This morning, we are treated to a story entitled Math mutt inspires faith, reported by the Citizen-Times of Asheville, NC. Brief synopsis: a little dog owned by one Cindy Tuten, a physician who has also worked as a missionary in East Africa, has been granted the power to solve mathematical problems and theological questions by Jehovah. Video provided by the Citizen-Times purports to show the dog using its paw to tap out the answers to questions with its paw when asked by its owners.What we're really seeing here is a scam, of course. Not one to generate money, but one that accomplishes two other ends. First, it is used as a demonstration to justify belief in some very outlandish claims that go under the heading of Christianity in this case. Second, it strokes the egos of Micah the Jesus Dog's owners. They're getting lots and lots of attention over this... after all, even a sceptic like myself is writing about their game this morning.
What's already clear is that those who want to believe in such things are going to believe in them. The same crowd who buys into the kind of claims made by "creation science" and faith healing and the like are going to swallow the idea of a dog who understands four languages and solves math problems every bit as quickly as they credulously devour ideas of global floods and vegetarian allosaurs. Those willing to look closely at the claim, though, may well see right through to how the dog is being coached not by Jesus but by the Tutens to answer the questions.
First, note how the questions are asked. The answers to the questions are either small numbers (five or less) or given as a menu of a few multiple choice answers. In watching the videos, note also (when the videographer bothers to show it) the position of the owner's left hand and where the dog is looking while the question is being asked. The signs to which the dog has been trained to respond are particularly obvious in the video linked at the beginning of this entry. I've culled out two frames from that video that seem to me to illustrate this point.
In this frame, the dog has been asked a question for which there are three possible answers, and the correct answer (at least in the eyes of its owner) is #3. Note the position of Tuten's left hand in this frame. The quality of the culled image isn't great, but we clearly see the hand is held in a particular manner which doesn't look natural to me. It seems, instead, to be a rather intentional gesture. Indeed, why would one hold one's left hand up in the manner that Tuten does at all? Why not just keep it down at one's side if it's not being used for some particular purpose?
In this instance, the dog has been asked a mathematical question, namely the quotient when the square root of 64 is divided by the square root of 16. The answer of course, is two. Tuten's left hand is here held in a markedly different position than in the instance where the correct answer was three. Moreover, when watching the video itself, I noticed that Tuten does something else to prompt the dog; she puts her hand down on her leg, and the dog taps its paw right in front of it. Then she closes her hand, moves it up her leg a small distance, and opens it again. The dog then taps a second time, ostensibly giving the correct answer, two. In the image to the right, note also where the dog is looking. As through all of the video provided, the dog keeps a close eye on that mysteriously upraised left hand when "considering" its answers to the questions asked of it. The manner in which the hand is held is consistent with the correct answer throughout what's visible of the hand in the videos provided.Now, how far does the Tutens' egotism go here? Here's a claim that Dr. Tuten (she's a physician, sadly enough) herself makes in the course of the interview:
"We asked God to give us a dog he wanted us to have," she said. "Stan and I both grew up with dogs, and I was looking for something to nurture."
And again:
"God gave him an extraordinarily unusual ability to communicate with anyone through tapping out his response in my hand or in the hands of a select few of our friends who are in Christ," Cindy Tuten said...
If he emits a low growl, he is "scolding" the visitor, letting the person know he or she isn't living as Christians should...
Adding it up, what's being claimed here is that Jehovah/Jesus himself has provided this dog as a means to discriminate between those who are "right with Jesus" and those who aren't, thus confirming that the Tutens themselves are spiritually correct. God approves of the Tutens, and those of whom Adonai disapproves get a scolding from their magical canine.
Now, let's apply a little bit of critical thought to all those. Which of these two scenarios is the one requiring fewer outlandish assumptions:
- An omnipotent being gave a multilingual, mathematically capable dog that can discern the religious beliefs and lifestyle choices to a couple in North Carolina, or;
- A middle-aged couple who wanted attention trained a small dog to tap its paw in response to hand signals?
Another question that one might ask, were one to give any credence at all to questions of theology, is how the Tutens can discriminate between divine inspiration and demonic possession in this case. What evidence is there that the dog isn't an agent of the infernal? The only answer, of course, is that the dog "approves" of the Tutens and those who hold the same religious ideas that they do and disapproves of others... but how is that an answer at all? While it may be quite satisfying to the Tutens, it begs the question of how the Tutens know that they are not themselves going about religion the wrong way and getting their approval from Satan. The answer to this slightly-veiled question would, I assume, be "faith." That's what these things always come down to; the querent is called upon not to test he claim, but simply to believe it at its word, as if it were impossible that anyone claiming divine approbation weer incapable of willful deception. Surely nobody has ever lied in the name of Jesus to achieve entirely selfish ends!
Oops...Remember, kids: rationality and critical thought are your best defenses against con-men of every stripe!