41. Psychic Dog Video, Skeptical Bias (Podcast)

[alextsakiris]

Host discusses video of telepathic dog experiment recently posted on YouTube:

?if you look at how skeptics look at this stuff, there?s an almost unavoidable urge to make decisions that undermine the results. This can be unintentional.

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[Open Mind]

Psst ..... Mr Randi .....the doggies wish to collect prize at Piccadilly Circus

[David Bailey]

That was an impressive looking video!

David

[Venom]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Psst ..... Mr Randi .....the doggies wish to collect prize at Piccadilly Circus

Oh, come on, we all now that even if the effect is real and can't be completely explain by the the ‘sensory leakage’ hypothesis and/or the ‘anxiety’ hypothesis, that doesn't mean the explenation is supernatural.

This is just the Psi of the Gaps (after God of the Gaps or Alien of the Gaps). Let's say that the effect can't be completely explain by ‘sensory leakage’ hypothesis and the ‘anxiety’ hypothesis, that means it would be time for real scientist to come in and find the real (non supernatural) explanation.

And my psychic prediction is that the real explanation has nothing to do with Sheldrake's morphic field (wich he uses to explain everything).

If the ‘sensory leakage’ hypothesis and the ‘anxiety’ hypothesis are not enough, that just mean we don't know how to completely explain this, so what?

That doesn't prove Psi or any supernatural explanation or morphic fields.

That just prove that good scientist (working inside the materialist paradigm) style have work to do (hardly a big surprise).

[SkepticInYourHead]

Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, in one of his Sherlock Holmes stories, wrote "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." He meant that once you've eliminated everything else, the one thing left must be the truth of the matter at hand. What else couldit be? It sounds great and makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, it is completely wrong.

This video and those who believe it proves anything fall prey to this old, disproven nostrum. It is essentially the logical fallacy of 'argument from ignorance' wherein a 'truth' is derived by what one does not know. It is popular among UFO buffs, a la "well, it wasn't a plane or a balloon or Venus, so it must have been a real UFO!" (where 'real UFO' is the unadmitted code phrase for 'alien space ship'), and it is again used in this video.

For Conan-Doyle's formula to work - deriving truth by the process of elimination - it is absolutely necessary to eliminate every single other possible solution. To do that you need to know of every other possible solution. To apparently eliminate just two (sensory leakage/anxiety) doesn't cut it, except for those whose belief may be bought so very, very cheaply.

The burden of proof is on the claimant, in this case Rupert Sheldrake, who hasn't uncovered one single iota of evidence for his "morphic resonance" idea in the 26 years since he dreamed it up. It is no mistake that the term "morphic resonance" sounds science-y and bears a striking resemblance to the true scientific term "morphogenetic field", but the resemblance ends with the spelling and his use of the root 'morphic'. 'Morphogenetic field' is a heuristic device biologists use to frame thought on how a living thing develops its shape and is not meant to represent any actual 'field', as with electromagnetic field. Its definition bears no resemblance to Sheldrake's definition of morphic resonance. Whether the PhD biologist Sheldrake didn't know this or whether he knew and ignored it is unforgivable, the telltale mark of a pseudoscientist.

It is not the responsibility of science or skeptics to disprove 'morphic resonance' nor disprove the psychic powers of Sheldrake's dogs - it is Sheldrake's responsibility to prove his claims. He hasn't come close to doing this after decades of trying. He has proved it to people who don't know enough to properly judge his 'evidence' however.

It is a fact of life that a true thing remains true whether one believes it or not and an untrue thing remains untrue whether one believes it or not. A thing doesn't pop in or out of scientific reality and truth based on one's beliefs about it. That requires scientific evidence that stands well independent of any given person's beliefs about it, and of that Sheldrake provides none.

[David Bailey]

SkepticInYourHead,

A big part of why I became more open to the concept of Ψ was the realisation that absolutely no evidence for what can loosely be described as Ψ-effects is ever accepted by the skeptics. As a last resort they fall back on accusations of fraud or vague philosophical considerations such as yours regarding Sherlock Homes! From what Alex has said, his transition to a believer in Ψ has been based on similar experiences while making his podcasts.

When I saw that video, I was impressed the cleanness and strength of the 'signal' and immediately started thinking of further experiments that might be possible. I guess you saw it differently!

Venom,

You may be right that there is a conventional explanation for that that dog obviously knows, but you have to admit, that science has done a pretty good job of ignoring this (rather well known) phenomenon up to now!

David

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

SkepticInYourHead,

A big part of why I became more open to the concept of ? was the realisation that absolutely no evidence for what can loosely be described as ?-effects is ever accepted by the skeptics. As a last resort they fall back on accusations of fraud or vague philosophical considerations such as yours regarding Sherlock Homes! From what Alex has said, his transition to a believer in ? has been based on similar experiences while making his podcasts.

