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I know people tend to underestimate how difficult other people's work is, but do you really need a doctorate and a university to do research like this? Why not

I know people tend to underestimate how difficult other people's work is, but do you really need a doctorate and a university to do research like this? Why not just do it at home as a hobby and if you want Indian feral dogs, hire some Indian freelancers to perform the experiment and video it. Are they just trying to do anything to keep their job? What kind of university lets its well qualified staff do things so far beneath their ability?

jakobegger 11y ago
While the description of the experiments sounds simple, the actual protocols end up pretty complicated if you want reproducible results. A couple of years back, i visited the wolf science center in Ernstbrunn/Austria, where they have wolves and feral dogs, and they also perform these kinds of behavioral experiments. It was quite eye-opening to see how much effort is needed for such seemingly simple experiments. Obviously, just ensuring safety is quite complex when working with wolves, but there's also a lot of effort that goes into making sure the experiments work. You can only work with animals for a limited time, you don't have infinite number of animals, etc. There was a PhD student at the center who was trying to design an experiment to simulate cooperation during hunting on a giant treadmill; not exactly trivial stuff...
- Asbostos 11y ago
  Complicated yes, but surely nothing that most people couldn't figure out if they had the curiosity and no formal education in the field is it? The equipment here seems to be common kitchen containers and meat from the supermarket. I don't think experiment design is something scientists are necessarily very good at or needed for. Just look at the recent articles pointing out the large proportion of bad results - probably coming from bad experiment design. A hobbyist on the other hand, could try again when it fails and fix problems. Could it be the hard part is writing it up and submitting to a journal? That's not something you could just hack together without a lot of probably uninteresting self-teaching.
  - eru 11y ago
    > Complicated yes, but surely nothing that most people couldn't figure out if they had the curiosity and no formal education in the field is it? [...] The most curiosity and passionate about a topic of research often tend to go into academic research.

jakobegger 11y ago

While the description of the experiments sounds simple, the actual protocols end up pretty complicated if you want reproducible results. A couple of years back, i visited the wolf science center in Ernstbrunn/Austria, where they have wolves and feral dogs, and they also perform these kinds of behavioral experiments. It was quite eye-opening to see how much effort is needed for such seemingly simple experiments. Obviously, just ensuring safety is quite complex when working with wolves, but there's also a lot of effort that goes into making sure the experiments work. You can only work with animals for a limited time, you don't have infinite number of animals, etc. There was a PhD student at the center who was trying to design an experiment to simulate cooperation during hunting on a giant treadmill; not exactly trivial stuff...

Asbostos 11y ago
Complicated yes, but surely nothing that most people couldn't figure out if they had the curiosity and no formal education in the field is it? The equipment here seems to be common kitchen containers and meat from the supermarket. I don't think experiment design is something scientists are necessarily very good at or needed for. Just look at the recent articles pointing out the large proportion of bad results - probably coming from bad experiment design. A hobbyist on the other hand, could try again when it fails and fix problems. Could it be the hard part is writing it up and submitting to a journal? That's not something you could just hack together without a lot of probably uninteresting self-teaching.
- eru 11y ago
  > Complicated yes, but surely nothing that most people couldn't figure out if they had the curiosity and no formal education in the field is it? [...] The most curiosity and passionate about a topic of research often tend to go into academic research.