It is commendable that OP put a lot of work into this post, but tbh it does seem like many claims are way too overconfident given the evidence. I fear the “specialists in field X are grossly incompetent” is a frequent bias on lw, which is why not many people have pointed out the problems with this post.
1) Animal researchers have engaged with these type of videos; that they are not in awe about it, could also mean that they do not find it impressive or novel. Here is a good summary. It did not take me long to find this, and this link (or similar ones) should not be the 81st comment.
2)Yes, doing research on elephants is impractical, but that has nothing to do with doing research on dogs.Many animal cognition researchers have dogs and are totally happy and willing to try to teach their dogs language in their free time.
3)There are lots of studies with insane amount of resources poured into them with the goal of teaching animals language. Take this study in the 60s where they tried to teach a dolphin language by filling an apartment with water, having the handler live with the dolphin, and giving him an occasional hand*** . (yes, you read that right)
4) Bunny appears to be a Poodle mix; given that poodles are known to be a very intelligent dog breed, it is at least conceivable that they learned some genuinely surprising things.
I am willing to accept bets that general consensus in 3 years will be that Bunny and the vast majority of dogs in such studies do not have an episodic memory which they can communicate like claimed in this post.
I am willing to accept bets that general consensus in 3 years will be that Bunny and the vast majority of dogs in such studies do not have an episodic memory which they can communicate like claimed in this post.
(...)
I am offering 2:1 odds in favour of the other side.
Are you still offering this bet? I’m interested.
To clarify, you mean not just that the consensus will be that such studies find no (strong) evidence for episodic memory, but that dogs (in such studies) do not have an episodic memory that they can communicate like claimed in the post at all?
And, can you clarify what you mean by “like claimed in this post”?
Fully agree on the bias part, although specialists being incompetent isn’t a thread in my article? There’s an entire aside about why some research doesn’t get done, and incompetence isn’t among the reasons.
I’ve read the Slate article you linked, and I think it’s good. I don’t see anything in there that I disagree with. The article is from 2019 when the amount of evidence (and importantly the number of people who successfully replicated it) was just one Instagram dog. Even back then in the article scientists are cautious but lukewarm and want a more rigorous study. Now we have a more rigorous study running.
All this stuff has been addressed in the comments and in the updated article. I’m quite adamant that misinterpreting dog output is the primary danger and I don’t claim confidence in specific abilities, precisely because we need more study to determine what’s real and what’s confirmation bias/misinterpretation.
That wasn’t a point about dog research, it was a point about dynamics of what kind of discoveries and research gets made more often.
“in the 60s” for social/cognitive/psychology-adjacent research has to be a bit like “in mice” for medicine. Either way, people try to do something and fail, 60 years later someone comes up with an approach that works. That’s a completely normal story.
I thought about taking you up on the bet at 3:1 but I don’t like the “vast majority” part. I think it’s too much work to specify the rules precisely enough and I’ve spent enough time on this already.
The anxiety reduction was more improvised to surprising needs rather than thought to have a cognitive payload by itself and thought off beforehand. It is a notable thing about it but not excatly a resource that measures effort extent.
It is commendable that OP put a lot of work into this post, but tbh it does seem like many claims are way too overconfident given the evidence. I fear the “specialists in field X are grossly incompetent” is a frequent bias on lw, which is why not many people have pointed out the problems with this post.
1) Animal researchers have engaged with these type of videos; that they are not in awe about it, could also mean that they do not find it impressive or novel. Here is a good summary. It did not take me long to find this, and this link (or similar ones) should not be the 81st comment.
2)Yes, doing research on elephants is impractical, but that has nothing to do with doing research on dogs.Many animal cognition researchers have dogs and are totally happy and willing to try to teach their dogs language in their free time.
3)There are lots of studies with insane amount of resources poured into them with the goal of teaching animals language. Take this study in the 60s where they tried to teach a dolphin language by filling an apartment with water, having the handler live with the dolphin, and giving him an occasional hand*** . (yes, you read that right)
4) Bunny appears to be a Poodle mix; given that poodles are known to be a very intelligent dog breed, it is at least conceivable that they learned some genuinely surprising things.
I am willing to accept bets that general consensus in 3 years will be that Bunny and the vast majority of dogs in such studies do not have an episodic memory which they can communicate like claimed in this post.
At what betting odds?
I am offering 2:1 odds in favour of the other side.
(...)
Are you still offering this bet? I’m interested.
To clarify, you mean not just that the consensus will be that such studies find no (strong) evidence for episodic memory, but that dogs (in such studies) do not have an episodic memory that they can communicate like claimed in the post at all?
And, can you clarify what you mean by “like claimed in this post”?
Have you seen unexpected question tests of episodic memory in animals? Some examples:
Mental representation and episodic-like memory of own actions in dogs
Animal models of episodic memory (see the section “Incidental Encoding and Unexpected Questions”)
Episodic-like memory of rats as retrospective retrieval of incidentally encoded locations and involvement of the retrosplenial cortex
Fully agree on the bias part, although specialists being incompetent isn’t a thread in my article? There’s an entire aside about why some research doesn’t get done, and incompetence isn’t among the reasons.
I’ve read the Slate article you linked, and I think it’s good. I don’t see anything in there that I disagree with. The article is from 2019 when the amount of evidence (and importantly the number of people who successfully replicated it) was just one Instagram dog. Even back then in the article scientists are cautious but lukewarm and want a more rigorous study. Now we have a more rigorous study running.
All this stuff has been addressed in the comments and in the updated article. I’m quite adamant that misinterpreting dog output is the primary danger and I don’t claim confidence in specific abilities, precisely because we need more study to determine what’s real and what’s confirmation bias/misinterpretation.
That wasn’t a point about dog research, it was a point about dynamics of what kind of discoveries and research gets made more often.
“in the 60s” for social/cognitive/psychology-adjacent research has to be a bit like “in mice” for medicine. Either way, people try to do something and fail, 60 years later someone comes up with an approach that works. That’s a completely normal story.
I thought about taking you up on the bet at 3:1 but I don’t like the “vast majority” part. I think it’s too much work to specify the rules precisely enough and I’ve spent enough time on this already.
The anxiety reduction was more improvised to surprising needs rather than thought to have a cognitive payload by itself and thought off beforehand. It is a notable thing about it but not excatly a resource that measures effort extent.