Pavlovians | Humanity

Pavlov’s dog was not that of the pavlova, which is the name of a pastry created in homage to a famous Russian dancer from the first decades of the 20th century. No, the dog in question remains attached to the name of Ivan Pavlov, the Russian scientist who, towards the end of the 19th century, carried out a series of experiments on what were later called conditioned reflexes. It’s pretty well known. Accustomed to hearing a bell announce the meal, a dog begins to salivate as soon as he hears the bell, no matter what. Thus we can hear for several days about the Pavlovian votes to come from the deputies of the Nupes (which, moreover, makes a little Russian, even Soviet), who would be determined to vote no, by pure reflex, to any text which would be presented to them, whatever the content. It was useful to understand clearly what it is, even if one wonders who is really, with this insistence, in the situation of Pavlov’s watchdog, incidentally.