4 ms·

Or maybe, dogs just don’t like to look straight into the sun when they poop, which rises in the east and sets in the west. Good grief. Sometimes the smartest

Or maybe, dogs just don’t like to look straight into the sun when they poop, which rises in the east and sets in the west. Good grief. Sometimes the smartest people are also the dumbest. Would you stare right at the sun when pooping?

mmastrac 7y ago
They tested for that: > The fact that larger and faster changes in magnetic conditions result in random distribution of body directions, i.e., a lowering of the preferences and ceasing of the avoidances, can be explained either through disturbing or conscious “shutdown” of the magneto-reception mechanism.
- fallingfrog 7y ago
  I’ll bet if you repeated the whole thing on cloudy days only the effect would go away. You’d have to have very very strong evidence that dogs have some sensory organ that detects magnetic fields when the sun is right there in the sky and explains the effect in a way that is obvious to everyone.
  - eganist 7y ago
    > I’ll bet if you repeated the whole thing on cloudy days only the effect would go away. You’d have to have very very strong evidence that dogs have some sensory organ that detects magnetic fields when the sun is right there in the sky and explains the effect in a way that is obvious to everyone. again, pages 5-6: > Even if we would assume that these sunshine hours were evenly distributed over the daylight period and the year (as our observations were),there would only be a probability of 33% that the observation was made when the sun was visible. Hence,with high probability (67%) most walks during the day-light period were made when it was cloudy. There's wisdom in reading the study before commenting further considering your specific rebuttals have all been addressed in the source material. There were literally nearly 7,500 measurement events factored into this study, the majority of which were likely cloudy given the location.
    - fallingfrog 7y ago
      Likely? so let me get this straight, they didn’t even record which days were sunny? Extraordinary claims and all that. Sorry but I’m right about this no matter how many downvotes I get.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - eganist 7y ago
        > Likely? so let me get this straight, they didn’t even record which days were sunny? Extraordinary claims and all that. Sorry but I’m right about this no matter how many downvotes I get. Please just read the paper. Events were timestamped, aggregated over two years, and took place at all times of day (including well after dark) with the same outcome. Disengaging. Cheers, friend.
      - jshevek 7y ago
        Voting is often influenced by tone and adherence to site guidelines, not just accuracy.
laretluval 7y ago
They only find the effect for cases where there is low flux in the magnetic field. This indicates another reason to be skeptical of the study. If an effect is found in one condition and not another this is a red flag for p-hacking.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  High flux means the direction of the field is undefined.
  - tlb 7y ago
    "High" flux for geomagnetic fields means it changed by a few degrees. So it's not anywhere near undefined, just slightly off.
eganist 7y ago
> Or maybe, dogs just don’t like to look straight into the sun when they poop, which rises in the east and sets in the west. Good grief. Sometimes the smartest people are also the dumbest. Would you stare right at the sun when pooping? Pages 6-7 (pdf pages 5-6, or just grep 'sun') of the source study (https://frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/1742-9994-10-80 https://frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.11...): > This calls for necessity to test whether the dog alignment is not actually influenced primarily by time of the day and most probably by position of the sun on the sky. We can, however, exclude this alternative. First, days when the magnetic field parameters change erratically and unpredictably (i.e., magnetic storms) are quite frequent. These changes have been well studied by others and are described in the literature (cf. [21,22] for re-views). Second, the data collection was not biased to either morning or afternoon (Table 8). Third, periods of sampling under conditions of quiet magnetic field were rather evenly distributed in the course of the day.Fourth, and most importantly, alignment during excreting was apparent under conditions of quiet magnet field,irrespective of the time of day or month. Time of day per se was not a reliable predictor of expression of alignment (Figure 2, Tables 3, 9). Fifth, generally, there are on average 1,450 sunshine hours per year at maximum in the Czech Republic and in Germany, on localities where measurements were done. Even if we would assume that these sunshine hours were evenly distributed over the daylight period and the year (as our observations were),there would only be a probability of 33% that the observation was made when the sun was visible. Hence,with high probability (67%) most walks during the day-light period were made when it was cloudy. > Last but not least, the argument that the dogs might orient with regard to sun position so that they turn with their back to the sun in order to avoid dazzling by sunshine during such a sensitive and vulnerable act as excretion can be questioned. This argument is not plausible for urine marking, which is a brief act. We doubt that a dog that cares of not being attacked would always make sure to be turned away from the sun. The dog will likely look in that direction from where danger can most probably be expected - and this is for sure not always the direction away from the sun. In contrast to a human, the dog is relying also on its nose and its ears (in some breeds even more than on its eyes) when monitoring its surroundings - so we may expect that the dog heads with its nose and pinnae against the wind or in the direction of interest. Directing the pinnae and the nose may take priority over eyes. One can also often observe that dogs (especially during defecation) align in a certain direction, which is actually a different one from the direction of interest and they turn their head then in that other direction. Also we have to take into account that dogs are smaller than humans, they look at a different angle over the horizon and even in situations when we are dazzled, they might be not. Quite important: note also that the preference is axial - there are many cases when the dog actually looks southwards. There is no evidence for shift of the alignment axis during the day. --- Shoot, they even have pitch-dark measurements on page 8 (pg 7 pdf)
fallingfrog 7y ago
I’m right about this and all you guys are someday if you remember it going to regard this as tremendously embarrassing.. I mean you all just immediately believed the most far fetched of hypotheses based on one flawed study in which they didn’t record which days were sunny.. signing off

mmastrac 7y ago

They tested for that: > The fact that larger and faster changes in magnetic conditions result in random distribution of body directions, i.e., a lowering of the preferences and ceasing of the avoidances, can be explained either through disturbing or conscious “shutdown” of the magneto-reception mechanism.

