"The Real Facts About Science Based Canine Training": A Bad

In February 2023, Ivan Balabanov offered a podcast called The Real Facts About Science Based Dog Training. There were issues. Let’s discover Gish Gallops.

In January 2022, the dog fitness instructor Ivan Balabanov emailed me to invite me on his podcast. I knew little about him at the time except that he was world well-known in security sports.

I decreased. I’m a writer, not a fitness instructor. I don’t think well on my feet in conversation. I would not be an excellent representative for the positive support training community, which’s what I would be there for.

I had no concept of the bullet I evaded.

I observed Mr. Balabanov’s outreach to the favorable reinforcement-based training community after that. And in February 2023, he published a podcast episode entitled, “The Real Facts about Science Based Pet Dog Training.”

I have thought hard, for more than a year, about whether to give this podcast any oxygen by reacting to it. Today it’s pertinent to present events in the canine world. It’s important to draw back the drape.

The “Genuine Facts” Podcast Episode

In this podcast episode, Mr. Balabanov used lots of rhetorical fallacies. Primary among them, he did what is called a Gish Gallop. Here’s a definition:

The Gish Gallop is the fallacious argument strategy of drowning your challenger in a flood of separately weak arguments in order to avoid rebuttal of the entire argument collection without terrific effort.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop

A Gish Galloper spews out rapid-fire arguments of varying quality, from incorrect, to unverifiable, to half-truths, and generally some genuine points included. The issue is that their challenger would have to take even more time and labor to untangle the mess than it takes for it to be tossed out there.

In between verbal points out and citations flashed on screen, Mr. Balabanov mentioned about 50 books or research studies by my count in a 65-minute podcast.

Some of the viewpoints Mr. Balabanov attempted to encourage listeners of were:

The AVSAB position statement on gentle training is extremely wrong;
Positive penalty (particularly shock) is required often and not just not hazardous, however has advantages;
There is a ton of science to support his position; and
“Force-free” trainers and vets are dogmatic, ill-informed, and cherry-pick the science.

In addition to the Gish Gallop, he employed straw men, the naturalistic misconception, and ad hominem attacks on groups and one named person.

I look for to adhere to the rules of reasonable dispute in this post. So there won’t be any vibrant language or even what the majority of people think of as enthusiastic writing. But this is an enthusiasm task for me. Gish Gallops can be very convincing. The speaker sounds super experienced to individuals who aren’t knowledgeable about the method or do not know the topic. All those referrals!

Over 100,000 individuals have viewed the YouTube video, and thousands more on other platforms, I make certain. I can’t reach those people straight, however I want an evidence-based response to the podcast episode to exist and be accessible.

How to Respond to a Gish Gallop

When a debater Gallops, it puts the individual on the other side in the position of having far excessive material to refute. This is why some points can be and often are total bullshit. You will not have time to get to them all.

When faced with a Gish Gallop in argument, the basic guidance is to do two things:

Point out your challenger’s use of the technique.
Choose one claim and address it thoroughly, mentioning the defects in the argument.

I am going to do a version of this reaction, considering that I have a little more time than a debater. I’ll deal with a short choice of the fallacious points.

Here we go.

Arguments and Citations

There is no list of referrals in the notes for the episode, as ought to be included for a talk pointing out research study. (Another trainer made one and posted it on their own website.)

The Episode Title

The title of the episode itself shows we are not about to hear a clinical technique. Science has to do with evidence. No one can claim knowledge of the “real realities” of science-based dog training, much less cover them in an hour. Given the content, a professional in the field may have entitled such a lecture “Some Evidence to Support the Use of Aversives in Pet Training.” However they also would have picked a couple of references and presented them in context. They would not have packed lots of research studies, names, and opinions into an hour. It takes a great deal of time and words to cover the outcomes of even one study correctly, since it requires to be in the context of the whole literature. This includes preceding studies, any later replications, and those with opposing findings.

Penalized by Benefits The very first referral provided set the tone. The Gallop was on. Mr. Balabanov stated, after using it as a recommendation:”There is a very well-written book, Penalized by Benefits. It goes over a few of the issues with favorable support.”That’s all he stated about it.

I have actually read this book (Kohn, 2018) and it’s on my shelf. However it’s far from pertinent to the claims in the episode. The title has the impact, though, of getting those words– penalized by rewards– combined in our heads.

The author, Alfie Kohn, despises behaviorism. He is an odd individual for Mr. Balabanov to point out. Mr. Balabanov utilizes operant conditioning, and in his own words from the same episode is “a big supporter of favorable reinforcement.” He also cites lots of articles by behavior experts in the episode.

Punished by Benefits has to do with using benefits with children. A major focus is that Kohn claims extrinsic benefits ruin intrinsic inspiration. The proof has actually proceeded from this stance; the subject is a lot more nuanced. However training canines is much simpler. Extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation is a minor issue, when it’s an issue at all. We comprehend that a lot of the important things we ask pet dogs to do are not inherently inspiring, so we make it worth their while. The book is irrelevant to canine training.

