A revolution in thought

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Just because I remain steadfast regarding my father's discoveries does not make me an incurious fundie.

True enough, but refusing to learn does make you an 'incurious fundie'.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

All I'm saying is that empirical tests can often be skewed. This may have to do with confirmation bias, lack of reliable testing, or lack of disclosure because it would mean less profit.

What profits are involved in dogs ability to recognize someone from a photo?

[LadyShea]

the size and luminosity of the object relative to the lens (in the efferent account) that make all the difference.

Is there an actual ratio involved? What is it?

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I know enough about the scientific method (using double blind studies) to discuss where it could be flawed whether it was with the control group or the independent variable, etc.

Double blind is a type of control (for bias incidentally). It is not appropriate or useful for some types of research however. Is that the only thing you think you know about the scientific method? So please tell me what was flawed about the study I shared with you where the dog chose a photograph from two and walked up to it.

[davidm]

Peacegirl, left, and some of the recent WTFs she has elicited owing to her stupidity.

TRENDS IN CYBERPSACE

When Peacegirl Posts, People Listen -- and They're All like, WTF???

Omguses, Dohs and Facepalms Also Abound When Freethought Poster Goes Online


FREETHOUGHT FORUM (Internet News Service) -- WTF?

Three little letters that pack a big punch. They stand for, "What the fuck?"

Analysts of skeptical energy say that "WTF" is an invaluable energetic resource to combat online codswallop, buncombe and bullshit. But in recent years, WTF has gone into eclipse, with skeptics exhausted by so much irrational idiocy clogging up bandwidth. From Time Cubes to Intelligent Design, from Lolbertarianism to Republicanism, the outraged skeptic has too much to keep up with, and too little time to do so. So their WTFs have petered out from sheer exhaustion.

In fact, in recent years, analysts have painted a dire picture of "Peak What-the-Fuckism," with the vivifying use of WTF reaching an apex and then declining almost to nothing, following a classic bell curve. It is a frightening scenario.

But all that has changed.

Three and a half years ago a poster named Peacegirl started a thread at the Freethought Forum, and since then the use of WTF has gone through the roof. Not only that, but less valuable though still-important exclamatory resources in the fight against arrant stupidity, like OMGUS ("Oh my God,U suck!") DOH! and Facepalm have also made a comeback.

"These are boom times for WTF," said E. Mota Kahn, a message board analyst at the RAND Corporation. "All thanks to Peacegirl"

Peacegirl's shitty posts include an incomprehensible defense of determinism that constitutes both a tautology and a modal fallacy. In addition, she argues, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that we see in real time, even though she agrees that the speed of light is finite. Finally, she states that when we die, we will become someone else, not because of reincarnation, but because of shifts in the use of personal pronouns. She believes these nonsensical things only because her idiot father, Seymour Lessans, wrote a horrible book saying that they were true.

"When I first discovered Freethought Forum and found Peacegirl's posts, especially her idiotic shit on light and sight, I was immediately all like, WTF?" said Stewart Jones, a systems analyst in Terra Haute, Ind. "I mean, seriously, WTF?? Can anyone be this stupid? C'mon, it's a joke, right? Please tell me it's a joke. Please!"

Sarah Peabody, who heads the department of human resources for a major retail outlet in Denver, Colo., had a similar experience.

"I'm reading this little idiot talking about how, if we lighted a candle in a room, we would see it instantly. Then she claims that in the same way, we would see the sun instantly if God turned it on at noon. And I'm all like, WTF?"

Shaking her head disdainfully, Peabody went on: "But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is, several people corrected her, demonstrating that we would not see the candle instantly, but in a very short interval of time. However, because the candle is so close to our eyes, and because light travels so fast, it only seems that we see it instantly. They even showed her the math!"

Peabody facepalmed, and then concluded: "A few pages later, she comes on and asks -- seriously! -- 'why is it that we see the candle instantly?' This after people patiently explained to her that we don't fucking see it instantly, and why we don't. And I am just literally screaming at my computer screen: "OMGUS, you dumb fucking ignorant airhead bitch! OMGUS! OMGUS! OMGUS!"

