The BBC have reported this morning that a prominent scientist believes that pets have a psychic ability that gives them a telepathic relationship with their owners. It’s likely that many people watching this report, or watching the subsequent video posted on the BBC website will be able to remember moments where it seemed as though their pet was able to predict what they were going to do.
However, this is something called ‘confirmation bias’. We remember something that fits because we are prompted to do so, when there could be other reasons what we remember happening, happened.
For example, in the video on the BBC website a dog called Dexter escaped and found his way home on the same day his owner, Nicole, was flying back from holiday. The VO asks ‘how did Dexter know Nicole was on her way back?’
This is where the first mistake is made, because we are presuming that he did! It’s more likely that his escape and journey home happening on the day his owner was travelling back is just a coincidence. A coincidence that is more likely than the dog being psychic.
Not a mystery at all. Yet, a link is made because humans are pattern seeking creatures. X must have happened because of Y.
There is a phrase used by many - Correlation does not imply causation. This means, just because X happened at the same time as Y, doesn’t mean they were both linked or that X caused Y. It’s a bit like when you think your dad is going to phone you and then he does. This doesn’t mean you are psychic, it just means you happened to think he would phone you just before he did.
It is us who places the potential psychic ability onto that coincidence.
The BBC report cuts to a piece about Rupert Sheldrake and his research with a dog named ‘Jaytee’. Several experiments were done with Jaytee in the early 1990′s. The dogs owner, Pam, would go out, and then at a random time, would travel home and the dog would seemingly know when Pam was on her way home and would wait at the window or door for her. This, it is claimed, suggests that the dog is somehow linked to its owner.
However, research carried out by Richard Wiseman, Matthew Smith and Julie Milton came to a different conclusion. You can read their full paper here. To summarise though, they found that Jaytee visited the window and door numerous times while Pam was out, and thus it was likely coincidence that the dog went to the window or door while Pam was travelling home. They monitored this by filming the dog and the window/door area (all documented within the paper.)
Richard Wiseman has written his further thoughts in an unpublished paper here.
It is very unlikely that dogs are psychic, and what some percieve to be behaviour indicative of psychic ability is most likely to just be natural behaviour that, occurring at any other moment in time, would not be seen as significant.
We believe ( and research shows) that Sheldrake is barking up the wrong tree.
There is NO definitive proof either way.
I’m keeping an open mind…and see what perciptates in
the following years.
If the laws of Physics,Quatum Entanglement and Pauli Exclusion Principle
are anythig to go by,then everything is up for grabs.
C.J
Call me psychic but I predict you’ve spent almost no time going over the research regarding Jaytee. Why don’t you link to Sheldrake’s papers, including his response to Wiseman? Are you simply unaware of it? Or are you afraid?
“We believe ( and research shows) that Sheldrake is barking up the wrong tree.”
Are you aware that the four trials (yes, he only did four trials with Jaytee- pitiful!) that Wiseman did actually CONFIRM Sheldrake’s conclusions? Are you aware of the trials Sheldrake did with Pam where she did not return home and Jaytee did not display the behavior you’d expect if you are correct? A link to skepdic and Wiseman’s website and nothing to the scientist who actually did the research- shameful. I get it, you could care less about the truth, you’re only interested in another low grade debunking exercise. In that case, well done. The pseudo-skeptics who visit this site and fancy themselves critical thinkers will undoubtedly buy this nonsense/propaganda- because they so want to believe it’s true.
We have ammended the page to include links to Sheldrakes papers (which were linked to via one of the links we included). We’ve also asked Richard Wiseman to comment on this assertion of yours though, we think it’s summed up very well in the sentence in Richards paper that says:
“I do not find the two studies compelling evidence of psychic ability as each allow for a normal explanation”
Such sloppy journalism on the part of the BBC. And describing Sheldrake as ‘a prominent scientist’ leads viewers to believe that he (and his work) is highly regarded. Surely ‘notorious’ or ‘controversial’ would have been more appropriate?
I’ve never been one for blowing my own trumpet but on this occasion I’ll make an exception. I wrote an informal paper on this topic a few years ago that can be found at http://www.mheap.com/story1.html. I find the experimental designs of neither Dr Sheldrake nor Prof Wiseman et al at all convincing and I suggest a much more robust(and economical) design that controls for extraneous factors that could have (and I suspect did) contaminate Dr Sheldrake’s results. (One very suspicious finding in both studies was that an increase in the dog’s anticipatory behaviour occurred in the 10-minute interval prior to the experimenter’s informing the owner that it was time to return home. Dr Sheldrake explains this by unconscious communication between the experimenter and the owner which somehow the dog picked up. This is not science!)