Aidan3

Terrible, that's why I would seek an effective solution. I know what my dogs would do if they came across a snake in a net. Kill one and another takes it's place, unless you kill them all. Sure, your dog is safe from that snake. How long until the next one? Better to come up with a plan that actually works.

Yes, legal and effective means that don't endanger the dog. Snake catcher has already explained how bird netting further endangers the dog. If you don't care if it's cruel, at least have the good sense to protect your dogs. Killing snakes does not protect your dog, thinking that it does is magical thinking.

Well you did ask for suggestions. Shade-mesh was suggested as a safer, effective alternative; and the illegality, cruelty and posed danger (to your dogs) of bird netting was highlighted.

Apparently in Ohio you can keep a pet tiger, but not a pitbull. Ummm...

Thanks Longclaw, I'm glad you found it useful I think your insight is spot-on, it would not be a representative sample. Of course I say that with the caveat that I haven't seen the survey or the data, I can only speculate.

But how do you know that is her hypothesis? It is just a topic name she started on DOL. I don't think we're imagining it. Corvus: That's an interpretation of data (a premature one). An hypothesis is a specific, operationalised, testable prediction. I'm not defending her interpretation of the data, but fair is fair and I think megan's point is reasonable.

I should have just waited for the more articulate artillery to arrive I find this a rather charming comment. I'm trying to work out who it was you were hoping to offend. It was clearly a self-deprecating comment. I was trying to explain scientific concepts to a lay community, and believed that Weasels was far more articulate in doing so. It appears that I don't have to "hope" to offend anyone, they'll take offence regardless.

I should have just waited for the more articulate artillery to arrive

I could give you a passable answer but I'd be out of my depth. Hopefully someone like RevJo can answer that for you.

What, with the general public? Ewww, gross! Why??!?

I' jumping back from the love or hate scientists bit here and wondering at the above. This whole thread was started on the basis of survey information on some dogs (mostly greyhounds) being compared to a shyness/boldness axis defined especially for humans, then that information being used to project a result across a varied group of dog breeds. Does this seem completely ridiculous to anyone else here?? Seems like anthropomorphism taken to the extreme. Not really, the differences and similarities between species are the source of much debate. A lot of what we know about humans came from rats, for e.g., but a scientist can't say "rats do this, therefore humans will also do this". You have to find a way to satisfy everyone that it's true, on rational grounds. That's what happens here, the scientists say "humans have this, let's find out if dogs do too". If you read the paper (the link is in the quoted bit) it discusses this at some length, how it has been investigated, why etc

Yes, historically these things have happened and this will colour the public perception of science. Do you think that scientists working within the profession choose to ignore this today? As a student of psychology, ethics lessons begin in our first lecture and are continued through every piece of work that we submit and every comment we make in class. I don't know if this is true in other fields or not.

I didn't say that science doesn't cause problems. I'm saying that it also finds solutions and in the entire course of history (while we're looking at ALL the data) it would be difficult to conclude that science was responsible for our issues (as opposed to "greed", "corruption" etc) and that we weren't better off as a result of science. But to say that science causes prisons, serious mental health problems, poverty and war is indefensible. Had I said that you would be correct Fair enough but you're going to have to unpack your own argument, as it stands it's not holding much water. It would take a lot of license to argue that atrocities of war (to name an example) were committed "in the name of science" but maybe you have better examples?

I didn't say that science doesn't cause problems. I'm saying that it also finds solutions and in the entire course of history (while we're looking at ALL the data) it would be difficult to conclude that science was responsible for our issues (as opposed to "greed", "corruption" etc) and that we weren't better off as a result of science. But to say that science causes prisons, serious mental health problems, poverty and war is indefensible.

Yeah but those are physicists. Totally different ;) One is an engineer. :cool: Yeah, but he only has a masters

In this country anyone can go to a university, from any background, at any stage of life as an adult. Even me. If anything, it's too inclusive

So a handful of scientists colours your entire view of science? Even though it was scientists who first started ringing the alarm bells on smoking, and who later were able to satisfy everyone (except the tobacco companies) that smoking was harmful? If you're going to pick a handful, why not the handful that benefited humanity? I take all data into account when assessing a situation. I am not sure it is only a handful of scientists by the way, I think that is an understated amount. I used the example to illustrate why public scepticism of scientists exists. If scientists choose to ignore this then so be it. All that does it to reinforce the public view that scientists live in a rarefied atmosphere out of touch with the community. Take a look at weasels' post. Scientists are people too. You don't devote your life to frustration and crap pay because you're on the 'side of evil' and aren't deeply interested in whatever it is you research. Tobacco companies used a handful of scientists to endorse the (entirely correct at one point) opinion that no causal link between smoking and lung cancer had been found. The rest was advertising (see http://scienceblogs.com/bioephemera/2008/11/when_science_was_smoking_hot.php for examples). Calling these people "scientists" is like saying the white coats at the Ponds Institute are scientists. Any first-year stats or research methods text-book covers this topic in detail if you want to look at verified data.

Here's the thing though. We can theorise about how dogs think and we've been doing it for years. It doesn't necessarily mean we're right. So anyone suggesting that the science "must be right" and the observations of those who live and work with any particular breed of dog are 'biased' needs to reflect very carefully about that. I'm all for furthering our knowledge of dogs. But theory needs to be tested. I hope that's the next step for Corvus because right now her theory doesn't hold water for me. As I understand it she is trying to use experimental methods to determine optimism bias (not the survey). This will, of course, be open to debate. It's also a very challenging task, so I wish her well. What the public don't see is the hours and hours of research that doesn't show a significant or non-trivial result, and doesn't go anywhere.

You're quite right, and I think corvus seems to have agreed that timid is not the right word. Not likely to investigate unique objects in the environment is probably quite fair, compared to, say, labradors.

So a handful of scientists colours your entire view of science? Even though it was scientists who first started ringing the alarm bells on smoking, and who later were able to satisfy everyone (except the tobacco companies) that smoking was harmful? If you're going to pick a handful, why not the handful that benefited humanity?

Once you start looking there is actually quite a good body of research along those lines. One author whose work I was recently studying is investigating the positive effects of pet dogs using experimental methods, this is fairly new and can tell us a lot about how dogs cause positive benefits (as opposed to previous research which looked at associations, but not causes). Corvus' research (which I can't tell you much about because I don't know much about it) is looking at personality dimensions in dogs, specifically a bias for optimism. This probably has more application in human psychology but it's cool to know more about how dogs think (where for so long science has treated animals as machines). One of RevJo's research interests is also how dogs think; I think that's really positive stuff. The more you get into this stuff, the more you realise how useful this sort of research really is, not just for dogs but for people and other animals too.

You can ask RevJo about that, not a simple matter unfortunately. The data is already out there, I'm not sure how much more we need, but it's being ignored anyway. Do you think the scientific community can do better in communicating these ideas? I think they probably can, we can always do better in anything really.

do you really think people avoid your Bully because of studies? No, they avoid the Bully because of their lack of knowledge of the studies. Where are the scientists taking a stand against Breed Specific Legislation? I can't think of anyone in this country who's expressed an opinion on the subject. Dr Kirsti Seksel wrote probably the strongest critique of BSL to date.

It's certainly not the research you have to worry about. No-one seems to be paying any attention to that.