Animal Communicator, Lidia Hiby

[SendenHorse]

[QUOTE=Guilherme;8398273]

The reality of things is that any given project has a resource base to support it. What the project manager expends resources on depends on what kind of “feedback” they are seeing form any given line of inquiry. So what should the manager expend resources on? Those things where evidence demonstrates that there will be a positive rate of return. If two members of a project are advocating two different views the manager will consider the arguments and then allocate resources based upon which advocate has presented the more compelling argument. Put another way, the person who has best carried their burden of proof in the argument will get the resources.

That’s not just how science works it’s how life works.

G.[/QUOTE]

I have evidence, I have proof. Somehow, you guys want different proof.

My only hesitation is the mind that demands proof works contrary to what ever mindset this is that allows communication, at least in my opinion.

So the aggressive nature of these posters here hinders these people from experiencing this for themselves.

Just like in riding, force and “making things happen” is never something horses respond to.

I suggest having your own horses/dogs/family read by a few different ACs, say 5, don’t give leading questions and see if they are on target. Simple. Then you will see for yourself. Is that a scientific study? Yes and no.

I don’t see how you can have any control groups or recreate this in a lab. The AC getting images can’t really give evidence. It’s not like they can make a horse do a certain action, this isn’t a trick thing. (In my experience, maybe some can influence back to the horse).

The scientific mind is wonderful for many things, there is a place for facts. I just think this is something where facts and evidence comes on a case by case basis.

Try it for yourselves, open up to the possibility. If you talk to a few ACs in depth (for an hour or more each) I would have a really hard time believing you won’t feel at least a bit of “hmmmm, maybe there is something to this after all?”

a free 10 min quick reading at a fair isn’t the same…

[Ghazzu]

[QUOTE=Sunflower;8398156]
Burden of proof is a legal term of art if you will. I have never, ever heard that terminology used by scientists to describe their research process…[/QUOTE]

How about “testable hypothesis”?

[Lady_Eboshi]

The very fact that a thread on this subject can actually provide an ARGUMENT for 13 pages is proof of how anti-science, indeed anti-REALITY even so-called “educated” people in the USA have become. This does not bode well. I’d hate to be the DVM who gets fired by a horse owner because her AC said he doesn’t like treatment or would rather eat carrots out of a red bucket.

Now excuse me; I have a telepathic lunch date on Atlantis. :rolleyes:

[Kwill]

I don’t see how you can have any control groups or recreate this in a lab. The AC getting images can’t really give evidence. It’s not like they can make a horse do a certain action, this isn’t a trick thing. (In my experience, maybe some can influence back to the horse).

The scientific mind is wonderful for many things, there is a place for facts. I just think this is something where facts and evidence comes on a case by case basis.

Yes, you can have a control group. Yes, you can create this in a lab. The point is, when you do, it can’t be shown to exist, at all. Why can’t they make a horse do a trick thing? Why can’t verifiable facts, away from the body language of the owner, be communicated? If it’s a form of language, then we certainly should be able to measure it and understand it. Or if some humans have telepathic ability, let’s take a look at it (shades of XMen there, what if there are “mutants”?).

There is nothing that exists in our physical world, as we know it, that can’t be measured or observed in some way – even the smallest particles, or the universe, or the human genome. If this phenomenon, communicating through images with animals, was an actual human ability, perhaps just shared by a very few people, then it could be measured and documented. All we have is anectodal evidence from people who admittedly wanted to believe it in the first place, or least passively participated.

In the past few years, studies on animal behavior have made so much forward progress in animal training, making the lives of animals so much better, especially dogs and horses, I think. Science has brought us forward on humane treatment of animals because we understand them better. Actually doing studies on what they can and can’t learn, what they can and can’t see, and the possibilities of interacting with animals is really exciting. We have learned that animals are much “smarter” than we ever considered. Especially avians, wow, birds are amazing. If we could communicate telepathically with animals through picture images, then let’s prove it exists and learn more about it. But for now, it does not seem to be a reality.

By the way, someone brought up a dog’s ability to sniff out cancer … that’s a real thing, that can be taught to dogs, as well as smelling different body chemistry in a diabetic when their blood sugar gets low. The abilities of animals, psychic pictures notwithstanding, are quite amazing. I am the first to agree that we can learn a lot more about animals and what they are capable of. I remember reading something Jacques Cousteau wrote about observing dolphins at the bottom of the sea standing in a circle on their tails, like they were having a meeting. Who knows what some horses are capable of?

