James Randi Challenges Skeptiko’s Telepathic Dog

[alextsakiris]

A couple of us have been discussion James Randi and "The Challange", so I thought I'd give you a little background.

James Randi emailed after the video posted. He challenged me to apply for the Million Dollar Challenge. I emailed him right back and accepted. Here's the email exchange:

________________________________________
From: James Randi [mailto:randi@randi.org]
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 7:32 AM
To: alex@skeptiko.com
Subject:

Apply for the JREF's million-dollar prize...

________________________________________
From: Alex Tsakiris [mailto:alex@skeptiko.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 7:58 AM
To: 'James Randi'
Subject: RE:

Let’s do it!

Per our conversion during your interview on Skeptiko (Skeptiko - Science at the Tipping Point), I think we’re in agreement that “testing” of the dog’s telepathic abilities should be done by qualified researchers.

I’ve contacted Dr. Clive Wynne at the University of Flordia (Clive Wynne). He’s an animal behavior expert, runs the Canine Cognition and Behavior Lab in Gainsville…and is a self-described, “hard-core skeptic”.

Dr. Wynne has published several books on animal behavior, including a skeptical look at animal cognition titled, Do Animals Think? He’s published in Michael Shermer’s Skeptic magazine as well as many academic journals.

I interviewed Dr. Wynne on Skeptiko. He was very skeptical (and critical) of Rupert Sheldrake’s experiment. You can listen to the interview here: Skeptiko - Science at the Tipping Point.

Will the results of this research with Dr. Wynne be acceptable to you and JREF?

Regards,
Alex Tsakiris

P.S. I would like to make this and future correspondence public.

----------------
I have yet to get a reply.

[alextsakiris]

BTW here's the news release: Noted Skeptic, James Randi Challenges Skeptiko’s Telepathic Dog - PR.com

[Open Mind]

This is going to be interesting ....

I think there is little doubt Randi will want some of his team to police experiment. How about having open minded scientists police the paranormal policemen?

Due to experimenter effects (whether normal or paranormal) ... have both mentalities present (I don't mean in home, just checking each other's observation or task) might even things up a bit.

Also the die-hard skeptics will want to raise the bar as high as possible for 'preliminary' and if that works, raise it higher still for actual prize challenge. It might end up 'dogs that know when owners come home after 3 days away' and if the worried dog stays 70 minutes in hall hoping owner will come home, say on day 2, if the dog then spends all 20 minutes in hall when she is coming home on day 3 .... the experiment is stamped 'failure' ... I have little doubt most die-hard skeptics would defend each other with 'yes, dog failed trial, that is the correct conclusion - no evidence..'

To quote the late Professor Marcello Truzzi ....

'....There are some myths about science and scientists that need to be dispelled. Science gets mistaken as a body of knowledge for its method. Scientists are regarded as having superhuman abilities of rationality inside objectivity. Many studies in the psychology of science, however, indicate that scientists are at least as dogmatic and authoritarian, at least as foolish and illogical as everybody else, including when they do science. In one study on falsifiability, an experiment was described, an hypothesis was given to the participants, the results were stated, and the test was to see whether the participants would say, "This falsifies the hypothesis". The results indicated denial, since most of the scientists refused to falsify their hypotheses, sticking with them despite a lack of evidence! Strangely, clergymen were much more frequent in recognizing that the hypotheses were false....'

Believers and even open minded can of course make errors in conclusion too. But if ordinary scientists do that due to expectations and favouring explanations, what mistakes of judgment/action/analysis are skeptics too keen to debunk prone to make? Ideally both should be present.

Police the psi policemen?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Due to experimenter effects (whether normal or paranormal) ... have both mentalities present (I don't mean in home, just checking each other's observation or task) might even things up a bit.

You appear to believe that you understand how the experimenter effect works. But little do you know that one skeptic can easily counteract a dozen believers. This is because the believers' vibes are weak.

Mwahahaha!

~~ Paul

[davidsmith73]

Hi Alex,

You probably know this already, but whatever you do, don't adopt Wiseman et al.'s (1999) criteria for a successful trial because it introduces a huge amount of noise that will suppresses a potential psi effect. Stick to using the proportion of time spent in the 'waiting spot' like Sheldrake's analysis.

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by davidsmith73

Hi Alex,

You probably know this already, but whatever you do, don't adopt Wiseman et al.'s (1999) criteria for a successful trial because it introduces a huge amount of noise that will suppresses a potential psi effect. Stick to using the proportion of time spent in the 'waiting spot' like Sheldrake's analysis.

Wiseman's criteria actually tested to see whether the dog has any predictive abilities. Sheldrake's don't.

If the owner returns 100 minutes after the start of the trial and the dog starts "signalling" 10 minutes after the start of the trial and stays there until the owner comes home then the proportion of time spent in the "waiting position" will be 90% and 100% for the main period and the return period respectively. If this was repeated enough times it would attain statistical significance.

This is an extreme example but it demonstrates that Sheldrake's criteria are not a valid measure.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I wonder if we could train the dog to stand at the window only when it feels that its master is on the way home? We could punish the dog if it stands at the window when its master is not on the way home, and reward it when its master is. If, in fact, the dog is sensing its master coming home, it should learn from this punishment/reward training by association. If it is not sensing anything, no learning should take place.

Of course, we'd have to be careful not to train it to recognize some other pattern.

~~ Paul

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by davidsmith73

Hi Alex,

You probably know this already, but whatever you do, don't adopt Wiseman et al.'s (1999) criteria for a successful trial because it introduces a huge amount of noise that will suppresses a potential psi effect. Stick to using the proportion of time spent in the 'waiting spot' like Sheldrake's analysis.

produces noise???... it is noise! Why 2 minutes? Why not 3?Why not 1? It was a totally arbitrary cirtera completely removed from any consideration about what the experiment was about.

I think I'll write a blog entry on this just to get it off my chest!

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I wonder if we could train the dog to stand at the window only when it feels that its master is on the way home? We could punish the dog if it stands at the window when its master is not on the way home, and reward it when its master is. If, in fact, the dog is sensing its master coming home, it should learn from this punishment/reward training by association. If it is not sensing anything, no learning should take place.

Of course, we'd have to be careful not to train it to recognize some other pattern.

~~ Paul

We've talked about doing something like this, but we just don't have a firm enough handle on the phenomena at this point... need a lot more dogs... a lot more video.

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

produces noise???... it is noise! Why 2 minutes? Why not 3?Why not 1? It was a totally arbitrary cirtera completely removed from any consideration about what the experiment was about.

I think I'll write a blog entry on this just to get it off my chest!

Alex, on your youtube video you've made a big deal of how accurate the correlation is between when the dog starts the "signalling" and the time when the owner starts the return journey. You can't have it both ways.

Sheldrake made a big deal about the video from Austrian TV where the correlation was apparently almost exact.

You have to come up with some criteria to use.

You can't just use the proportion of time that the dog spends "signalling" in the main and return periods for the reasons I have outlined above.

If the dog assumes the "signalling" position at any time between the start of the trial and when the owner returns then there will be a statistical difference between the proportion of time that the dog spends "signalling" during the main and return periods. This is hardly convincing evidence of psychic dogs.

If you are going to take the Randi Challenge then you are going to have to come up with criteria for judging the success of your demonstration.

How are you going to determine the success of a trial?

What statistical tests are you going to use?

If the dog starts "signalling" 30 minutes before the owner starts coming home is that a success? If the dog starts "signalling" 30 minutes after the owner starts coming home is that a success? According to Sheldrake's criteria they would.