At press time, fresh instances of WTFs, OMGUSes and Facepalms were reported as Peacegirl was unstrapped from her bed, given her meds, and allowed recreational time on the institutional computer.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by BWE

I am. TR is definitely a place with very few rules and a lot of insults but it is also a place with many very bright people. if this is the same davidm from TR, he had a meltdown over something posted by a member named quizalufigus (who teaches logic and math to undergrads and has a fairly rigid worldview). Then davidm (at TR) went pretty far off the rails with posts using a thousand variations of quiz's user name combined with various ways to say poop and eventually left when no one cared. If it is the same davidm, I've seen him write very cogent, thoughtful and intelligent things as well as comical batshit crazy things. Which means that I like him in general.

At TR, you get brainy but you don't get much sympathy. Or empathy. Which is a little hard to get used to at first but it also makes it more interesting once you do get used to it. It's surprising how much we don't think when we get stuck in ruts involving self-worth. Anyway, TR isn't for everyone. I am sincerely interested in your ideas. I suspect they are a bit out there on what I call the wingnut scale but that's where the best ideas come from IMO. This thread is just too long for me to follow it though.

Thanks for the scoop on TR. I might actually try it. I'm glad you are sincerely interested in these ideas. I feel the need for new people who will see this discovery with fresh eyes. If I can deal with the people here, I can probably deal with the people there. I can't imagine it being worse. I must say I don't mind constructive criticism but I detest name calling for the sake of being mean-spirited. This is the only thing I'd be concerned about; having to hear a fresh set of expletives just because people don't agree with my perspective. It still might be worth investigating.

[Spacemonkey]

Are you going to lie to me some more before you go? Will you keep posting here to alternate between refusing to answer my questions and lying about having answered them?

[Spacemonkey]

Please answer my questions about THESE photons (the ones at the camera film on Earth at 12:00 when the Sun is first ignited), and without mentioning or reverting to any other different photons.

You need photons at the camera film when the Sun is first ignited.

Are they traveling photons?

Did they come from the Sun?

Did they get to the film by traveling?

Did they travel at the speed of light?

Can they leave the Sun before it is ignited?

Don't commit the postman's mistake by talking about different photons from those which are at the retina at 12:00. Don't even mention any photons other than those I have asked about. If you get to the end of the questions and realize the photons you are talking about are not the ones at the film at 12:00, then you have fucked up again and have failed to actually answer what was asked.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Double blind is a type of control (for bias incidentally). It is not appropriate or useful for some types of research however. Is that the only thing you think you know about the scientific method? So please tell me what was flawed about the study I shared with you where the dog chose a photograph from two and walked up to it.

Would you happen to have this video again? I remember one video where the owner's hat may have clued the dog because it was a particular shape. Regardless, I have not seen any replication of any of these studies. Wouldn't you think that's the first thing they would do if they wanted the study to lend support to their hypothesis?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

Please answer my questions about THESE photons (the ones at the camera film on Earth at 12:00 when the Sun is first ignited), and without mentioning or reverting to any other different photons.

You need photons at the camera film when the Sun is first ignited.

Are they traveling photons?

Did they come from the Sun?

Did they get to the film by traveling?

Did they travel at the speed of light?

Can they leave the Sun before it is ignited?

Don't commit the postman's mistake by talking about different photons from those which are at the retina at 12:00. Don't even mention any photons other than those I have asked about. If you get to the end of the questions and realize the photons you are talking about are not the ones at the film at 12:00, then you have fucked up again and have failed to actually answer what was asked.

No Spacemonkey. If you believe these questions are extremely pertinent just tell me what you think is wrong with my account based on your explanation and I will try to answer you otherwise I refuse to be harassed by this same questions over and over again.

[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

No Spacemonkey. If you believe these questions are extremely pertinent just tell me what you think is wrong with my account based on your explanation and I will try to answer you otherwise I refuse to be harassed by this same questions over and over again.