Edit: I also agree that the lack of critical thinking and science education is a real problem in this country, and will set us back on the world stage. It’s a global economy now, and to stay as the world’s superpower, we need scientists and mathematicians, as well as thoughtful philosophers and thinkers. Science is hard work, and we need our citizens to be behind it and value it.

[SendenHorse]

[QUOTE=Kwill;8398622]
Why can’t they make a horse do a trick thing? Why can’t verifiable facts, away from the body language of the owner, be communicated? If it’s a form of language, then we certainly should be able to measure it and understand it. Or if some humans have telepathic ability, let’s take a look at it (shades of XMen there, what if there are “mutants”?).

If this phenomenon, communicating through images with animals, was an actual human ability, perhaps just shared by a very few people, then it could be measured and documented. All we have is anectodal evidence from people who admittedly wanted to believe it in the first place, or least passively participated.

Edit: I also agree that the lack of critical thinking and science education is a real problem in this country, and will set us back on the world stage. It’s a global economy now, and to stay as the world’s superpower, we need scientists and mathematicians, as well as thoughtful philosophers and thinkers. Science is hard work, and we need our citizens to be behind it and value it.[/QUOTE]

But you can get facts and evidence for yourself. why not engage in it and stop expecting others to do this work?

Its NOT language and ACs don’t INSTRUCT horses.

How about put people in an fMRI as they are communicating? that could be cool. Then put someone who can’t hear from animals and see if there is a different brain activity?

[Kwill]

What facts and evidence can I get, exactly? All we have here is anecdotal evidence and wishful thinking on the part of horse owners.

Your stating with conviction some made up theory or belief about animal energy and auras and energy healing doesn’t make it true. By the way, without science, the scientific method, and critical thinking, we wouldn’t have an MRI machine to measure anything.

And I don’t agree, if you are communicating to relate meaning in any way, it’s a form of language. The horse is talking to the AC through pictures, that’s what all the believers keep saying. The point of a reading is to find out what the horse wants (beer, red blankets, long lost friend), where it hurts, that it wants a DNR, etc. – all things that have been related here. If you are just seeing random pictures in an animal’s mind, that’s cool, but what would the point be?

[Sunflower]

[QUOTE=Guilherme;8398273]
As I said, it’s both.

In the legal world it’s a term of art. In the rest of the world it’s a practical requirement.

The reality of things is that any given project has a resource base to support it. What the project manager expends resources on depends on what kind of “feedback” they are seeing form any given line of inquiry. So what should the manager expend resources on? Those things where evidence demonstrates that there will be a positive rate of return. If two members of a project are advocating two different views the manager will consider the arguments and then allocate resources based upon which advocate has presented the more compelling argument. Put another way, the person who has best carried their burden of proof in the argument will get the resources.

That’s not just how science works it’s how life works.

No, I’ve not read the additional links. The first two demonstrated that there was no “there” there. If you can show me something where this form of communication has been achieved under controlled conditions I’ll read it with a fair eye. But I’m not interested in more studies that demonstrate “potential” or “possibility.” I’ll await something more concrete.

G.[/QUOTE]

You are rejecting science because it is not run like a court room. Which of course is your prerogative, you can believe what you want, why you want, or disbelieve what you want why you want.

That does not make your rejection of science not run along legal courtroom principles one that proves the invalidity of the scientific evidence.

Far from it.

You asked for evidence. You have been given several links to several articles by myself.

Because science is run according to its own measures and not ones you have decided it must apply-- ones that in fact have nothing to do with scientific validity and verifiability by the way-- you decide that science has nothing to offer you while at the same time demanding that science must provide an answer-- but only on your terms-- and those are terms never to be met in science because that is not how it is done there. Science is not a legal courtroom.

You have rather painted yourself into a corner.

[Sunflower]

[QUOTE=Ghazzu;8398581]
How about “testable hypothesis”?[/QUOTE]
Yes, now that IS a part of science. As I have said throughout my post…
that science is not about a burden of proof, that is for the law. Science is about testing a hypothesis through deductive means, with records kept of the data.

Which, by the way, is replete in the studies of Swami Rama, done by the Menninger Foundation, link in one of my posts above. Those experiments provided verified, observable, measured and recorded evidence of him doing things such as telepathy, precognition, control of the involuntary body functions, and even psychokinesis.

