It seems weird to me that the null-hypothesis there should be that dogs are non-sapient. It seems to be common for scientists to default on non-existence until evidence of existence is found. But in some situations existence and non-existence should have equivalent weights. In the field of mathematics, the existence of a thing can be logically equivalent to the non-existence of another thing, and we dont know which of the two exists, but we cant default to assuming neither of the two. Science is a bit different from pure mathematics though, but im not sure in what ways.
It seems weird to me that the null-hypothesis there should be that dogs are non-sapient. It seems to be common for scientists to default on non-existence until evidence of existence is found. But in some situations existence and non-existence should have equivalent weights. In the field of mathematics, the existence of a thing can be logically equivalent to the non-existence of another thing, and we dont know which of the two exists, but we cant default to assuming neither of the two. Science is a bit different from pure mathematics though, but im not sure in what ways.