Becoming a believer because the skeptics are mean is hardly a good reason.

When I saw that video, I was impressed the cleanness and strength of the 'signal' and immediately started thinking of further experiments that might be possible. I guess you saw it differently!

Given that the criteria for identifying the 'signal' were only discovered after the trials were done I am not as impressed as you. Wait and see if it is reproducible and remains when the controls are tightened. That is assuming that Alex permits the controls to be tightened.

You may be right that there is a conventional explanation for that that dog obviously knows, but you have to admit, that science has done a pretty good job of ignoring this (rather well known) phenomenon up to now!

Most scientists would not think that there is anything extraordinary to be explained.

One thing that is certain is that if there is a conventional explanation then Alex will never find it because he is not interested in pursuing conventional explanations.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

Becoming a believer because the skeptics are mean is hardly a good reason.



Given that the criteria for identifying the 'signal' were only discovered after the trials were done I am not as impressed as you. Wait and see if it is reproducible and remains when the controls are tightened. That is assuming that Alex permits the controls to be tightened.



Most scientists would not think that there is anything extraordinary to be explained.

One thing that is certain is that if there is a conventional explanation then Alex will never find it because he is not interested in pursuing conventional explanations.

If you begin to suspect - with evidence - that a great deal of good parapsychological evidence has been distorted, that is a valid reason to at least doubt the orthodox position - not least, because if parapsychology experiments could be debunked by fair methods, critics would do it that way.

Clearly given any of these dog experiments, you have to establish what the dog does when it is waiting. If this were one isolated video, or if the dog always did something different when it was waiting, your criticism would have great force, as it is, it doesn't.

Unlike you, I don't think Alex wants to obtain a false result by not tightening the controls. However, as he has pointed out, as in any experiment, you have to tighten the controls in an intelligent way so as not to simply eliminate the signal real or false.

As I keep pointing out to you, whatever the mechanism may be, there is a real effect here - large numbers of dog and cat owners have observed this, sometimes fortuitously in way that are very hard to explain in conventional ways. I think that is why we approach these results in such different ways - you really assume they are some sort of fluke - I am pretty sure there is something real (and interesting) to explain.

David

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

If you begin to suspect - with evidence - that a great deal of good parapsychological evidence has been distorted, that is a valid reason to at least doubt the orthodox position - not least, because if parapsychology experiments could be debunked by fair methods, critics would do it that way.

?

Clearly given any of these dog experiments, you have to establish what the dog does when it is waiting. If this were one isolated video, or if the dog always did something different when it was waiting, your criticism would have great force, as it is, it doesn't.

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. It is fair enough to do some exploratory work first to try to work out what the signal is but at that point you've identified the signal by looking at what the dog is doing at the appropriate time and there will be by necessity be a correlation.

Unlike you, I don't think Alex wants to obtain a false result by not tightening the controls. However, as he has pointed out, as in any experiment, you have to tighten the controls in an intelligent way so as not to simply eliminate the signal real or false.

I don't think that Alex is doing this intentionally. I do think he is begging the question by assuming that the alleged psychic effect is influenced by the presence or absence of humans.

As I keep pointing out to you, whatever the mechanism may be, there is a real effect here - large numbers of dog and cat owners have observed this, sometimes fortuitously in way that are very hard to explain in conventional ways. I think that is why we approach these results in such different ways - you really assume they are some sort of fluke - I am pretty sure there is something real (and interesting) to explain.

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.

The hypothesis that humans inadvertently give the dog clues about when the owner is coming home can be tested. You could look at the dog's performance with and without humans present. Alex doesn't like this idea, so you could do trials where the humans knows when the owner is coming home and when they don't. Does the dog perform better when the human knows when the owner is coming home? If so then this supports the theory that the humans are providing clues and you've discovered something interesting. If not then you can rule this explanation out. Either way you've learnt something.

[David Bailey]

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.

The hypothesis that humans inadvertently give the dog clues about when the owner is coming home can be tested.

Many possible natural explanations ...... well if you say so!

Of course, the best way to test if other humans are passing knowledge on to the dogs is to ensure that nobody in the house knows when the owner is coming home. If, as Alex thinks, dogs are less inclined to anticipate a return without humans present, it would not be good science to control for knowledge being passed on by removing other humans from the experiment - you want to attenuate extraneous signals - not the one you are looking for.

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. My impression is that skeptics are so sure these experiments are phoney, they take it for granted that the experimenter has done something crazy like not keeping the return time secret, or constantly changing the criterion for the 'dog waiting' condition - so they don't feel the need to read the actual papers (Peter Atkins actually admitted to Rupert Sheldrake on radio that he had come to criticise his work without reading the papers). Alex hasn't got to the publishing phase yet, but even so, you assume (for no obvious reason) that he has made all sorts of mistakes.

David