Dowsing: Fact or Fiction?

22-rimfire said:
You will be amazed at the screwy things that are done with buried piping. The old piping is seldom removed. They find it and replace what they need for their purpose regardless of whether or not it is a business or residence.

You have to be smart about it however.... if you are looking for a pipe, it is generally linear and you should locate it at a couple points and essentially "draw a strainght line" between these points. You may still be off 6", but you'll be close.

I believe most regulators are generally near the building on water and gas lines.

I had some lines marked once... started digging with a small track hoe... smelled gas.... found old lines that were somehow still active. Like I said, you can't depend on things always being done by common sense. Remember however, it is a requirement to have the lines marked "before you dig" otherwise the repair can be substantial. You can also end up on the news and you can also cause the death of a coworker. There is liability here! The utility company will bill you for all the repairs if you do not follow the rules.
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I'm not amazed at all. And in my experience, utility spotting is seldom as close as 6". Often, they are off by a foot or more. SOmetimes buried utilities make large looping turns around trees and buildings. They do not always lay them in a straight line. I agree that there is a liability when digging, and that calling the locator service every time is good insurance against injury, property or utility line damage. Tearing into a major phone trunk line can cost a contractor many thousands of dollars. But I've spoken of these issues repeatedly in this thread. Perhaps some just read the last page or so before posting.
 
JCavSD said:
Water regulators and valves are not part of the meter and are not "built in". Meters are stand alone, but valves are often screwed on both on the front and the back of the meter. Regulators have pipe threads on either end and can be installed anywhere along the pipe. If you've haven't looked at them closely or taken them apart and I can see how you'd think they are part of the same unit.

Must be different building codes in different areas. Common practice here is for the regulator to be on the side of the garage (usually inside) with a spigot on the outside wall of the garage. Water meter is in a box just off the sidewalk or street on the customer's property, and it's usually a straightish shot to the regulator. Sometimes meters are on one side or the other of the property, so there may be two meters side by side on the property line. Contractors aren't all about waste (money out of their pockets), if they can get the water line to the house with five sticks of pipe instead of seven then that's what they'll do. Usually involves a straight path.
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I understand that you are in Southern California. I am not. Yes, the meter box usually contains all the components mentioned including a pressure regulator. And compression nuts, screws, a bronze flap over the guage dial and a bunch of other parts that can be broken down. But, here at least, you will find all of that attached to the meter inside the water meter box.

Many of my sites are not new construction. QUite a few are suburban or rural. Some residences have been remodeled countless times since they were built. Seldom do the utility connections resemble the latest codes used in new construction in subdivisions. Often homeowners have jerry-rigged their own feeder lines, as I have said. Also, many homes are on septic systems and wells. Sometimes an old well or septic system has been replaced with a new one without removing the old one. There is no one to spot these but the contractor, me.
 
bladerique said:
Being able to find water is key for survival.



1-Asking for any science out there is not a "gotcha".

2-Claiming there's nothing supernatural about a supernatural act is a cop-out to avoid performing in an objective test under controlled circumstances.



Both sides will be able to take something from this Popular Mechanics article:

FINDING WATER WITH A FORKED STICK MAY NOT BE A HOAX

DOWSING DATA DEFY THE SKEPTICS

READ MORE: FINDING WATER WITH A FORKED STICK MAY NOT BE A HOAX - POPULAR MECHANICS

USUALLY, THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE FICTION IS AS DISTINCT AS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE 6 O'CLOCK NEWS AND "THE SIMPSONS." WHEREVER THE LINE BLURS, YOU'RE BOUND TO FIND CONTENTIOUS DEBATES. ONE OF THE LONGEST-RUNNING OF THESE DISAGREEMENTS CENTERS ON DOWSING, A SUPPOSED SIXTH SENSE THAT ENABLES PEOPLE TO FIND UNDERGROUND WATER USING A FORKED BRANCH, PENDULUM OR PAIR OF BENT WIRES. THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC REASON WHY DOWSING SHOULD WORK. YET, IT APPARENTLY WORKS WELL ENOUGH AND RELIABLY ENOUGH TO KEEP THE PRACTICE ALIVE.