Of course the questions are pertinent, Dingbat. The problem for you is the same one it's always been - you need light to be somewhere before it has had time to get there. But as per usual, you'd rather lie, weasel, and evade than be honest and reasonable. The questions only get repeated because you keep refusing to answer them, so you have no-one to blame but yourself. Why are you still refusing to answer these perfectly reasonable questions?

[LadyShea]

In this experiment two video screens are separated by a wall so the dog had to choose which one to walk up to.

Can your dog recognize you from a picture? | Smart Animal Training Systems...
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-dst021413.php



No levers! The dogs simply chose a picture and walked to it and touched it with a nose

Here's some articles about another experiment:
Study proves dogs recognize their owners' faces | MNN - Mother Nature Network (note I do not approve of the word prove here, but that's what the source chose)
BBC - Earth News - Dogs recognise their owner's face


This article talks about the myriad issues surrounding studying animals, and includes the Hans the Clever Horse story

Animal Cognition (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The method that Darwin, Romanes and their contemporaries first used to investigate these questions could be described as the anecdotal method. Stories about animal behavior were collected from a variety of people, including military officers, amateur naturalists, and layfolk, and were compiled and used as evidence for a particular cognitive capacity in that species. This approach was widely criticized. The “evidence” gathered was often a story told about an event witnessed by a single person, usually not a trained scientific observer. In addition, these stories were often acquired second- or third- hand, so there were worries that the reports had been embellished or otherwise altered along the way. These problems were recognized early on, and in response Romanes developed three principles for accepting anecdotes in order to avoid some of these problems:

*Never accept an incident report as fact without considering the authority or respectability of the observer.
* If the observer isn't known, and the incident report is sufficiently important, consider whether the observer may have reason or cause to make an inaccurate report.
*Look for corroborations of the observation by examining similar or analogous observations made by other independent observers (Romanes 1970).

The third principle was the one he most relied on, writing “This principle I have found to be a great use in guiding my selection of instances, for where statements of fact which present nothing intrinsically improbable are found to be unconsciously confirmed by different observers, they have as good a right to be deemed trustworthy as statements which stand on the single authority of a known observer, and I have found the former to be at least as abundant as the latter” (Romanes 1970, ix).

Despite Romanes' attempts, the method remained problematic insofar as it didn't provide any statistical information about the frequency of such behaviors; selection bias would lead people to report only the interesting intelligent behaviors and ignore the frequency of behaviors that might serve as counterevidence. Thus, the anecdotal method as practiced by Darwin and Romanes lacks many of the virtues associated with good scientific methods.

Today scientists continue to conduct experiments in laboratory settings, but they also attempt to mirror the richness of the animal's natural environment. For example, the research coming out of Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute (PRI) is based on a three-part research program (Matsuzawa et al. 2006). First, the physical, cognitive, and social development of chimpanzees is taken into account in the design of experiments, and subjects are raised by their mothers rather than by human caregivers or unrelated animals. In addition, lab work and fieldwork is synthesized; field observations are used to develop experiments, and experiments are conducted both in the field and in the laboratory. Finally, the method includes analysis of the physiological and biological features of the species that could be related to cognitive abilities.

Research is ongoing all over the world, so Lessans was missing a ton of information when he wrote about dog cognition

Duke University | Evolutionary Anthropology: Duke Canine Cognition Center

[LadyShea]

Here's another one

So far the specialized skill for recognizing facial features holistically has been assumed to be a quality that only humans and possibly primates possess. Although it’s well known, that faces and eye contact play an important role in the communication between dogs and humans, this was the first study, where facial recognition of dogs was investigated with eye movement tracking.

The results indicate that dogs were able to perceive faces in the images. Dogs looked at images of dogs longer than images of humans, regardless of the familiarity of the faces presented in the images. This corresponds to a previous study by Professor Vainio's research group, where it was found that dogs prefer viewing conspecific faces over human faces.