Mr. Balabanov spoke 18 words about the book in about five seconds, including nothing about its content or importance. I composed several paragraphs and barely scratched the surface. I didn’t even make a summary of the book; I just pointed out reasons the book doesn’t support Mr. Balabanov’s arguments. That’s the concern a Gish Gallop puts on its recipient. And neither of us did the subject justice.

The next two items are on the topic of comparing unfavorable and favorable penalty.

The “Just Think” Study

Mr. Balabanov quoted a research study called “Simply think: The Challenges of the Disengaged Mind” (Wilson et al., 2014). This was to support his claim that negative penalty can be “just as severe or violent [an] method” as positive penalty. However there were neither unfavorable nor positive penalty contingencies in the research study. The study found that human beings who were put into a space for a set time period with nothing to do but believe or stun themselves frequently did the latter, although they stated before the experiment that they would pay to prevent the shock. That humans would choose to try a shock generator under their control when asked to be alone with their ideas does not offer a comparison of negative punishment and favorable punishment. There was no contingency on the shock, and the “timeout” was not a repercussion for anything other than registering for the research study. And leaving the room was likely a choice considering the basic requirements for human study. I recommend checking out the study, and particularly the next studies because line of research study, but even if they are fascinating. Simply realize that they have little to absolutely nothing to do with pet dog training.

Had I been in the study, I make certain I would have checked out the shock. I did that with our livestock electrical fence as a kid, seeing how short a weed stem I could use to touch the fence and still endure the shock. I wasn’t trapped with absolutely nothing else to do. Human beings wonder. A human stunning themselves a couple of times in a quiet empty space has no comparison with a canine being shocked contingent on their habits, by a human, by means of an inevitable collar. Nor does an individual joining a research study where they will be in an uninteresting room for a few minutes have much in common with being put in a timeout contingent on a behavior (and managed by a trainer).

Timeouts bear careful consideration. It’s not news that they can be aversive, so Mr. Balabanov’s remarks lean greatly on a straw man. Many force totally free fitness instructors do not use timeouts. Techniques that rely on them are being replaced by better ones.

The “Quitting Signal” Research Study This odd study is a favorite of defenders of shock and prong collars. Mr. Balabanov provides it to support a very basic statement:”This suggests that negative punishment may be more difficult for pet dogs than other kinds of penalty.”

I read the dissertation related to this research study right after it came out and got equated (Salgirli, 2008). I check out the spinoff research study when it was published in a journal (Salgirli et al., 2012). I’ve had a blog post about it in the works for years. In the latter study, it was discovered that pet dogs had greater cortisol levels after training that included “unfavorable penalty” (more on those scare quotes showing up) than favorable penalty through shock or prong. A big issue with how the research study is presented is that positive penalty wasn’t compared to negative penalty, however with a negative penalty marker, a conditioned punisher.

From the study:

Corrections made by pinch collar and electronic training collar were considered as agents of the favorable penalty while correction made by the giving up signal was considered as the application of the unfavorable penalty.

Salgirli et al., 2012, p. 531

There was no effect paired with the giving up signal, no withdrawal of the appetitive during the actual experiment. A negative penalty marker (experienced in an environment where it wasn’t trained and with an unique stimulus) should not be corresponded with negative penalty.

There are also problems with the training methodology, assuming it was what was explained in the argumentation. There is insufficient detail in the published paper itself to enable replication, and oddly, the dissertation is not in the recommendations.

However let’s zoom out a little. Set aside my remarks about the quality of the study. It’s not news to favorable reinforcement-based fitness instructors that negative penalty can be frustrating and demanding. Could there be a research study that validly found that in a specific scenario, unfavorable penalty triggered more tension than collar corrections to some dogs, the majority of whom were accustomed to them? It’s possible. Specific pets react differently. However even if that research study existed, it wouldn’t prove Mr. Balabanov’s general claim.

That’s due to the fact that you can’t hang your hat on one study to “prove” an argument, or 2 if we count the previous one that had no contingencies. This isn’t a scientific method. No matter how much we desire research studies that offer firm proof for our beliefs, what we need to take note of is the bulk of the accumulated literature, the consensus of the professionals.

That is what’s missing from the podcast episode.

Jack Michael’s 1975 Study

Mr. Balabanov discusses in passing, in an argument about the AVSAB declaration, “… the 1975 research study done by Michael, which states that every support includes both positive and unfavorable form …”

No. That isn’t what that research study states (Michael, 1975). It is a preferred for protectors of aversives to trot out. And I do not have to describe what’s wrong with their argument in this post, since I composed an entire post about it.

Favorable and Unfavorable Reinforcement by Jack Michael: A Misconstrued Short article

At the end of the post, Michael concludes his expedition of the classification by saying that we need a much better way to describe the distinctions in between positive and negative support, not that there are no differences. After asking whether we need the distinction, he says, “We require to make the distinction in order to have a name for the bad things in our world” (Michael, 1975, p. 43).

