Talk:The Intelligence of Dogs

message: I believe Coren released an updated book with different rankings, including new breeds that are recognized now but weren't in 1994.  I think the list on this page should be updated to reflect that. --Webbess10 (talk) 14:57, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the list out of date? 

message: While dog intelligence as a whole can be disputed, the criticism section for this article needs to be rewritten to cite sources which claim these ideas. —Rob (talk) 17:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the section & merged some of it into dog intelligence. Elf | Talk 17:19, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This wiki is summarizing a book, which will have a POV according to its author.  Critics of the book are welcome, please put that at the bottom, but revising the book’s message to make it more neutral is not the goal here, it’s to accurately reflect what the book says – for good or bad, regardless if you like it or not.  For example, the wiki page on Hitler’s book Mein Kampf does not attempt to teach a neutral or political correct view when it restates Hitler’s message.  Similarly, you should not attempt to make this book on dog intelligence more politically correct, you should say only what is, not what ought to be.Jadon (talk) 18:02, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Nobody is trying to claim "what it ought to be", but it's natural for an article with any important claims or theories in it to have sections on "reception" and "criticism". I think this article really needs a section with "criticism", and I have no ulterior motives for saying this but a balance with some other expert pointing out some things about the theory or the methodology or how it could be misinterpreted etc. Anonywiki (talk) 21:00, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism not NPOV 

message: Removed this comment from the article:
Stanley Coren is somewhat infamous for making up some of his "research," particularly in his book/novel THE LEFT-HANDER SYNDROME.  Nothing he has to say about dogs should be taken without a large, very large grain of salt.--Lee Charles Kelley 20:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If there's some reliable reference that can be cited to this effect, it's worth a note in the article. Elf | Talk 20:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: actually, if it is about other books than this, it belongs in the article about Coren. Be absolutely  certain in meets the BLP requirement of being published in an unquestionably RS--such accusations are considered potentially libelous. DGG (talk) 12:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Doubting veracity

message: Sounds like it. How is does someone presume intelligence of any creature is directly related to it's ability to follow a command? --Precaryus (talk) 23:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: My problem is that it's not encyclopedic, but just a resume of a book that's on the market. POV all over. I think it should be deleted. Tony 13:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Dr. Coran has made the subject of the book one of the major parts of his reseach.  This book is one of the major results of that.  It is probaly where most folks first learn of the subject  cmacd 15:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you see that, why not add a contoversy section, and find some critics to cite to balance it out?  The book does decribe his test methods and (to me) they do sound like intelignce tests, rembering that most dog swill not fill in little black circles on a mark-sense sheet.  I run both a border Collie and a spaniel in agility and they perform in line with Coran's ranking..Unfortunatly as the spaniel is my main agilty dog...cmacd 13:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By his own admission, Mr. Coren's book does not consist of research in the traditional sense. Mr. Coren states that he initially intended to perform a broad study of the intelligence of dogs, and he does attempt to quantify valid interpretations of how such a subject could be measured. Ultimately, he deemed the pursuit to be too expensive and settled instead for a very limited poll of dog trainers. The responses of his poll could be considered anecdotal at best, and certainly subjective. Note that the breeds that appear toward the top of the list are also those that the dog trainers acknowledge as being exposed to the most. Dogs with owners who are predisposed to seeking professional training are most likely to appear in the "most intelligent" sections of his list. Additionally, the criteria provided to the trainers is extremely limited - as he acknowledges - and is not a universally recognized measure of intelligence. This article lacks the most basic requirements for notability on Wikipedia. Briantresp (talk) 16:54, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

text: you seem to be arguing that the work isn't valid--find some published reliable sources that say so, and add them. Your own opinion here doesnt amount to evidence.  When it is valid or not is totally unrelated to notability at wikipedia. See WP:THUTH.  DGG (talk) 12:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Where is the evidence that the work IS valid? The references are mostly somewhat negative book reviews. HiLo48 (talk) 20:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this purely promotion? 