THE SUCCESS OF DOWSERS DOESN'T SURPRISE THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW THE MOST ABOUT FINDING UNDERGROUND WATER, HYDROGEOLOGISTS FOR THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY (USGS). THEY POINT OUT THAT THE UNITED STATES IS SO WATER-RICH YOU CAN GET WET DRILLING JUST ABOUT ANYWHERE, IF YOU DRILL DEEP ENOUGH. FAR HARSHER CRITICISM OF DOWSING AND DOWSERS COMES FROM OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY. TWO ORGANIZATIONS, THE COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLAIMS OF THE PARANORMAL (CSICOP), HTTP://WWW.CSICOP.ORG/SI, AND THE JAMES RANDI EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION (JREF), HTTP://WWW.RANDI.ORG, ARE ACTUALLY WORKING TO DISCOURAGE THE PRACTICE, WHICH THEY BOTH DISMISS AS PARANORMAL NONSENSE. TO MAKE THEIR POINT THAT DOWSING IS A SHAM EACH HAS STAGED DEMONSTRATIONS IN WHICH DOWSERS WERE ASKED TO FIND BURIED PIPES. DOWSERS DID NO BETTER THAN THE LAWS OF CHANCE PREDICT. JREF IS SO CONFIDENT OF ITS POSITION IT PROMISES TO PAY $1.1 MILLION TO ANYONE WHO CAN "PROVE" DOWSING WORKS.

YET DOWSERS FLOURISH

LIKE BEES UNAWARE THEY ARE TOO AERODYNAMICALLY CHALLENGED TO FLY, DOWSERS DON'T LET THE SKEPTICS GET THEM DOWN. IN FACT, THE RANKS OF DOWSERS HAVE BEEN STEADILY GROWING. FORTY YEARS AGO, ABOUT 50 DOWSERS AND CURIOSITY SEEKERS WERE DRAWN TO DANVILLE, VT., FOR A 1-DAY NATIONAL DOWSING CONVENTION. THAT GET-TOGETHER LED TO THE CREATION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF DOWSERS (ASD), WWW.NEWHAMPSHIRE.COM/DOWSERS.ORG, WHICH NOW COUNTS ABOUT 4200 MEMBERS. LEST YOU DISMISS DOWSING'S POPULARITY AS JUST ANOTHER NEW AGE FAD, TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT THE 16TH CENTURY DRAWING TO THE LEFT. THE MEN WEARING TRADITIONAL MINERS' CLOTHING ARE HOLDING THE SAME TYPE OF FORKED STICK IN USE BY MANY DOWSERS TODAY.

NOW COMES A MASSIVE SET OF DATA THAT SUGGESTS THERE MAY BE SOME VALIDITY TO DOWSERS' CLAIMS. THE ENCOURAGING WORDS ARE CONTAINED IN A STUDY FINANCED BY THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT AND PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION, HTTP://WWW.JSE.COM/BETZ_TOC.HTML, WHICH IS A PEER-REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL PUBLISHED AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY.

THE PROJECT WAS CONDUCTED BY THE DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FUR TECHNISCHE ZUSAMMENARBEIT IN THE HOPE OF FINDING CHEAPER AND MORE RELIABLE WAYS OF LOCATING DRINKING WATER SUPPLIES IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES.

