An exploration of the serious/fun/ridiculous - past/present/future of the brain and the science that loves it....but this site is dead so visit the new omnibrain: http://scienceblogs.com/omnibrain

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Psychic dogs

Well...here it is: Dogs are not psychic. Ohh well I kinda thought they had a chance. Here's the originial report (scanned pdf) from the Army, it's pretty interesting actually. And here's a summary from the webpage:
In the early 1950s, Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine, based at Duke University, was the foremost researcher in the field of parapsychology, or, using the term he coined: "extrasensory perception." The Army hired Rhine and his Parapsychology Laboratory to research the possibility of using dogs and other animals to detect buried landmines.

The final report for one such contract with Duke University, dated 10 July 1953, remained classified as Confidential for more than 50 years, until it was recently declassified after a long, laborious process. It took ten separate offices five years to clear this short report for release.

The narrative report describes a series of experiments involving German shepherds trying to locate buried landmines. The results appeared promising but also suggested that at least some of the positive results were attributable to the dogs' remarkable sense of smell. The report also examines the possibility of ESP in cats and pigeons.

Rhine was the first to attempt a scientific investigation of paranormal phenomena of this type, and many of his experimental results have been attacked as being the result of a general lack of stringent experimental controls and the possible falsification of records by his laboratory assistants.
There are a number of other sites on psychic dogs around, a bbc report, some stuff about Jim the psychic dog, etc etc

posted by Steve at 5/17/2006 08:18:00 AM  

1 Comments:

Steve said...

blah

Sat Dec 16, 02:53:42 PM CST

 

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