, quite correctly chose to test the claim under natural conditions unlike Wiseman who had the owner sitting waiting). The claim is not a super remote viewing dog who can see the owner on the road home ... it is a claim of empathy between owner's intention and dog, the dog responding to intentions of the owner to return home.

Empathy? Ah, yes, the empathy claim. Sheldrake lessens his claims of what psi is possible down to a "um, just a weak, general force, maybe?" because there's less evidence. If he were finding evidence, then he'd be boldly proclaiming it.

Also, if it's empathy, why need to do the dogs that know at all? Why not, instead of testing the knowledge of the owner's return, just have the owner in another room going through a gamut of emotional states? If the dog DOES have a connection, and dogs DO react to our emotional states, it should be trivial to have the owner sit in a room a block away and for the tester to make him happy or sad, then see if the dog gets correspondingly happy or sad. If the owner is threatened, or feels a potential threat, will the dogs back mysteriously go up?

OK, let us assume that similar sounding cars are driving by at times that correspond significantly with the owner coming home at irregular, varying times of day ... something else not explicable by classical determinism/mechanics is still occuring.

Are you seriously suggesting that psi is more likely than traffic?

Suppose the owner has a popular car. Suppose that dozens of the same car go down the street an hour, or a minute. The dog might not react to the sounds of every car because other noises may be going on (a loud truck overwhelming the sound of the car), but will react to a bunch.

Anyway, if you're talking "random" return times, why can't "random" sounds overlap? Is everyone else in the city working on a precise schedule? There's going to be random variance in traffic patterns, with different owners of the same car type driving by at different times. Hell, some might correspond to dogs walking down the street, or other observable moments.

Saying that random traffic patterns can't explain random return times seems a bit of a stretch; if there are enough events going on, you'll get the pattern. And who knows, it could entirely be a statistical fluke; if the test was run again 100 times, they could get absolutely nothing.

The burden of proof is on the counter claimant to demonstrate an alternative explanation actually works..... there is an alternative explanation called cheating (training the dog to respond to clues e.g. owner contacts house on opposite of side of road to open window when owner is on way home) .... otherwise I cannot think of any other 'skeptic' non-cheating hypothesis that can explain away the data as not suggestive of psi existing. If skeptics can think of a non-cheating counter explanation, lets hear how plausible it sounds.

The burden of proof is on the person attempting to prove the claim. I should point out that this person doesn't have a clear idea of what's going on, how or why, yet feels confident to say it's psi. I should also point out that this person has a history of disproving his own theories but then interpreting said disproof as evidence FOR his theories.

I should also point out that I've disproved one of this man's theories (two, actually) using simple logic.

The man just doesn't understand statistics.

I disagree. Sheldrake tried to rule out reasonable alternate hypotheses... he didn't rule out all ridiculous alternate hypotheses..

Cars are a ridiculous hypothesis?

Explanations that do not fit the data are not explanations.

We agree completely on that score, sir. For my money, "psi" doesn't fit the data.