Read it. Make of it what you will.

[SendenHorse]

[QUOTE=Kwill;8398678]
What facts and evidence can I get, exactly? All we have here is anecdotal evidence and wishful thinking on the part of horse owners.

Your stating with conviction some made up theory or belief about animal energy and auras and energy healing doesn’t make it true. By the way, without science, the scientific method, and critical thinking, we wouldn’t have an MRI machine to measure anything.

And I don’t agree, if you are communicating to relate meaning in any way, it’s a form of language. The horse is talking to the AC through pictures, that’s what all the believers keep saying. The point of a reading is to find out what the horse wants (beer, red blankets, long lost friend), where it hurts, that it wants a DNR, etc. – all things that have been related here. If you are just seeing random pictures in an animal’s mind, that’s cool, but what would the point be?[/QUOTE]

Go have a reading and see what it’s about, it’s much more interesting than you suggest.

Yes, there is an element of understanding what this means or putting things togehter. Something that seems random that day will make sense later on.

When you say language I think of the spoken word, ie- sentences.

[Sunflower]

http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/399/386

Intuition, Telepathy, and Interspecies
Communication:
A Multidisciplinary Perspective**

What some of you have been asking for… here you go.

and

more…

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Deborah_Erickson2/publication/265686400_A_mixed_methods_exploratory_study_of_alleged_telepathic_interspecies_communication_with_domestic_dogs_(Canis_lupus_familiaris)/links/5420edee0cf241a65a1e5338.pdfnd

A mixed methods exploratory study of alleged
telepathic interspecies communication with
domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris).

oh and yes, let us not overlook this conclusion
"The overall results now provide unambiguous evidence for an
independently repeatable ESP effect. "
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1741837

There ya go.

[Kwill]

Language is far beyond spoken words, since we know animals have language, they just can’t speak like humans do, to give just one example (although if you hear a husky whine, or a parrot talk, well, there are exceptions to that!). We can certainly understand their language --although it’s limited, unlike human communication – and they can understand and learn ours. Chimps can easily learn sign language and communicate with people. Dogs learn some signs, and can gain an understanding of a large human vocabulary (I love the dog that could pick out a toy by name in a pile of 100 toys, it was amazing). I am sure there are studies of how many words horses can learn, but since they are more tactile, they certainly can learn a great deal of body language from people as well as subtle cues from the rider.

Did you say what kind of a scientist you were?

The dissertation link was interesting. It certainly scratched the surface of this issue, and gives some credence to the idea that she communicated with the dogs in the study (she did get an average accuracy rating of 5.1 out of 6 from the participants). However, she was an animal communicator herself and was the communicator in the study, which gives extreme bias, and it was a small volunteer sample of women. I will give her props for trying to quantify what she was doing. I think the problem here is the academic community has little interest in this issue, so it is unlikely there will be any follow up. I am shocked it actually got passed by a committee, it’s so out there, but I think she did a good job with her subject matter. At least it was given good scientific treatment in a serious way.

I do see the problem here, though – if indeed people can communicate with animals, and they can clearly articulate their needs, ethically it becomes quite problematic – if an animal is unhappy, or feels abused, and tells the AC about it, what is their moral obligation?

[Sandy_M]

Burden of proof as used in this instance isn’t in the legal sense of “preponderance of the evidence” mitigating toward a specific verdict. It merely means that if YOU are making the claims, YOU need to PROVE them. We disbelievers don’t have to DISPROVE them.

The most notable quote in that regard…“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” (that may not be the exact wording) is from Carl Sagan - a scientist, not an attorney. It IS a burden of proof on the claimant for extraordinary claims.

[Sunflower]

But, again, that is not how science works. He did not discuss burden of proof. Evidence has specific scientific connotations-- distinct from that of the law. So mixing and matching science and law produces nonsense. Scientific methods are not the same as legal arguments. No one would conduct a scientific experiment in Judge Judy’s courtroom.

Science requires proving results in testing a hypothesis. This is deductive reasoning, the hallmark of science, with verifiable and replicable results, supported by data.

Law on the other hand requires no such thing to prove a case. Proof is done through argumentation and persuasion, not with testable hypothesis and quality of data controlled by requirements of verifiability and replicability. Legal decisions are also notoriously unreliable-- look at any data on the number of wrongful convictions, courtroom bias based on ethnicity, etc. Lawyers know that swaying a jury is a matter of complex psychology, and so hire experts to help them get a jury with members likely to support their side of the case. This I suppose is science in law, but in such a way that clearly demonstrates the gulf between scientific method and legal persuasion.

