Animal telepaths

[drkitten]

Are you sure that there's nothing paranormal and testable about the animal telepathy claim? If I read it correctly, it sounds like there's a fairly easy protocol that would work. I supply her with the necessary photographs and names, and she tells me what's wrong with the animal(s) in question. If she correctly identifies the kidney troubles (as documented by our local vet), she wins.

Alternatively, the "special circumstances" might be easily testable. I will provide a photograph of one of my animals, and she is required to tell me how many other animals share its living environment. Again, if she can get the number correct, she wins.

Obviously, when I say "I" I really mean "a sufficiently large set of test subjects," [handwave rest of details of protocol design]. It might make a long session in the hotel room to make sure she wasn't looking up personal details on the Web (or getting phone calls from a confederate on a concealed earbug). But I think the claim itself may be testable.

[Skeptical Greg]

I find it interesting that an animal telepath needs the name of the animal.. Why can't the animal tell her it's name?

This in itself should be an acceptable test...

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Diogenes
I find it interesting that an animal telepath needs the name of the animal.. Why can't the animal tell her it's name?

You're not being fair to the psychic. Formally, you're moving the goalposts -- she hasn't claimed to be able to get the animal to tell her its name, so you're asking her to prove a claim she never made.

But I can even come up with a spurious pseudoscientific answer if you need one. "Obviously" she needs the name in order to confirm that she's communicating with the right animal. Let's face it, one Siamese cat looks pretty much like another. She may even need to "call" it by name in some metaphysical astral way in order to get its telepathic attention (the same way I would need to know your name in order to get your attention in a crowded room).

Obviously, her claim doesn't make sense -- if it made sense, it would be real science instead of paranormal. The relevant question, though, is not "does it make sense"? but "can it be tested"?

[jmercer]

Hmm... I just got done reading the application, and I think you're going to have to create something a bit more sophisticated. Here's the problem:

If we show her a picture of a dachshund and say "body checkup", she's likely to guess "back or spinal problems". If we show her a greyhound, standard poodle, or Irish wolfhound, she's likely to say "hip problems" or "hip displacement". Etc, etc, etc.

Various breeds are known for various ailments, so she can load her answers accordingly. Skin cancer is a common ailment among older dogs, and she could also cite incontinence and so forth - and gauging a dogs age by it's face picture isn't all that hard, depending on the dog.

To make this work, you'd have to have dogs with uncommon ailments and some without any ailments at all, I think.

[Yaotl]

Originally posted by jmercer
Hmm... I just got done reading the application, and I think you're going to have to create something a bit more sophisticated. Here's the problem:

If we show her a picture of a dachshund and say "body checkup", she's likely to guess "back or spinal problems". If we show her a greyhound, standard poodle, or Irish wolfhound, she's likely to say "hip problems" or "hip displacement". Etc, etc, etc.

Various breeds are known for various ailments, so she can load her answers accordingly. Skin cancer is a common ailment among older dogs, and she could also cite incontinence and so forth - and gauging a dogs age by it's face picture isn't all that hard, depending on the dog.

To make this work, you'd have to have dogs with uncommon ailments and some without any ailments at all, I think.

Bah, you beat me to it. She could also go so far as to guess at the disposition of the dog in regards to its environment. Some dogs get along with children better than others, can handle more people, are yappy, etc. I was wondering why it was rejected seemingly out of hand, but her claim isn't that impressive really.

[jmercer]

Sorry... I'll try to slow down a bit. ;)

[DevilsAdvocate]

I don't see why this isn't testable. Seems very testable to me. I would have a problem with the protocol "It is important for the test that the owners of the animals I am talking to can confirm the facts the animals tell me." Sounds like cold reading. I can do this with computer software--in fact it is part of my job. I ask for the name of the software being used and the name of the OS. I ask for what "specifically" is causing the problem, but almost never get a real answer--it is usually "it doesn't work". Doesn't work how? I get an error message (a common answer that would be like "body checkup"). Then I am reasonably sure where the problem is. So I say what happens when you do this? What happens when you do that? This elimiantes possibilities. So I;m down to only a couple possible problems so I say "has susch and such ever happened"? Yes? OK, then it must be such-and-such. I have about 98% success. I was never given specifics about the problem, the user had no idea about what the problem was, never touched the computer...but lo and behold I can diagnose the problem through just a brief series of questions that the person may not even know are relevant to the cause of the problem. I'm a miracle worker. :D

And I'm even psychic. jmercer's statements are dead on. For computers I've gotten "such and such persons thing-a-ma-jig doesn't work". Well, I'm too busy and I've seen it before so I say "download such and such" and it should work. So not even knowing waht someones ailment is or exactly where the ailment is, I can make a very very good guess at what is is, what is causing it, and how to fix it. I do it every day. Big whoop.

Now if someone said "Someone is having a computer problem." and I said exactly what was wrong and how to fix it, that would be something. Actually I could still guess better than average because I know the most frequent computer problems. t would really only be something if I guessed something unusual and was right. ;)