Dogs fixed their gaze more often on familiar faces and eyes rather than strange ones, i.e. dogs scanned familiar faces more thoroughly.

In addition, part of the images was presented in inverted forms i.e. upside-down. The inverted faces were presented because their physical properties correspond to normal upright facial images e.g. same colors, contrasts, shapes. It's known that the human brain process upside-down images in a different way than normal facial images. Thus far, it had not been studied how dogs gaze at inverted or familiar faces. Dogs viewed upright faces as long as inverted faces, but they gazed more at the eye area of upright faces, just like humans.

This eye tracking is used in human research too. It removes the need for the subject to perform an action to indicate things.

Even Mercola picked up on this one

For social animals that live in groups as humans and dogs do, it's important to be able to tell one individual in the group from another through facial recognition. But until recently, the aptitude for recognizing facial features was presumed to be a quality that only humans and possibly primates possess.

As it turns out, this highly developed skill is one we also share with our canine companions, which makes sense, since it's an established fact that faces and eye contact play an important role in human-dog communication.

[LadyShea]

If I can deal with the people here, I can probably deal with the people there (TR). I can't imagine it being worse.

[LadyShea]

Here's another study discussing congruent/in-congruent face and voice parings. In this one it was about mood expression. So a happy face with a happy voice, or a happy face with an angry voice.
Do domestic dogs recognize emotional incongruence in human faces and voices?

The dogs’ reactions were measured as changes in gaze, ear and tail position, posture, and vocalizations. Attentive dogs gazed at the demonstrator for a longer period and had a greater increase in gaze time when the presented face-voice combination was incongruent compared to congruent combinations. This suggests that, because dogs had a significant reaction to incongruent combinations, dogs recognize the incongruence and use multiple cues to interpret human emotion. Our results will have implications in training companion and therapy dogs and will contribute to a deeper understanding of canine cognitive abilities

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I remember one video where the owner's hat may have clued the dog because it was a particular shape.

Do you remember that one like you remember the ones using levers...that never existed? Or how you remember being prescribed a drug that was pulled from the market due to causing cancer, except it wasn't pulled nor did it cause cancer. You really shouldn't rely on your memory.

Regardless, I have not seen any replication of any of these studies. Wouldn't you think that's the first thing they would do if they wanted the study to lend support to their hypothesis?

Replication is done by interested different researchers, not the same scientists. I thought you understood scientific methodology It takes someone else to say "I don't trust those methods or results, I am going to try their experiment out myself!". Not all research gets replicated, because not all of it interests others, or nobody thinks the methodology is flawed and so lets it stand as is.

The same researchers replicating their own tests wouldn't lead to verification or find possible flaws in their methodology, because they would believe they used a good set up and good methods the first time, or they wouldn't have used them.

This is another area where you and Lessans fail to understand good scholarship, you think you can find and correct your own mistakes...how can you do that if you don't think you made a mistake?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

The actual bug and the magnified image of the bug are different sizes. If we were seeing the actual bug and the light was merely revealing it wouldn't we be seeing it in its actual size?

No Angakuk because optics works the same way. We are seeing through the light, and if the lens is convex which bends the light, the light would magnify the bug.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

How do you know this? Have you conducted controlled experiments to test this claim?

Angakuk, this doesn't have to be a controlled experiment. It is an observation which can have value depending on the skill of the person making the observation. So let's not talk about pictures and dogs. There are other ways to prove that dogs do not have the ability to match individual features with their masters.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

Yes, we do. It is just that the wait time is so short that we don't notice the delay. Even if the delay is only a nanosecond (or two or three) we have to wait that nanosecond for the light to arrive from the candle. The further away the candle is, the longer the wait time is.