RESEARCHERS ANALYZED THE SUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF DOWSERS IN ATTEMPTING TO LOCATE WATER AT MORE THAN 2000 SITES IN ARID REGIONS OF SRI LANKA, ZAIRE, KENYA, NAMIBIA AND YEMEN OVER A 10-YEAR PERIOD. TO DO THIS, RESEARCHERS TEAMED GEOLOGICAL EXPERTS WITH EXPERIENCED DOWSERS AND THEN SET UP A SCIENTIFIC STUDY GROUP TO EVALUATE THE RESULTS. DRILL CREWS GUIDED BY DOWSERS DIDN'T HIT WATER EVERY TIME, BUT THEIR SUCCESS RATE WAS IMPRESSIVE. IN SRI LANKA, FOR EXAMPLE, THEY DRILLED 691 HOLES AND HAD AN OVERALL SUCCESS RATE OF 96 PERCENT.

"IN HUNDREDS OF CASES THE DOWSERS WERE ABLE TO PREDICT THE DEPTH OF THE WATER SOURCE AND THE YIELD OF THE WELL TO WITHIN 10 PERCENT OR 20 PERCENT," SAYS HANS-DIETER BETZ, A PHYSICIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH, WHO HEADED THE RESEARCH GROUP.

"WE CAREFULLY CONSIDERED THE STATISTICS OF THESE CORRELATIONS, AND THEY FAR EXCEEDED LUCKY GUESSES," HE SAYS. WHAT'S MORE, VIRTUALLY ALL OF THE SITES IN SRI LANKA WERE IN REGIONS WHERE THE ODDS OF FINDING WATER BY RANDOM DRILLING WERE EXTREMELY LOW. AS FOR A USGS NOTION THAT DOWSERS GET SUBTLE CLUES FROM THE LANDSCAPE AND GEOLOGY, BETZ POINTS OUT THAT THE UNDERGROUND SOURCES WERE OFTEN MORE THAN 100 FT. DEEP AND SO NARROW THAT MISPLACING THE DRILL ONLY A FEW FEET WOULD MEAN DIGGING A DRY HOLE.

AS IMPRESSIVE AS THIS SUCCESS RATE MAY SEEM, IT DOESN'T DO MUCH TO CHANGE THE MINDS OF SKEPTICS. THEIR PREFERENCE IS TO TEST DOWSING UNDER MORE CONTROLLED CONDITIONS. BACK TO THE LAB

ANTICIPATING THIS CRITICISM, THE GERMAN RESEARCHERS MATCHED THEIR FIELD WORK WITH LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS IN WHICH THEY HAD DOWSERS ATTEMPT TO LOCATE WATER-FILLED PIPES INSIDE A BUILDING. THE TESTS WERE SIMILAR TO THOSE CONDUCTED BY CSICOP AND JREF, AND SIMILARLY DISCOURAGING. SKEPTICS SEE THE POOR SHOWING AS EVIDENCE OF FAILURE. BETZ SEES THE DISCREPANCY AS AN IMPORTANT CLUE. HE SAYS THAT SUBTLE ELECTROMAGNETIC GRADIENTS MAY RESULT WHEN NATURAL FISSURES AND WATER FLOWS CREATE CHANGES IN THE ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES OF ROCK AND SOIL. DOWSERS, HE THEORIZES, SOMEHOW SENSE THESE GRADIENTS AND UNCONSCIOUSLY RESPOND BY WAGGING THEIR FORKED STICKS, PENDULUMS OR BENT WIRES.

LOW-ENERGY SENSOR

THERE IS AMPLE EVIDENCE THAT HUMANS CAN DETECT SMALL AMOUNTS OF ENERGY. ALL CREATURES WITH EYES CAN DETECT EXTREMELY SMALL AMOUNTS OF ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY AT VISIBLE LIGHT WAVELENGTHS. SOME RESEARCHERS BELIEVE THE DARK-ADAPTED HUMAN EYE CAN DETECT A SINGLE PHOTON, THE SMALLEST MEASURABLE QUANTITY OF ENERGY. BIOLOGISTS ALSO HAVE FOUND NONVISUAL ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC SENSING ORGANS IN CREATURES FROM BACTERIA TO SHARKS, FISH AND BIRDS. PHYSIOLOGISTS, HOWEVER, HAVE YET TO FIND COMPARABLE STRUCTURES IN HUMANS.

