Dr. Patricia B. McConnell, in “The Other End of the Leash,” discusses why dogs might or might not roll in dead things:
Others have suggested that, as predators, dogs are trying to camouflage their scent to prey animals by smelling like something else. I suspect this just makes them smell like a dog or wolf who rolled in something stinky. Besides, if I were a vulnerable prey animal and I smelled an 80-pound dead squirrel moving toward me, I’d probably start getting a little jumpy.
Besides being extremely funny, I think this is extremely insightful for considering how we readily accept things as scientific fact when they might or might not be true. Scientists don’t really know why dogs roll in dead things, although they have plenty of theories. However, plenty of people have told me before that dogs roll in dead things to camouflage their scent. How do they know this?
And more importantly, when people tell us what we assume to be science facts (or anything, for that matter), do we usually stop and consider if it actually makes sense, or do we usually just accept it at face value? Sometimes a healthy level of skepticism can be beneficial, as it leads to further inquiry and exploration. (Although, being too much of a doubting Thomas can be bad as well.)
So, please keep asking questions of the world around you, and just be glad that you don’t smell like an 80-pound dead squirrel.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Elizabeth P // Dec 3, 2008 at 11:04 am
A certain amount of skepticism is healthy, but so is a respect for evidence. If there’s no evidence that dogs roll in dead things to mask their scent, then it’s very reasonable to be skeptical.
If, however, there is a whole lot of evidence for, say, natural selection, or that the disease AIDS is caused by HIV, then holding out to alternate hypotheses is not, in fact, the spirit of scientific skepticism, but rather simply ignoring the mountains of evidence that do not conform to your favorite hypothesis, which is not the scientific spirit at all.
2 ozvet // Dec 3, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Exactly. Healthy skepticism is good, and this should lead to an investigation of the evidence available. However, if there’s a lot of evidence, then it makes no sense to cling to a hypothesis that is not supported by evidence. Also, I don’t think it’s healthy to be skeptical without following up with a bit of investigation and research of your own.
I’ve been reading a bit about how the ideas of myths and legends apply to animal training. If a well-respected trainer advocates something, people are often stubborn to accept an alternative hypothesis even when scientific evidence strongly supports the alternative. A good example is the use of alpha rolls in dog training on the basis that this is what wolves do commonly to prove dominance (when further research as suggested this is not the whole story).
As well, TV, news articles, internet articles and sources like wikipedia do a huge disservice to the scientific community in that they often give equal weight to 2 competing hypotheses even thought one hypothesis usually has a much stronger scientific support than the other.
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