Several skeptical bloggers have commented on the story of Oscar the nursing-home cat who can apparently predict who is going to die next. Orac thinks this is just confirmation bias – the nursing home staff remember the hits and not the misses. The Bad Astronomer points out that we need more information – specifically how much time the cat really spends with the dying as opposed to those who live. All this is true.
I remember this cat from a TV program about a year ago, and I thought then that the cat probably just preferred to sleep with people who were really quiet and didn’t move much.
I don’t really have anything to add to this story. I’m only posting to show off the brilliant punning headline I thought up.
Given the spurious method by which the cat chooses it's victims/predictions/whatever, maybe it should be The Grim Sleeper.
Sorry.
Posted by: Chelfyn | July 28, 2007 at 11:06 PM
Perhaps the sick people have a panic attack and keel over when The Moggie of Doom chooses to pay them a visit...
Posted by: Big Al | July 29, 2007 at 02:32 PM
I'm leaning towards confirmation bias, myself. My second guess is some scent-based signals.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | July 29, 2007 at 02:49 PM
Another theory is that the nurses and other hospice staff spend more time around the patients who are about to die, and the cat simply goes where the most people are.
Posted by: Jeremy | July 29, 2007 at 08:26 PM
Where I come from we lynch people for lesser crimes than that headline.
Posted by: outeast | July 30, 2007 at 01:33 AM
You guys have it all wrong! Dont worry, the news got it wrong too!
The cat is a homicidal maniac! I love how the nurses say "ohhhh cute kitty" right after it murders one of their patients.
Posted by: Techskeptic | July 30, 2007 at 11:57 AM
In other news, hospice employees have noticed that air-filled syringes are disappearing from the stockroom. The only evidence found at the scene were some hairs and a few flakes of something that may have been catnip.
Posted by: Tom Foss | July 31, 2007 at 11:33 AM
I wouldn't rule out the supercat theory prematurely.
Real scientific studies have shown that dogs have an ability to detect cancer and oncoming epileptic seizures with accuracies rivaling clinical tests.
Cats are harder to study scientifically because, well, they don't give a shit what the experimenters want them to do, but I doubt that cats have a greatly worse sense of smell or hearing (suspected in the some of abilities of dogs) than cats do.
Posted by: ohwilleke | July 31, 2007 at 04:51 PM
Ohwilleke: Citations on these dog studies? (That's citations, pls, not Dail Mail reports on the research). It sounds interesting but highly improbable, so I'm afraid i'm not going to take your word for it...
Posted by: outeast | July 31, 2007 at 11:21 PM
The cat may be carrying a fatal disease it spends the last 2 to 4 hours of people life with them. How long is the incubation period of galloping cat lung?
Posted by: valley ally | August 01, 2007 at 06:51 AM
Ask not for whom the cat purrs, it purrs for thee!!!
Posted by: Citizen Deux | August 01, 2007 at 09:23 AM