37. Controversy Over Dog Intelligence (Podcast)

[alextsakiris]

Guest:
Dr. Stanley Coren, dog intelligence expert and
author, explains why dog intelligence, and even
dog consciousness, is consistent with Darwinian


Click here to read more ...

[Chris Noble]

You surprised me with a good interview!
Very interesting and compared to most of your shows little to disagree with.

I did find Dr Coren' statement "For all intents and purposes, a dog has a mind which is about the equivalent of a, a human two year old child." to be overly general. It depends on what tests you perform. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some "intelligence" tests where dogs could outperform adult humans.

Working memory of numerals in chimpanzees

I would have liked you to ask Dr Coren about the possible natural means to explain the pattern seen in Sheldrake's experiments.

The dog was obviously paying a great deal of attention to the comings and goings of its owner and I find it hard to believe that it was as stupid as Sheldrake seems to assume.

Only a small number of Sheldrake's trials had random and blind return times. Even in these cases the differences in the return times was very small.

[jacob]

A trascript. Nice, Alex.
Were there transcripts of previous shows or is it the first one?

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by jacob

A trascript. Nice, Alex.
Were there transcripts of previous shows or is it the first one?

More to come

[Open Mind]

Enjoyed listening in.

[David Bailey]

That was an interesting and thoughtful interview. I have a few comments:

1) A two year old's brain is busy doing an amazing task that older human brains only do with great difficulty - learning a native language! I think it using them as measures of reduced intelligence may be way off the mark.

2) He commented that a lot of animal get lost and never come home - as though that explained the few that do make it back across long distances. I don't think much of that argument because many such animals must die on the roads or in other ways, or may give up and find a new owner. Is he really suggesting that those that make it have simply engaged in a random walk and got lucky? I wish he had been a bit clearer about his views.

3) The notion that all researchers must (or even should) approach an experiment without a commitment either way is completely impractical, and almost never the case. Think of the folk looking for gravity waves - they are desperate to make a positive observation - if only because it will release more funds - they would probably not have invested years of their lives to the experiment if they seriously believed that gravity waves don't exist. The best you can hope for is that people don't bend the results.

4) Some dogs show amazing abilities that are more or less accepted. For example, one dog alerted her owner to the fact that a lesion on her leg was cancerous by constantly licking it. That a dog can detect this is very remarkable, but might be explained by some subtle odor, but what I want to know is how does the dog know the significance of that odor? Likewise with animals that seem to be aware of an earthquake some hous before it happens. Maybe they pick up faint sounds, but since they have probably never heard an earthquake before, how do they know what they are hearing?

David

[Venom]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

You surprised me with a good interview!
Very interesting and compared to most of your shows little to disagree with.

Same here. A very interresting interview!

[jacob]

This was a very interesting interview, Alex.
Although he avoided to answer your question of how one should observe dogs, which you asked several times.
I understand it could be a little bit of a hard question or one inappropriate for a radio show, but do you think to ask him for his expertise with dogs for your replication of Sheldrake's experiment?

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

That was an interesting and thoughtful interview. I have a few comments:

1) A two year old's brain is busy doing an amazing task that older human brains only do with great difficulty - learning a native language! I think it using them as measures of reduced intelligence may be way off the mark.

2) He commented that a lot of animal get lost and never come home - as though that explained the few that do make it back across long distances. I don't think much of that argument because many such animals must die on the roads or in other ways, or may give up and find a new owner. Is he really suggesting that those that make it have simply engaged in a random walk and got lucky? I wish he had been a bit clearer about his views.

3) The notion that all researchers must (or even should) approach an experiment without a commitment either way is completely impractical, and almost never the case. Think of the folk looking for gravity waves - they are desperate to make a positive observation - if only because it will release more funds - they would probably not have invested years of their lives to the experiment if they seriously believed that gravity waves don't exist. The best you can hope for is that people don't bend the results.

4) Some dogs show amazing abilities that are more or less accepted. For example, one dog alerted her owner to the fact that a lesion on her leg was cancerous by constantly licking it. That a dog can detect this is very remarkable, but might be explained by some subtle odor, but what I want to know is how does the dog know the significance of that odor? Likewise with animals that seem to be aware of an earthquake some hous before it happens. Maybe they pick up faint sounds, but since they have probably never heard an earthquake before, how do they know what they are hearing?

David

Good points...