At any rate, I have posted several links that provide the scientific proof that has been asked for-- scientific results under the rules of science.

[Sandy_M]

Word salad.^ Burden of proof doesn’t have to be used in the legalistic sense. It’s MIXING nothing. You make the claim - you prove it - science or law or paranormal nonsense.

And no, your links don’t prove it. AGAIN…if there are legitimate scientific studies (as you claim) proving AC, then why hasn’t someone qualified for and claimed the JREF prize? They are so well-funded they don’t need it? They are “above” it? They have “no need to prove themselves?” I have NEVER heard of a true researcher who is so well-funded they would turn down extra funds to carry on their research.

[Kwill]

There’s really no practical application for this research, and no funding for it, so getting any more work done on it is probably just not going to happen. Legitimate research studies take money and resources, and the paranormal is way down on that list of priorities.

Again, it was impressive that anyone got an animal communicator study through a dissertation committee, and she did a good job trying to quantify it. It was just one study, though, and flawed because there was no control group, just a set of qualitative observations from a participant observer (the fact that she was the communicator was really an issue for me) from a small volunteer sample that scored well on an self-determined accuracy scale. Interesting, but not ground breaking.

[SendenHorse]

[QUOTE=Sandy M;8398777]
Word salad.^ Burden of proof doesn’t have to be used in the legalistic sense. It’s MIXING nothing. You make the claim - you prove it - science or law or paranormal nonsense.

And no, your links don’t prove it. AGAIN…if there are legitimate scientific studies (as you claim) proving AC, then why hasn’t someone qualified for and claimed the JREF prize? They are so well-funded they don’t need it? They are “above” it? They have “no need to prove themselves?” I have NEVER heard of a true researcher who is so well-funded they would turn down extra funds to carry on their research.[/QUOTE]

Its not “research”… its helping animals and people.

why should they take the prize? it’s your opinion that they should.

Most good ACs are booked solid with appointments.

No, they don’t need to prove themselves. Why do they? they know it works.

People here are much more concerned about this than the ACs.

If it’s not your thing, don’t use it.

[Kwill]

We are back to, who cares if it is real, people like it. Fair enough.

[SendenHorse]

[QUOTE=Kwill;8398820]
We are back to, who cares if it is real, people like it. Fair enough.[/QUOTE]

It’s real, it’s just hard to prove.

Some people here can’t take that answer, sorry.

[Sunflower]

I am not the one rejecting scientific evidence because it is not run according to legal principles. Science has nothing to do with “burden of proof”, and even that term used in a legal sense is subject to many different meanings as it must be linked with the standard of proof required-- and something may well have been “done” and yet not be established under the standard required. As well, in law, what is admitted as evidence is subject to rules of evidence, and subject to being introduced through appropriate witness testimony. This takes us further and further afield from science.

And yet.

"The overall results now provide unambiguous evidence for an independently repeatable ESP effect. " I am posting this again in case you over looked or chose to overlook it. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1741837. Here is the staff page of the author. http://www.psy.unipd.it/~tressold/cmssimple/index.php

Science requires proof that is verifiable and replicable. Which is why it is very significant that this is evidence that is, in its own words, “repeatable.” Read the research. See what it says.

You claim there is no evidence to support telepathy-- and yet, there it is. Scientific, repeatable and all.

[Sandy_M]

[QUOTE=SendenHorse;8398816]
Its not “research”… its helping animals and people.

why should they take the prize? it’s your opinion that they should.

Most good ACs are booked solid with appointments.

No, they don’t need to prove themselves. Why do they? they know it works.

People here are much more concerned about this than the ACs.

If it’s not your thing, don’t use it.[/QUOTE]

They don’t need $1 million? Then why do they charge for their services? They don’t want to be validated? Think how many more people would want their services. There is no proof it works, only ancedotes, influenced by cold (and sometimes hot) reading. I know lie detectors are NOT accurate, but if they were, I’d sure like to hook up an AC - any AC - to one and ask them if they don’t want/need $1 million. Heck, if they’re into helping people, think of all the people/horses they could help with $1 million. Just weasling out of being asked to truly PROVE their ability.