47. Skeptical Researcher, Dr. Clive Wynne Tackles DogsThatKnow (Podcast)

[alextsakiris]

Guest: Dr. Clive Wynne on the University of Florida?s participation in the DogsThatKnow experiment.

Click here to read more ...

[David Bailey]

Hmmm - probably not the best podcast - mainly because Clive Wynne seemed to be trying to teach you the obvious at times! Even so, he does seem to genuinely want to understand this phenomenon, and to me, that is the important thing. If dogs don't use Ψ to do this trick, I want a reasonably watertight explanation of how they do it!

One of Clive Wynne's big ideas - mentioned several times - is that dogs pick up on what articles their owners are taking out with them. A simple control for this would be to ask the owner (sorry, I forget her name) to take all her gear with her (assuming she can fit into the boot of her car) every time she does a test.

David

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Hmmm - probably not the best podcast - mainly because Clive Wynne seemed to be trying to teach you the obvious at times! Even so, he does seem to genuinely want to understand this phenomenon, and to me, that is the important thing. If dogs don't use Ψ to do this trick, I want a reasonably watertight explanation of how they do it!

One of Clive Wynne's big ideas - mentioned several times - is that dogs pick up on what articles their owners are taking out with them. A simple control for this would be to ask the owner (sorry, I forget her name) to take all her gear with her (assuming she can fit into the boot of her car) every time she does a test.

David

Just to clarify, I'm working with them to identify new dog/owners in Gainesville (close to the University of Florida). I'm hoping to resume trials with Tommy in California (the dog on my YouTube video), but the owners family is unable to do this right now.

[scomsjw]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

probably not the best podcast - mainly because Clive Wynne seemed to be trying to teach you the obvious at times!

I disagree. I prefer this type of show to previous ones where Alex and the guest are in agreement about everything. For me the best Skeptiko podcasts have been the ones where the guest is a skeptic so there's room for a bit of an argument. If I ruled the universe Alex would get to interview Richard Dawkins, Richard Wiseman, Randi, Hitchens etc. and the Skeptics's guide folks would interview Rupert Sheldrake, Julie Beischel and Chris Carter.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Hmmm - probably not the best podcast - mainly because Clive Wynne seemed to be trying to teach you the obvious at times! Even so, he does seem to genuinely want to understand this phenomenon, and to me, that is the important thing. If dogs don't use Ψ to do this trick, I want a reasonably watertight explanation of how they do it!

One of Clive Wynne's big ideas - mentioned several times - is that dogs pick up on what articles their owners are taking out with them. A simple control for this would be to ask the owner (sorry, I forget her name) to take all her gear with her (assuming she can fit into the boot of her car) every time she does a test.

David

Sorry if I'm asking a daft question. I haven't really been following this dogs thing. But why is this an issue if the person is coming home at a random time?

Picking up a certain bag might predispose a dog to exhibit the appropriate behaviour at a specific time. This is remarkable in itself, but many will feel it's not as remarkable as telepathy. But if the owner comes home at a random time, this disposition for the dog to get up and go to the door (or whatever it does) at a specific time, will not correlate with when the owner returns home any more than any other time surely?

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Sorry if I'm asking a daft question. I haven't really been following this dogs thing. But why is this an issue if the person is coming home at a random time?

Picking up a certain bag might predispose a dog to exhibit the appropriate behaviour at a specific time. This is remarkable in itself, but many will feel it's not as remarkable as telepathy. But if the owner comes home at a random time, this disposition for the dog to get up and go to the door (or whatever it does) at a specific time, will not correlate with when the owner returns home any more than any other time surely?

That is a good point, and something that was left a bit vague in the discussion. My feeling was that Clive Wynne and Alex seemed to be talking at something of a tangent a lot of the time! Anyway, hopefully something productive will come out of their collaboration.

David

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Sorry if I'm asking a daft question. I haven't really been following this dogs thing. But why is this an issue if the person is coming home at a random time?

Ian..... just like some people see faces in wallpaper, some debunkers imagine flaws in Sheldrake dog experiments. The role of the psi experimenter is to jump through hoops testing any debunkers nitpick because the burden of proof is never on a debunkers counter claim. Why? Because debunkers say so!

The owner did not return at regular times during the Sheldrake experiments, however debunkers have now imagined irregular return times were not random enough + the owner wearing certain clothes in combination can (magically) explain the results.

The dog logger theory
It goes something like this ..... the debunker theorizes the dog has been logging owners average time away by what owner is wearing, carrying etc. For example it might be green shopping bag day which dog has logged as usually taking 120 minutes..... the dog pretends to sleep like a log for video camera but secretly counts time in heartbeats. Sneaky dog eh?

The owner doesn't return as normal after 120 minutes beause the experimenter hasn't told her to come home yet. And when told some time after 120 minutes the theory is that the dog from that point in time goes more and more to the window over time and that somehow explains the results ......it doesn't according to Sheldrake.

Still one must appease debunkers in experiments, if one doesn't, they tend to publish tenuous hypothetical flaws like confident factual explanations.

[Open Mind]

I thought Clive Wynne came across much better in this interview than last one. He didn't sound cynical. He sounds enthusiastic, reasonable, open minded and a pleasant chap too.

Good to hear Clive is going ahead with experiments.

[scomsjw]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Still one must appease debunkers in experiments, if one doesn't, they tend to publish tenuous hypothetical flaws like confident factual explanations.

Comments like this are a bit annoying. Surely you aren't arguing that Sheldrake has already proved that dogs are telepathic? I don't think even Sheldrake himself believes that. That's why we have to continue with more experiments and make them watertight. That's how all important scientific experiments are done. It's not just to appease debunkers its about making absolutely sure that the hypothesis is correct.

[eyemsougly]

If this all works then we finally got a repeatable experiment. Seems like a lot of possibilities still need to be ruled out though, probably this experiments biggest weakness.

I agree with Open Mind that the clothing and articles taken theory doesn't work if the return times are random.



Wynn must be thinking that he may have just stumbled into a Nobel Prize. I'd be enthusiastic if I were him too.