Via Pharyngula, here’s a Clever-Hans story of a dog that supposedly can work out complex mathematical formulas and answer theological queries in four different languages, responding by tapping his paw on the questioner’s hand.

Stan Tuten held up a board and scribbled down a basic algebra problem:

If a=2, and b=3, what is axb-1?

Micah, a terrier mix with penetrating eyes like black molasses, glanced at the board.

“Micah?” said Dr. Cindy Tuten, a physician and Stan Tuten’s wife. “Do you understand the problem?”

She held one hand high in the air with a bowl of cut tomatoes and cooked chicken (the dog’s reward) and the other out for the dog’s answer. Micah tapped his paw once.

“Once means ‘yes’ and twice means ‘no’ ” she said. “So he’s telling us he understands the problem. Micah, what is the solution to the problem?”

The dog stared at the food, then tapped Tuten’s palm five times.

“Very good, Micah,” she said and fed him a treat.

Clearly, what’s happening here is that they have trained their dog to tap on the hand of a person until that person registers a reaction to seeing a dog answer difficult questions correctly. The dog then stops and gets a treat. At that, the dog is very smart for its species. But the humans involved are incredibly stupid, as they seem to believe that the dog actually understands what is being said and formulates the correct answer independently. As if a dog knows algebra. Even if dogs could understand math, who taught the dog? Keep in mind that the dogs owners are a doctor and a Math teacher, people who should really know better. Or perhaps they do, and this is all a publicity stunt. But maybe not; read on:

“He can calculate problems given in English, Spanish, French and German,” Cindy Tuten said. One member of the small audience gathered in the Tuten’s living room wondered if maybe she was unknowingly giving the dog signals or secret messages. The visitor, who’d never before seen Micah, threw out a question.

“Nueve menos tres?”

Micah stood still for a moment, and then tapped his paw six times for the correct answer.

“We were speechless,” Cindy Tuten said. “We were also skeptical.”

Skeptical. Yeah, riiiight. So skeptical that they ignored the obvious explanation and instead figured it was a Jesus moment.

Deeply connected by their faith and Christian beliefs, the Tutens began to pray.

“How many persons are in the God head?” Cindy Tuten asked.

Micah tapped three times.

“How many God’s are there?” The dog tapped once. …

It is the belief of this family, that beyond math and games, Micah was put on this Earth to teach people Jesus is coming soon, the Tutens said. …

The Tutens are convinced their dog’s mission is to become an evangelist and witness.

“God gave him an extraordinarily unusual ability to communicate with anyone through tapping out his response in my hand or in the hands of a select few of our friends who are in Christ,” Cindy Tuten said.

Which explains their intellectual blind spot: they want to believe it’s a god thing. It’s a weird phenomenon, that when some otherwise highly trained, very intelligent people who are also strongly religious consider matters of religion, they turn off their intellect and suspend disbelief.

Apparently, their idea is that god sent the dog to Earth with the knowledge already in the dog’s brain. Okay, plausible explanation. But of course, the Tutens were “skeptical”–so skeptical, in fact, that they have not seemed to carry out the simplest test to demonstrate whether or not the dog’s abilities are genuine. The test is simple, really: have someone ask the dog a question to which no human in the room knows the answer.

There is no mention in the article about such a test. Gee, I wonder why not?