message: Why should there be two articles on a topic so similar?  In such a way it could seem less a "promotion" and more a scientific appendix to the mentioned article.   --YoavD 08:55, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: one is on the subject, the other is about an actuall book on the subject - I could see renaming this to the interegence of dogs (book) if that would make it clearer?  cmacd 14:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I say don't merge. It's important to have an article that is about dog intelligence in general, even if somebody editing that article decides to use the book that this one is about as a reference. I think simply renaming this article as Cmacd123 suggested is a great idea (minus the spelling mistakes, of course:)). In fact, I think I'll "be bold" and go ahead and do that. Buck Mulligan 20:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Okay, it seems I don't know how to rename this page. When I figure out how to do it, I will. Buck Mulligan 20:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't think a merge is a good idea. As cmacd pointed out, one article is about the subject of dog intelligence and the other is about a book. Since it's been over a month since the merge was proposed, I've removed the notice. — Elembis (talk) 02:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This article needs renaming badly. Now it is referred outside of wikipedia as list and order of intelligence of dogs, which it is not. Article Dog intelligence says that "Dog intelligence is the ability of a dog to learn, think, and solve problems". Methods used in this book study only ability to learn, while solving problems is ignored and blind obedience is hardly a measure of thinking, but rather opposite of it. --80.223.114.31 20:58, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I could see a rename to The Intelligence of Dogs (book) although that is generaly only done for disambiguation.  The name space The Intelligence of Dogs could then be a disambiguation page pointng to this page, and the page about dog intelignce.cmacd 12:23, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I hardly think "blind obedience" is a detraction from intelligence. Japanese artisans learn to craft their wares through blind repetition of age old methods. Once that is mastered then, experimentation can begin. Obedience is more of a potential avenue knowledge and wisdom. Both of which I agree are not necessary for intelligence. Since intelligence is the innate ability to learn and think. PedanticSophist (talk) 00:39, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

text: If the book is notable, which seems abundantly clear from the NYT reviews, it should not be merged. We geenrally don't do that. DGG (talk) 12:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Consider: If the author's testing methodology was applied to humans; he would stand in the middle of a bridge with a group of people standing in line, he would tell each of them to 'Jump.' The ones that plummeted to death with little to no encouragement would be labeled as the most intelligent of our species, those who needed to be dragged to the edge and thrown off are idiots...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.19.142.10 (talk) 22:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge with [[Dog intelligence]] 

message: I doubt that Saluki is so obedient and such a good working dog as listed here. Same as Kuvasz
Australian Shepherd and Pointer? Hm. This is not my experience of this dog breed. 
Warrington (talk) 15:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Saluki 

message: The least intelligent dog at the bottom of the list appears to be a woman named Kendra. I think this needs to be corrected... unless there's a species of dog named Kendra
Atom 15:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correction 

message: This article is not about the intelligence of dogs. It's about a book with that title. The name of this article should be "Stanley Coren's book about the Intelligence of Dogs". 
And obedience has little to with intelligence. If a human being was completely obedient we would probably treat him or her for mental illness. HiLo48 (talk) 06:27, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We've just seen an example of the list of "Ranking of dogs by breed" edited by someone who is not the author of the book. Exactly what is this article? If it's about the book, and the "Ranking of dogs by breed" is the author's list, from his book, it should never change. What's going on? Perhaps the list needs to be recopied from the book (or would that be a breach of copyright?) and somehow locked for all time. And perhaps the article lead needs to make the purpose of this article even clearer. HiLo48 (talk) 22:16, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Bad Title for this Article

message: Been noticing over the course of some time that I've been watching this page, that quite often someone comes along and changes the list on this page. And the response always is something like, "This list is from the book it should not change". So if this list is static and we keep having people trying to chnage the list. Maybe we should get this page under semi-protection or at the very least a pending-changes protection?
Wikipedia:Protection_policy
PedanticSophist (talk) 13:51, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, it's not really appropriate to use semiprotection for that. Pending changes is, as far as I know, back to 'pending' at this point. It's not a major volume of vandalism - those of us watching it can manage it. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:01, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Protection? 