fallingfrog 7y ago
I’ll bet if you repeated the whole thing on cloudy days only the effect would go away. You’d have to have very very strong evidence that dogs have some sensory organ that detects magnetic fields when the sun is right there in the sky and explains the effect in a way that is obvious to everyone.
- eganist 7y ago
  > I’ll bet if you repeated the whole thing on cloudy days only the effect would go away. You’d have to have very very strong evidence that dogs have some sensory organ that detects magnetic fields when the sun is right there in the sky and explains the effect in a way that is obvious to everyone. again, pages 5-6: > Even if we would assume that these sunshine hours were evenly distributed over the daylight period and the year (as our observations were),there would only be a probability of 33% that the observation was made when the sun was visible. Hence,with high probability (67%) most walks during the day-light period were made when it was cloudy. There's wisdom in reading the study before commenting further considering your specific rebuttals have all been addressed in the source material. There were literally nearly 7,500 measurement events factored into this study, the majority of which were likely cloudy given the location.
  - fallingfrog 7y ago
    Likely? so let me get this straight, they didn’t even record which days were sunny? Extraordinary claims and all that. Sorry but I’m right about this no matter how many downvotes I get.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - eganist 7y ago
      > Likely? so let me get this straight, they didn’t even record which days were sunny? Extraordinary claims and all that. Sorry but I’m right about this no matter how many downvotes I get. Please just read the paper. Events were timestamped, aggregated over two years, and took place at all times of day (including well after dark) with the same outcome. Disengaging. Cheers, friend.
    - jshevek 7y ago
      Voting is often influenced by tone and adherence to site guidelines, not just accuracy.

laretluval 7y ago

They only find the effect for cases where there is low flux in the magnetic field. This indicates another reason to be skeptical of the study. If an effect is found in one condition and not another this is a red flag for p-hacking.

lonelappde 7y ago
High flux means the direction of the field is undefined.
- tlb 7y ago
  "High" flux for geomagnetic fields means it changed by a few degrees. So it's not anywhere near undefined, just slightly off.

eganist 7y ago

> Or maybe, dogs just don’t like to look straight into the sun when they poop, which rises in the east and sets in the west. Good grief. Sometimes the smartest people are also the dumbest. Would you stare right at the sun when pooping? Pages 6-7 (pdf pages 5-6, or just grep 'sun') of the source study (https://frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/1742-9994-10-80 https://frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.11...): > This calls for necessity to test whether the dog alignment is not actually influenced primarily by time of the day and most probably by position of the sun on the sky. We can, however, exclude this alternative. First, days when the magnetic field parameters change erratically and unpredictably (i.e., magnetic storms) are quite frequent. These changes have been well studied by others and are described in the literature (cf. [21,22] for re-views). Second, the data collection was not biased to either morning or afternoon (Table 8). Third, periods of sampling under conditions of quiet magnetic field were rather evenly distributed in the course of the day.Fourth, and most importantly, alignment during excreting was apparent under conditions of quiet magnet field,irrespective of the time of day or month. Time of day per se was not a reliable predictor of expression of alignment (Figure 2, Tables 3, 9). Fifth, generally, there are on average 1,450 sunshine hours per year at maximum in the Czech Republic and in Germany, on localities where measurements were done. Even if we would assume that these sunshine hours were evenly distributed over the daylight period and the year (as our observations were),there would only be a probability of 33% that the observation was made when the sun was visible. Hence,with high probability (67%) most walks during the day-light period were made when it was cloudy. > Last but not least, the argument that the dogs might orient with regard to sun position so that they turn with their back to the sun in order to avoid dazzling by sunshine during such a sensitive and vulnerable act as excretion can be questioned. This argument is not plausible for urine marking, which is a brief act. We doubt that a dog that cares of not being attacked would always make sure to be turned away from the sun. The dog will likely look in that direction from where danger can most probably be expected - and this is for sure not always the direction away from the sun. In contrast to a human, the dog is relying also on its nose and its ears (in some breeds even more than on its eyes) when monitoring its surroundings - so we may expect that the dog heads with its nose and pinnae against the wind or in the direction of interest. Directing the pinnae and the nose may take priority over eyes. One can also often observe that dogs (especially during defecation) align in a certain direction, which is actually a different one from the direction of interest and they turn their head then in that other direction. Also we have to take into account that dogs are smaller than humans, they look at a different angle over the horizon and even in situations when we are dazzled, they might be not. Quite important: note also that the preference is axial - there are many cases when the dog actually looks southwards. There is no evidence for shift of the alignment axis during the day. --- Shoot, they even have pitch-dark measurements on page 8 (pg 7 pdf)

fallingfrog 7y ago

I’m right about this and all you guys are someday if you remember it going to regard this as tremendously embarrassing.. I mean you all just immediately believed the most far fetched of hypotheses based on one flawed study in which they didn’t record which days were sunny.. signing off