Quick Update
My comment was left up and the author replied, "I have not perpetuated
any myth and I honestly believe children do understand that this is a
trick, and that dogs do not have the ability to engage in mathematics
reasoning."
Frankly, I am disgusted with this and pretty much told her so by point
out that she's making a dangerous assumption and that nothing in her
article or any other that I have read says anything about the illusion
of it. I'm willing to bet that THAT one doesn't go up.
I also found the owner's website:
http://www.davethemathdog.com
and emailed the owner. In my email, I suggested that he had the power
to teach important concepts of critical thinking by educating himself
and including a discussion of what Dave was REALLY doing in his
presentations to children. He does this to promote math education,
according to his website and his reply, so I believe his intentions
are good.
I don't want to post his full reply here because I don't believe in
making private email public without permission.
It was a history of how they discovered this "ability" ("my wife was
watching the Discovery channel and a lady said, people don't realize
what animals understand from humans"), what his procedure is (children
suggest the problems "at random"), a list of his "abilities", and a
list of the TV shows that Dave has appeared on (like Letterman) as if
these things make a difference.
The last one does, in my opinion - it makes it MUCH worse.
I replied, basically, that anecdotes and histories served only to
demonstrate the natural human tendencies to jump to conclusions about
what we WANT to believe and hold fast to those beliefs, ignoring
plausible alternative explanations. I reiterated parts of my first
email - e.g., he'd not done a controlled test that could support or
refute what he believes the dog can do. I asked if he had ever asked
Dave to solve a problem written on the board without looking at it
himself and with nobody in the room who knew the problem.
I ended my email with a note that essentially promised to personally
promote his "act" if he could demonstrate, through controlled
experiments, that Dave could do math. I added that I know many
scientists and educators who would find such a thing a huge
breakthrough in the study of animal behavior and intelligence.
- Barb