BETZ OFFERS NO THEORIES OF HOW DOWSERS COME BY THEIR SKILL AND PREFERS TO CONFINE HIS SPECULATION TO HIS DATA. "THERE ARE TWO THINGS THAT I AM CERTAIN OF AFTER 10 YEARS OF FIELD RESEARCH," HE SAYS. "A COMBINATION OF DOWSING AND MODERN TECHNIQUES CAN BE BOTH MORE SUCCESSFUL, AND FAR LESS EXPENSIVE, THAN WE HAD THOUGHT."



http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/1281661

Interesting, but I'm still stuck on the fact that under controlled tests, dowsing doesn't work.
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Assume for the sake of argument that this report accurately describes a well designed, well controlled, well executed study. Why is it not scientific? Why is it uncontrolled? Because it is not carried out in a laboratory? Many experiments happen outside the lab. Are geologists scorned for not fitting a tectonic plate into their laboratory?

Years ago I read a report by someone whose psychic research facilities were visited by Randi and company. They were highly disruptive. Doing magic tricks, pulling researchers into those performances, speculating out loud about how the researchers are tricking them—or trying to--boasting that Randi would expose them.

If this was an accurate report of Randi’s typical behavior, I’ll have none of it. I don’t like jerks. Nor would I expect a fair test from such a crew. If I must go to court, I don’t want a kangaroo judge.

Let us hypothesize that dowsers do not test well when they are:

1. Put into a strange environment
2. Asked to do unaccustomed tasks
3. At the command of hostile testers.

Is that so hard to understand?

I assume dowsing involves some interaction among the external environment, the dowsing tool of choice, the human body, and the human mind. Why are the conditions of the human mind not significant variables? Why aren’t they even on the list?

Future research can either confirm or falsify current studies. If dowsing is proved, the proof may involve tests that control for a different list of variables. For example, suppose some human element has a veto over successful dowsing. Insult it and there will be no dowsing demonstration for you. If that is so, the human element counts as a significant variable. Leave that variable uncontrolled and your research is worthless. I don’t say that’s how it works. I do say the issue is worth considering.

In the mean time…

How about this experimental design: Study dowsers when they are doing what they normally do. Test in arid landscapes where water is valuable. Have 2,000 experiments, carried out in different countries. Send a geologist who knows the region with each attempt. Note clues available from surface observation. Can the geologist better the dowser by reading the landscape? Note successes. Note failures. Local wells dug without dowsing are control samples. Analyze the results using good statistical methodology. Report significant findings in a peer reviewed journal.

Why is this not scientific?
 
Codger_64 said:
Well, if you read it on the internet, it must be true! It is a well known fact that scientists and medical experts get their information from a WIKI page! ;)
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Appeal to authority huh. Exactly which portions of that page do you claim to be untrue? ;-)
 
I see dowsing as nothing more than "magic". I've yet to see a legit theory put forth as to how it could possibly work.
 
Django.cj said:
I see dowsing as nothing more than "magic". I've yet to see a legit theory put forth as to how it could possibly work.
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So you have tried it and it didn't work for you? I don't see it as magic. But I know from experience that it works, as I use it.
 
Codger_64 said:
So you have tried it and it didn't work for you? I don't see it as magic. But I know from experience that it works, as I use it.
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Codger,

Why not actually demonstrate this for the government, who could put it to immediate use in detecting buried explosives, and then teach it to folks all over Asia? Why not save lives and limbs with it? It seems you prefer to limit this incredibly valuable skill to parlor tricks.