But it isn't noticeable. Place a candle as far away as possible but still within optical range and it will appear as instant, even though we know light is traveling. You need to now transfer this to turning on the Sun. If efferent vision is correct, we would see the Sun the instant it was turned on, even though light is traveling. The light would not have to travel 81/2 minutes to reach us before we saw the Sun, but it would need to travel 81/2 minutes for us to see anything on Earth because light has to be striking the object.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

And that right there is where your account is incompatible with physics, optics, and reality. Unless you can explain how the light gets to the eye faster than it could possibly travel to the eye, you are talking about magic

ETA: If we see things instantly as per Lessans

Light is always traveling LadyShea, but the efferent account is what changes this phenomenon. I'm not going over this for the 100th time. It's your lack of ability to grasp why we would see the Sun instantly just like the candle because we are no longer looking at time since we're not waiting for the arrival of light to bring the information. We are able to see the real thing in real time as long as it meets the requirements of brightness and size, which is proportional to the viewer. I don't care if you believe this is magic. We are not talking about light getting to the eye faster than it could travel to the eye. That's nuts altogether.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

No Angakuk because optics works the same way. We are seeing through the light, and if the lens is convex which bends the light, the light would magnify the bug.

That doesn't explain at all how magnification works in efferent vision, or how it is compatible with your statement "We are seeing the real object due to light's presence".

You are simply re-stating how it works with the standard afferent model (which is what optics is), and in the standard model we are not seeing the real object at all...we are seeing a virtual image made of light.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

Yes, and if shown a picture of them I'm sure you'd jump up and down and lick the photo.


And then lie about it.

If you're not satisfied with the idea that a dog ignoring a photo of his beloved master who he hasn't seen in months tells us anything about recognition, then we can move on to the real thing. You are making excuses Spacemonkey in order to make it seem that it isn't strange that a dog wouldn't react to a photograph, but if those wavelengths were arriving at his eye and being decoded in his brain, you would expect some kind of reaction; even a wag of a tail. This is not farfetched like you are making it out to be.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Light is always traveling LadyShea, but the efferent account is what changes this phenomenon. I'm not going over this for the 100th time. It's your lack of ability to grasp why we would see the Sun instantly just like the candle because we are no longer looking at time since we're not waiting for the arrival of light to bring the information. We are able to see the real thing in real time as long as it meets the requirements of brightness and size, which is proportional to the viewer. I don't care if you believe this is magic. .

Its your lack of ability to explain how this instant relocation of light is possible within the known laws of physics. You can't explain it at all, so how could I possibly "grasp" something that is unexplained and seemingly impossible?

You need to figure out how it works, rather than merely asserting that it does work without any evidence or mechanism.

We are not talking about light getting to the eye faster than it could travel to the eye. That's nuts altogether

Yes it is nuts, that's why we keep questioning your claims that light is at the eye, and on camera film, instantly without needing the time to travel there. Your claim is nuts.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

LOL, that wasn't due to flawed studies or flawed data. One large egg has about 186 mg of cholesterol. That could be considered a lot seeing that 200mg of cholesterol is the suggested daily limit.

This is the kind of shit that makes me call you incurious. You don't even know what the egg/cholesterol "fiasco" actually was all about, but you've formed opinions about it!

That's not it at all. They concluded eggs were the culprit because of their high cholesterol content when in reality it was damage to the arteries that came from inflammation which then caused cholesterol to build up as it tried to repair the injury. Cholesterol is not the main issue. In fact, they now say we need more cholesterol because it is the building block of many bodily systems. That's what I mean by not looking at the total picture and offering a skewed report that changes an entire country's eating habits. They concluded that eggs were causing the problem and therefore from this study it was suggested to eat only eat egg whites (not the yellow which has much needed selenium) and take your statins yet during this time period when cholesterol was considered the villain, people were still dying of heart attacks.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

How would you display "being happy", what behavior or signs are typical of being happy? Are there exceptions or variations in these signs and behaviors? How can you control for individual responses?

Simple observation can often tell us many things. If I saw a dog showing any kind of recognition from wagging his tail to whimpering to sitting in front of the picture in anticipation, I would want to use these behaviors as signs of possible recognition. I would get new photographs on different days to see if the dog responded similarly. If this isn't controlled enough then there are other ways to test.