[natejenkins]

I often tell people that I love my dog more than any human has ever loved a child, but I don't love this study.

The result is fairly obvious to any dog owner, but the study is representative of the type of "pop" science that appears so often in the news but carries little actual significance. 34 dogs total, 17 in each group (humming vs crying), 9 of which respond to humming and 7 of which respond to crying, albeit the latter much faster than the former. Of those 34 dogs, 16 were therapy dogs. While the time difference is large, more dogs respond to humming than crying.

So we have a very small sample size which is biased towards therapy dogs. It is also very susceptible to p-hacking. Why "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"? Was this the song that produced the largest effect out of 20 different songs? Why do more dogs respond to the humming than crying but the dogs that do respond to crying act so quickly? Were the crying sounds much louder than the humming? Why not crying vs yelling, both of which are likely of similar volume? And so on.

[theNewsies]

CNN really doesn't produce infotainment content that passes the acid test of HN guidelines. CNN is far from cerebral these days, and there are a number of factors that have caused them to shift focus. CNN's coverage of the early days of the 2003 Iraq invasion is pretty much the last useful thing they've covered, and certainly they weren't in the business of criticizing it at the time.

[toast_coder]

Do you think you experience emotions differently than other human beings? It seems really presumptuous to say you love somthing more than others ever have. Presumptuous and insulting.

Furthermore, i think alot of people would say sacrifice is the greatest display of love, and I would bet a whole lot more parents have sacrificed a whole lot more for their children then anything you have sacrificed for for dog.

[jkrems]

Downvoted because this comment seems fairly OT. The post this responds to was clearly not actually making a literal statement about how all parents in the history of humanity bonded with their children. It was a criticism of the methodology of the study.

[BanazirGalbasi]

You know, it's very possible that he says that as hyperbole, statements like that are very often not to be taken literally.

[e40]

I love animals, especially dogs. They are a gift to humans. I would never sacrifice myself for my dog. I would in a nanosecond for my child.

[robotrout]

I'm sure he takes his dog to "dog care" every day, where it's played with constantly (not caged). He would never leave his dog alone in his 500 square foot apartment all day, barking it's loneliness to the delight of his neighbors.

While such dog care can be very expensive, he sacrifices that money even more gladly than a mother would for her child's care. This is what he implies with his statement, and I see no reason he would lie to us.

[Retra]

You can't analyze a person's behavior, especial their emotional behavior, without including cultural context. Society does not appreciate people leaving toddlers home alone, but they do not care if you do so with a puppy. That alone is enough to make the matter of "dog care" irrelevant in assessing someone's feelings on the matter.

[pdx]

Yes, but the poster loves his dog more than any human has ever loved their child. He does not merely conform to societal norms with such love.

[Retra]

Clearly such an exceptional dog-lover won't conform to your expectations about how that love manifests, either.