Episode #886

Before I started listening to the show I heard about this woman who has taught her dog to speak in sentences. https://www.upworthy.com/speech-pathologist-teaches-her-dog-to-use-a-speech-pad-and-now-it-communicates-in-sentences It played into my environmentalist and vegetarian biases, and I was totally taken in. Reviewing it again though, I think it is possible that this is a combination of facilitated communication (she takes big liberties in her interpretation of the sentences), the clever Hans effect, and cherry picking (she probably only shares the really compelling examples, when there may be many more failures). Would love it if you could comment on the current status of communication with animals, and weather you think the clever Hans effect is at play here. Thanks for all you do, and this is just one example of how my thinking has started to improve thanks to your work. Sincerely, Bart T Cubrich

Item #1 Science
Brazil has the most number of identified snake species of any nation, currently totaling 412. https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/46882/
Item #2 Science
There were an estimated 1.2 million snake bite deaths in India between 2000 and 2020. https://www.who.int/news/item/10-07-2020-study-estimates-more-than-one-million-indians-died-from-snakebite-envenoming-over-past-two-decades
Item #3 Fiction
Cobras have extreme accuracy when spitting venom, able to hit there targets consistently at up to 30 feet. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/news-cobras-venom-eyes-perfect-aim

“Healthy scepticism is the basis of all accurate observation.” – Arthur Conan Doyle