This thread is very much like all the magical chi power threads over in Prac Tac. Here are the commonalities:

1. Challenges from the person positing the claim to disprove him, rather than the other way around.
2. Wiggling out of explanations as to how it works exactly, but assurances that the method is simple.
3. No accounting for how many times the method fails; instead, more assurances that it works, more or less.
4. Scoffing at a million dollar prize. Proponents should look into the JREF prize: it's real. And the rules are published, and are genuinely biased in favor of the person making the claim--despite the totally unresearched hearsay elsewhere in the thread that the tests are rigged to make the claimant fail. Takes a second or two to look them up.
5. Insults, ridicule, and snark from the person making the claim, but also requests to keep the discussion civil when criticism is put out there.
6. Assurances that while this thread was being hashed out, we have MORE undocumented success with the claim that ya'll missed. Conveniently.
7. No explanation as to why we should even care about your claim.
--- a. You can't explain how it works exactly.
---b. You can't teach it to others, apparently.
---c. Although the skill would provide enormously useful to the benefit of mankind in general, it's either too secret, too dangerous, or "I'm too humble" to apply it in that regard.

Mind you, I'm talking about the guys who claim to heal or injure people with invisible Asian energies. I think you see where I'm going, in that most, if not all of your "dowsing" or "witching" lines up pretty well.

Bottom line is this, Codger (and others): if you HAVE got something, share it, show it, or shut it. Otherwise you're making outrageous claims to a group of people who use their skills for survival. In that regard, it you can't teach it to us or explain it so that we can easily apply it, you've got nothing.

So far, you've got nothing but snappy comebacks for us iggerant whippersnappers. And I'm sorry to say, the longer you keep reposting this kind of stuff, the more we're going to start doubting the authenticity of your other posts. And I'd hate for that to happen, because up until now, I really thought you had it together.

I'm not calling you a fool, but this is the wrong subforum for these kinds of non-wilderness/non-survival topics. It's getting to be just an attention getter.
 
Watchful said:
Any part that disagrees with what he KNOWS is true.
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From the same Wikipedia page:

The results from the remaining 6 were said to be better than chance, resulting in the experimenters' conclusion that some dowsers "in particular tasks, showed an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance ... a real core of dowser-phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven."[20]
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One paragraph says one thing while the next says something different. Is this supposed to prove one thing or another? What makes one paragraph more authoritative than the other? I guess the fact that one paragraph agrees with your assessment is the definite factor. The history of science has several examples of ideas rejected as religion or pseudo-science only latter to be recognized as legitimate science, like the Big Bang theory been originally rejected as religious dogma masquerading as science. The real way to prove if Codger's experience is accurate is to go and see him do it.
 
Preacher Man said:
The real way to prove if Codger's experience is accurate is to go and see him do it.
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I would say the only way to prove it's accurate is to go and TEST him, not just seeing him do it. I've seen Chris Angel float above buildings, I've seen Siegfried and Roy make tigers disappear, I've seen incredible feats of mind-reading from magicians. That doesn't mean all that HAPPENED. I have yet to see a GOOD, scientific published study that proves that dowsers find anything with accuracy. I think bladerique has a really good point. If I truly believed I had dowsing abilities, I would set up a local, blinded study and put my abilities to the test and then submit to JREF. Certainly the effort is worth 1 million dollars? Hell, I'd be working on this day and night to get the JREF money, it's out there for the taking!

Until it is proven, I can't believe. Personal stories are not enough, I've also had people tell me they were abducted and abused by aliens, I have another friend who claims Lavender cured their cancer, I have heard people swear of seeing the mythical chupacabra... Obviously human accounts are flawed and un-reliable. Our brain fools us on a daily basis, it is not to be trusted (at times). If a well thought out and executed scientific study came out, followed byseveral other, independent studies to verify the findings, my mind would be changed in a heartbeat. So far that has not happened.
 
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never heard it called dowsing, but where I learned to do it we call it witching water. Almost every member of my mothers side of the family can do this. My great grandmother actualy used to witch graves using coat hangers. I was told when doing it that if your mind is closed to the idea of it you cannot get it to work.