Throughout the time Mr. Balabanov mentions the Michael research study, he shows on screen rather the Baron and Galizio study (2005 ). This paper does go over a possible overlap in between favorable and unfavorable reinforcement, and there were a couple of more documents in this vein that followed. But while these papers are discussed in some books, they still comprise a minority opinion. The familiar nomenclature and separation of favorable and negative support are still the standard.

Advantages of Positive Punishment Mr. Balabanov stated:”… studies reveal that the effectiveness of favorable punishment in lowering issue behavior tends to be connected with a wealth of positive side effects. The favorable side effects tend to surpass any negative side effects related to positive punishment.”

He pointed out seven studies on screen during the 15 seconds it took for him to make these declarations. Most were from the 1990s; the most recent was from 2013.

I picked one claim to investigate, the one about the positive side effects outnumbering the unfavorable adverse effects. It holds true that the research studies he cited noted positive side impacts of favorable penalty or mentioned that there were more positive side effects than unfavorable. One was a review research study, although from clear back in 1989 (Matson & Taras).

I spoke with more modern sources. I looked in 6 habits analysis textbooks, all of which were at least a decade more current than the review research study. Habits Analysis for Long Lasting Change had the most material on this topic (Mayer et al., 2019, p. 691– 3). There were three pages on advantages of penalty, although they had cautions. 7 pages of unfavorable results followed (Mayer et al., 2019, p. 693– 700). In the “advantages” section, the authors mentioned numerous of the exact same studies about the advantages of punishment (consisting of the evaluation) that Mr. Balabanov referenced. But the textbook consisted of numerous other studies with opposite findings and didn’t concern the exact same conclusions. The authors opened the “Drawbacks of Punishment” section with, “If penalty works rapidly to lower the rate of a behavior, why not utilize it as the very first line of defense versus unwanted habits?” After explaining corporal penalty statistics in the United States, they continue: “As you check out penalty’s drawbacks, however, you will begin to comprehend the information that has actually been causing those numbers to lessen gradually and gradually given that the early 1980s” (Mayer et al., 2019, p. 693). Then they thoroughly describe 12 classifications of disadvantages.

You might believe I cherry-picked the book. But no. Other than for a brief reference in Opportunity (2003, p. 205) at the beginning of the section on problems of penalty, the five others didn’t have areas on advantages of positive punishment at all.

We require to assess the bulk of the literature, and the majority of us, me consisted of, are not equipped to do that. Textbooks are written by discipline specialists and distill a large mass of knowledge into one book. These professionals, in addition to other behavior analysts, used animal behaviorists, veterinary behaviorists, and people with academic degrees in ethology and animal behavior are the subject specialists.

They are in agreement about penalty. They think about the entirety of the literature, and disagree with Mr. Balabanov.

Assessing Research

I do my research study, a great deal of it. I have actually done an official literature evaluation for a master’s thesis. I distilled numerous documents into the handful significant to our experiment, critiqued them, and wrote about their relevance to my research. I have actually taken a course in evaluating research study in habits. But my graduate degrees are in music and engineering, not habits science. As much as I study, I will not have the extensive understanding of the habits science or ethology literature as individuals with advanced formal research study in these disciplines. When I write about research, such as in my piece about the Jack Michael short article, I run it by specialists.

If you desire examples of accountable reporting about research from people with much better credentials than I have, Linda Case of The Science Dog and Zazie Todd of Buddy Animal Psychology both do a terrific task. (Please do not presume they have anything to do with this post, which is totally my creation.)

And read books. Read the pages and pages of cautions, cautions, and caveats about using favorable punishment that arise from decades of research, gathered by specialists in the field.

And here’s a post of mine on how not to get caught in the “a research study says” shame.

Last Words: Stepping Far From Debate Guidelines and onto a Soapbox

Structure bridges and helping trainers cross over have actually been hot subjects on social networks lately. I gained from individuals extending a hand to me, and I have actually extended a hand to others. This is best done one-on-one. I’ve observed that it’s usually most effective through a personal relationship, or it might (I hope) in some cases be by means of somebody writing and interacting to readers. It appears unlikely that a panel conversation of people with combined ideologies (as is scheduled quickly and consists of Mr. Balabanov) would trigger a surprise in somebody’s thinking. Releasing our cultural penalty frame of mind is hard.

I have not been invited to any such panel and I don’t expect to be. However hearing this Gish Gallop, hearing Mr. Balabanov’s savage ad hominem attacks and other bad faith arguments, and his low regard for his envisioned dispute opponents (in this case force complimentary fitness instructors, veterinarians, and veterinary behaviorists), made it absolutely clear to me that this is not somebody who will argue in good faith. I don’t call myself a force free trainer, but they are my people (if they’ll have me)! I inspect all packages, and then some, in regards to how I train and live with my pets. I see no advantage and lots of issues attendant to sitting down with someone who is so willing to utilize unsavory dispute strategies and mentions my colleagues with disdain. It would be a betrayal. There is no bridge there.

I made my decision in 2022 not to sign up with Mr. Balabanov on impulse and a little luck. And now I get the complete photo. In the not likely occasion I am ever welcomed once again to a conversation consisting of Mr. Balabanov, I will again decline. And that’s what I advise to others in my community.