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Anthropomorphism, anthropectomy, and the null hypothesis

Biology & Philosophy volume 29, pages 711–729 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

We examine the claim that the methodology of psychology leads to a bias in animal cognition research against attributing “anthropomorphic” properties to animals (Sober in Thinking with animals: new perspectives on anthropomorphism. Columbia University Press, New York, pp 85–99, 2005; de Waal in Philos Top 27:225–280, 1999). This charge is examined in light of a debate on the role of folk psychology between primatologists who emphasize similarities between humans and other apes, and those who emphasize differences. We argue that while in practice there is sometimes bias, either in the formulation of the null hypothesis or in the preference of Type-II errors over Type-I errors, the bias is not the result of proper use of the Neyman and Pearson hypothesis testing method. Psychologists’ preference for false negatives over false positives cannot justify a preference for avoiding anthropomorphic errors over anthropectic (Gk. anthropos—human; ektomia—to cut out) errors.

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Notes

  1. See, for example, Garner (2005): “Type-I error is rejecting a null hypothesis that is true. Type-II (or beta) error is failing to reject a null hypothesis that is, in fact, false” (135). But note that this way of defining Type-II errors is not universal. See Fisher (1971), who defines “errors of the second kind” in terms of “accepting the null hypothesis ‘when it is false’” (17, emphasis added). For reasons that should become clear soon, it is of the utmost importance to determine whether Type-II errors should be defined in terms of “failing to reject” or in terms of “accepting”, for these phrases describe two entirely different doxastic states. Our assessment of the problem with much animal cognition research is that it is unclear whether this important distinction is made in actual practice by researchers.

  2. Thanks to Richard Moore for providing this list of reasons one might take a hypothesis as the null.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to helpful comments from the audience at the Southern Society for Philosophy of Psychology, Kyoto University, and comments on the draft from Irina Meketa and Richard Moore. We also are very grateful for help with the Greek from David Curry and Daniel Devereux.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, York University, Toronto, M3J 1P3, Canada

    Kristin Andrews & Brian Huss

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  1. Kristin Andrews
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  2. Brian Huss
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Correspondence to Kristin Andrews.

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Andrews, K., Huss, B. Anthropomorphism, anthropectomy, and the null hypothesis. Biol Philos 29, 711–729 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-014-9442-2

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