I am convinced that it works because I have watched my Uncle who does it when digging wells find water in a place that the city had failed to do so on a 10 square mile plot of land where a guy had built a cabin and had been un able to dig a well to get water.
 
I've explained exactly how to do what I do.

I have explained the limitations of it's effectiveness for me.

I've given my suggestions as to how it might work.

I've said that I am not exactly sure how it works.

I've flatly denied that there is any mysticism involved.

I have no first hand knowledge of a lot of the more outlandish claims of dowsing. I know of my personal applications for it.

Yes, I can joke about it in response to others who can joke about it.

I have said why I do not give credence to the "million dollar prize" (must prove supernatural, mystic or occult event).

I've not insulted anyone who has not offered insult to me and have passed up many opportunities to respond in kind.

Count "snark" vs. "counter-snark" in this thread and see who is who in the zoo.

I have shown others how to do it and they have done so.

I've invited people here to come see it done.

I've invited people here to try it for themselves to see if it works for them.

Others have posted that they have tried it and it works for them.

Others have posted that they have seen people do it first hand with repeatable results.

People, other than myself, do know how to do it and have done so longer than I have been alive.

As some have suggested, it does have survival implications, though I've never needed it for that.

I did not start this thread in this forum.

I gave specific directions to members as to how to get the thread closed if they were bothered by it.

I mentioned that people who are bothered by it are the ones who repeatedly bump it.

There are plenty of threads (and forums) that don't interest me and I just exercise the option to not read them and post in them.

I don't understand the angst of some here about this subject.

Anyone who wishes to add me to their ignore list is welcome to do so.
 
All that, and you still aren't getting that you're answering a question that wasn't asked.
 
Codger_64 said:
I understand that you are in Southern California. I am not. Yes, the meter box usually contains all the components mentioned including a pressure regulator. And compression nuts, screws, a bronze flap over the guage dial and a bunch of other parts that can be broken down. But, here at least, you will find all of that attached to the meter inside the water meter box.

Many of my sites are not new construction. QUite a few are suburban or rural. Some residences have been remodeled countless times since they were built. Seldom do the utility connections resemble the latest codes used in new construction in subdivisions. Often homeowners have jerry-rigged their own feeder lines, as I have said. Also, many homes are on septic systems and wells. Sometimes an old well or septic system has been replaced with a new one without removing the old one. There is no one to spot these but the contractor, me.
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If I have a truck and trailer, and they're hooked up and parked in my garage, that doesn't mean that the trailer is built-into my truck. These are seperate components that serve different functions and they are not necessarily dependent on each other.

I've seen the setup you're talking about. Most likey the utilities responsibility ends at the actual meter (not the downstream valve or regulator). It's not good practice to assume responsibility for a piece of equipment that has a relatively short life-span and that the customer can tinker with (adjust pressure up and down). I have the larger (12 to 16 inch) pressure reguating valves in the distribution system rebuilt about every 5 years, because if they fail the results can be terrible. In many cases the regulator is located at the garage/house because homeowners want their irrigation lines on street pressure...better coverage for sprinklers.
 
Dowsing/witching water is how we dug all 3 of our wells Growing up. Each well spot was decided on after 3 different people chose the spots, separating the people with each try so they did not know where the others had chosen. We do it differently, holding a t shaped wire with the top of the t held vertically and the only contact with the rod is the index finger of the top hand and the thumb of the lower. The rod turns toward the source, and once you spin circles you are in the spot. Then a stopped plumb is held over the spot and once it starts turning count the revolutions and that is how deep the well will be. Method worked for us, and others.

You will be hard pressed to convince me there is a god, others are as hard pressed to believe in dowsing, so be it- just do not denigrate another's beliefs, especially over the Internet.
 
It's not about "denigrating another's beliefs" it is about the closest approximation to what is true, and individual's thresholds of acceptance and rejection.

