41. Psychic Dog Video, Skeptical Bias (Podcast)

[Larry Boy]

Funny how skeptics want to tear the experiment apart even though no details at all have been made public yet. It's a little bit like saying a movie sucks after seeing the trailer.

But why then, a skeptic may ask, did he have to upload the video at all? Why couldn't he wait until the research is complete?
Well, this is just a guess, but maybe he needs more people to participate in the research while it's still being done?

[DysonSphere]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

Wait and see if it is reproducible and remains when the controls are tightened.

I agree, this is hardly definitive but I'm still very impressed.

[DysonSphere]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

It's the only video that Alex has shown and is presumably the "best". He was pretty vague about how reproducible it is. Is is important to establish a criterion for judging the success of a trial and stick to it.

How do you know he hasn't stuck with a criterion before hand and why is it presumably his best video thus far? It could be his only

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

A real effect does not mean that there is a paranormal explanation. It is an error to assume that the explanation must be "morphic resonance" or "telepathy". There are many possible natural explanations. The lack of interest in natural explanations on the part of "psi" proponents is very revealling.

Please share your non-paranormal theories with us.

[pacificwhim]

My god, this could be a primer for desperate behavior by pseudoskeptics.

First of all, Venom, you've created a straw man. No one is claiming anything about a supernatural explanation. I think if you polled most educated psi proponents, you'd find they don't believe in the supernatural; if something is real, then it's part of the natural world. You're using "supernatural" as a pejorative to ridicule Alex and those who believe his results are worth a second look, and that's an ugly tactic. The issue is, is something explainable by "known science" like sensory leakage, anxiety or unintentional cuing, or "unknown science," meaning forces we don't yet understand, such as psi or intuition? Spare us the "supernatural" scorn, please.

Second, so far on this thread I've seen ad hominem attacks on Alex's integrity, doubts about a methodology you don't even know anything about, suppositions that there is a "file drawer" of videos that Alex hasn't shown us that presumably exhibit negative results, and a bizarre attempt to conflate Sherlock Holmes and Rupert Sheldrake that left me scratching my head. And that's just in two pages. The only conclusion I can reach is that the claims about the pseudoskeptics are dead-on: when confronted by something that's even semi-convincing about the reality of psi, even if it's conditional and preliminary, you freak out and revert to baseless attack mode. It's actually rather sad.

I'm an investigative journalist by profession. My life's work is all about evidence, replication (in the form of corroboration by multiple witnesses or involved parties) and verification. If Alex has hidden videos that don't support his hypothesis, he deserves to be pilloried for it. If he doesn't tighten the conditions of the experiments, he'd better be prepared to explain why and understand that it makes him look bad. If his methodology turns out to be faulty, he'd better improve it or he'll deserve everyone's derision. And if he runs solid, bulletproof experiments that support the null hypothesis, then I and everyone else will be justified in saying, "Yawn. What else you got?"

But until those things come to pass, let's give the man credit for trying to do something the skeptics never seem to have time to do: run a for-real experiment. And those of you who are attacking from every front, no matter how flimsy, you'd be well advised to take a constructive path: tell Alex how he can improve his work rather than speculate on all the ways he might have gotten it wrong, the ways in which his results prove nothing, and how deluded people are for believing that his results might be legitimate. Otherwise, all you're doing is proving your critics right when they say that not only do pseudoskeptics not believe in psi even when the evidence is convincing, but someone even looking into psi drives them mad.

Toodles.

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

I would imagine Alex is busy trying to make his experiment as watertight as possible - just as Rupert Sheldrake did if you actually read his papers.

I have read the papers and they are by no means as watertight as possible.
I have also read the comments on Alex's opensourcescience and exactly the same criticisms that I have made have been made by "believers". I laso read Alex's reponses where he didn't think some of these controls were necessary. If Alex simply repeats the same type of experiments that Sheldrake has done without making any improvements then he will have achieved absolutely nothing.

[Venom]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

If Alex simply repeats the same type of experiments that Sheldrake has done without making any improvements then he will have achieved absolutely nothing.

Well, for a scientific point of view, I agree.

But from a public communication point of view, he can convince some people who are not as well informed as we are.

After that, he can write a book bashing the skeptic and go on a tour of lectures. After all, convincing laypersons, instead of the scientific community has been the parapsychologists strategies for decade now...

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by DysonSphere

How do you know he hasn't stuck with a criterion before hand and why is it presumably his best video thus far? It could be his only

Alex says in his podcast that subsequent trials have been "almost" as successful.

Please share your non-paranormal theories with us.

We've been through this several times before.

Every example of a supposedly psychic dog has involved an animal that spends a large part of its life paying a lot of attention to the comings and goings of its owner. The dogs will pick up on any patterns. The dogs will pick up any subtle clues in the owners behaviour. The dogs will pick up any subtle clues in the behaviour of other humans. The dog will hear the approach of a familiar car. The owners will remember the "hits" and not the "misses" etc.. etc ..

Despite the claims of various people none of the experiments to date have controlled for all of these factors.

[Venom]

Originally Posted by pacificwhim

First of all, Venom, you've created a straw man. No one is claiming anything about a supernatural explanation.

Well, you haven't been listening to the skeptiko podcast, haven't you?

In the vido, Alex talks explicitely about "thelepathy". That's one thing. After that, if you listen to other Skeptiko podcast, you'll learn that Alex thinkgs that consciousness cannot be explain only by the brain activity. He is clearly dualist (he has stated that many time in the past on the podcast). And dualism means that consciousness exist "somewhere" outside of the brain (and that the brain activity only "correlates" to it).

Because nobody has never observed a consciousness outside the brain in a controlled and replicable experiment, almost every dualist thinks that consciousness exist somewhere "outside" our reality, in an unobservable realm. And that a supernatural claim.

So before saying that I'm using a strawman, please do your homework. By doing so, you'll know what you're talking about. For the moment, it's clearly not the case.

[David Bailey]

Chris,

If person or animal in the house knows when the owner will return, then the experiment is valid. Alex thinks that animals are more likely to behave this way if people are about, but it is easy to prevent the other people knowing the return time - so what is your problem?

Who knows - perhaps the dogs like to do this to tell the humans what they know!

It is easy (but pointless) to tighten up an experiment in such a way as to remove the signal along with potential extraneous effects.

If you think there are normal explanations for this effect when there are other people present who do not know the return time - please tell us all what they are.

Obviously it would be nice if the dogs would perform entirely on their own, but dogs do perform diferently in front of people.

David

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

If you think there are normal explanations for this effect when there are other people present who do not know the return time - please tell us all what they are.

You are assuming that the people present have no idea whatsoever at all about the return time. This is an assumption.

Using the ill defined criteria that Sheldrake used a trial is defined as a success if the dog spends more time doing the "signal" when the owner is coming home than during the rest of the time. This "signal" would be generated if the dog has any information at all about the return time. Even in the "random" Jaytee trials the owner's parents had some idea from knowing when the video recorded started.

Obviously it would be nice if the dogs would perform entirely on their own, but dogs do perform diferently in front of people.

They also perform differently due to information they get from people. The real question is how you can tell the difference. Alex has already made his conclusions.

Do you have any comments regarding explicitly testing this form of sensory leakage? Do some truly random trials where the humans present have no information about the return time and another set where they do. Does the dog perform better when the humans know the return time?

I get tired of making contructive suggestions if nobody comments on them.