message: Re this removal . I probably didn't make myself clear in the edit summary - it wasn't a question of whether Coren's opinions are valid; it's a question of copyright. By including the rankings in their entirety, the article probably violated Wikipedia:Non-free content#Text_2, which reads "The following is a non-inclusive list of examples where non-free content may not (emphasis added) be used outside of the noted exceptions: … 5 ) A complete or partial recreation of "Top 100" or similar lists where the list has been selected in a creative manner." This issue came up just a day or two ago with regard to several 'List of..." articles up for deletion. I asked at the Copyright cleanup noticeboard about it, and you can see admin Moonriddengirl's reply here . It's possible that even listing the top 10 isn't compliant, but since it seems a gray area just yet, I think we could let those stay. Coren writes in his own book Born to Bark that "The whole list that ranks dog intelligence was published in USA Today and in the lifestyle and science sections of many other papers." . He doesn't seem to object to it there, but maybe they asked for his permission? In short - this is about staying on the safe side of the Foundation's interpretation of Fair use. Novickas (talk) 18:09, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Understandable, and I'm no great legal mind here, but a consensus from the discussion you linked and through your edit seems to have not been reached. My understanding is legal council is being sought for this question. Also, there is some debate over what is acceptable and what isn't when showing the whole list. The only reason I undid your change was because it made more sense from a user-oriented standpoint to not alter anything until a decision or a rule that can be debated here is made. Since the owner has not made any complaints and I believe this whole list has been around for a few years, we're under no legal threat at the moment. I can see keeping a partial list until a decision is made though. And if that's the case, I'd say keep the top ten, and then keep the top five from each category (or any other combination of numbers). I think it's worthwhile and under the the idea that an incomplete list may be acceptable, to give examples for book's divisions. Either remove all, partial, or none; I think it's best to wait for a consensus for those discussions. I'll certainly check back later tonight on the discussions to see if something's been reached. PedanticSophist (talk) 19:07, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've asked for more opinions at Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems#Inclusion_of_90.2B_rankings_at_The_Intelligence_of_Dogs. Novickas (talk) 22:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  It seems to me consensus has been established: The WMF lawyer has clearly stated she considers it a problem and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/100 Greatest TV Moments closed as delete all. I am not aware of any ongoing discussions on the topic, could you point me to them? Yoenit (talk) 23:04, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Um, it can be hard to figure out consensus here sometimes, but I'll take most of the list out - shall replace with a prosified mention of the top five. Thanks. Novickas (talk) 23:32, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was directed here from a note at the Copyright talk. I agree the entire list should not be in the article. Novickas' idea to use prose is good and within fair-use IMO. Text similar to the last sentence in the Methods section would suffice.--NortyNort  (Holla) 23:58, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Can't believe I missed this discussion. The article as it stands looks fine, and at least we wont' have to deal with meatheads swapping their favourite breed into the top spot over and over again now. (Mostly.) Tony Fox (arf!) 17:10, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Just reverted.  I agree the list is a bad idea.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 23:36, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 
Dec 19 - 2011
After having this page published with the full list for years wouldn't it be wise to not modify the list until clarification is given by legal counsel? It is my understanding that no complaint has ever been received by the copyright owner and that it's not even clear if copyright has been infringed. It seems absurd to be removing the list after having it published on Wikipedia for years, all without any complaint from the copyright owner. Obviously the copyright owner is in no rush to have his list removed or he would of contacted Wikipedia years ago, seeing as it's the number 1 ranked Google search for "Dog Intelligence" , unless he lives in a cave, I think he is aware. Why not wait for legal counsel to advise if copyright is being infringed and only then make a modification if needed or if the copyright owner contacts Wikipedia, why the rush after years... I think it is wise to wait. If you disagree feel free to remove the list but I think that would be a disservice to the Wiki community after having this page ranked 1 on Google and referenced by many other webpages, especially when no complaint has been made.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cantanyuser (talk • contribs) 13:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 
I removed a small part of the list until clarification is given by legal on the copyright issue but unless anyone here is a legal expert on the matter or has received a complained by the copyright owner, I still stand behind my original thought, that after having the list published on Wikipedia for such a long time it's worth waiting for expert legal opinion before removing the complete list. Why rush to such a major revision now when no complaint has been received... Surely it can wait until an expert opinion is given.
--Cantanyuser (talk) 17:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Re removal of (most of) Coren's rankings list

message: The evaluation section contains "there was much media attention and commentary both pro[10] and con.[11]", where [10] and [11] are examples of positive and negative commentary. This is a form of original research, as neither source supports the claim "there was much media attention and commentary both pro and con". The next sentence is even worse. Yoenit (talk) 09:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research 

message: The list includes Mastiff, but there are a lot of varieties. Need to try to figure out which he's referring to. If I remember, I'll check the book later.  Elf | Talk 00:59, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Which Mastiff

message: Can you please repair the retarded numerical order? If there are 2 or more dogs tied at one place, you must reflect that in next place number. For example:
1. dog A 
dog B (tied)
3. dog C
dog C is not second brightest dog, but third brightest dog, because there are 2 brighter dogs than him
So Afghan hound should be 141th or so, not 79th! This way we do not even know how many dogs are in the list.
I am 37 years old, using this logic I am 37th youngest person on Earth, because there are only 36 younger people
Has this list experienced any updates? It appears to be rather outdated. Carolynweekes (talk) 04:32, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Corrected! Orlando the Cat (talk) 02:07, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numerical order 

message: Someone replaced several breeds with Jack Russell Terrier.  170.10.248.155 (talk) 19:29, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reverted the change. – Þjarkur (talk) 14:48, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalizm 

message: It appears to be an error to have "Australian Shepherd" listed as both 42nd and 69th. Mrpaulin (talk) 01:54, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error? 

message: — Assignment last updated by Mgferris13 (talk) 22:01, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Honors English 250H VL1