If I make the claim "if you are lost just rub and apple on your head and you will automatically know where north is" it is incumbent on me to provide darn solid supporting evidence beyond a few measly anecdotes. Sometimes a bit of eyewitness testimony for something is enough, but when the claims are bold or the consequences are potentially a disaster you show up with your powder dry.

1] Claim that you have waterproof boots - I may accept that on face value.
2] Claim you saw some boots on the Gadget Show that enable you to walk on water - I find that unlikely but who knows what kind of waterskate polystyrene pontoons they could be so I'll look for evidence.
3] Claim you've bought some boots that enable you to fly - And my bullshit detector is going to go off and although I am willing to be moved to avoid dogma you're going to need to present me with some top tier evidence. A few people claiming they too have the flying boots does not change that for me.

As we progress from 1-3 the claims become increasingly less grounded in reality because they fly contrary to what we know of the world. Same with this dousing thing. It has a long history grounded in nothing more than superstition and folklore, whilst the direction of rigorously discovered evidence exposes it as false.

So, If I ever do claim here that "if you are lost all you need to do is rub an apple on your head and you'll know where north is", and I don't provide overwhelming support for my claims, not only do I expect you to tell me to fek-off you have an absolute responsibility to challenge me. It is the same with the dousing discussion here. How one feels about their beliefs either way is totally irrelevant. Provided folk are polite, which has been the case so far, someone getting hurt feelings when they are challenged is no more than a character fault. It is more important that we get as close to we can to truth here than it is that we are the get-along-gang or the care-bear club. Happy and fluffy but dead is just dead.
 
bladerique said:
Some people do it with a wooden stick or sticks, while others claim thin metal "L" shaped rods can find underground water. If I'm not mistaken, there's no science behind it.
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The "beliefs" portion of this thread is a deviation from the original intent. Is there science behind dowsing? There doesn't appear to be. Could there be? Yes, but someone would have to back that up using scientific method. People who don't want to back dowsing up with scientific method, and still claim that it's scientifically proven (or claim "scientific" evidence), are practicing pseudo-science. Belief is not science, science is not belief...and that's okay as long these distinctions are made and a big fat line is drawn in the sand between the two.
 
Chuka said:
I would say the only way to prove it's accurate is to go and TEST him, not just seeing him do it. I've seen Chris Angel float above buildings, I've seen Siegfried and Roy make tigers disappear, I've seen incredible feats of mind-reading from magicians. That doesn't mean all that HAPPENED. I have yet to see a GOOD, scientific published study that proves that dowsers find anything with accuracy. I think bladerique has a really good point. If I truly believed I had dowsing abilities, I would set up a local, blinded study and put my abilities to the test and then submit to JREF. Certainly the effort is worth 1 million dollars? Hell, I'd be working on this day and night to get the JREF money, it's out there for the taking!

Until it is proven, I can't believe. Personal stories are not enough, I've also had people tell me they were abducted and abused by aliens, I have another friend who claims Lavender cured their cancer, I have heard people swear of seeing the mythical chupacabra... Obviously human accounts are flawed and un-reliable. Our brain fools us on a daily basis, it is not to be trusted (at times). If a well thought out and executed scientific study came out, followed byseveral other, independent studies to verify the findings, my mind would be changed in a heartbeat. So far that has not happened.
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I understand what you mean. I am a stage magician and I've seen and done some incredible things. But in the words of one of my ancestors, "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." :) At issue is if dowsing is impossible or improbable. Some seem to dismiss it a priori. I agree that testing is necessary, but skipping an invitation from codger to go see him dowse because it must be tested is not logical. Either he can do it or not. If he can convince a spectator he can do it, then you can try to talk him into a controlled test. But some of the people who can do or have experienced extraordinary things are so tired of the doubt and criticism that they do not trust a fair test. That this is an excuse of the conman is not indicative that mistrusting the agenda of the skeptic is an indication of fraud. Meet him on his own turf and terms first, and then you can talk test.
 
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