Science does not care about your gut feelings
Science does not care about your anecdotes either. (-:
To me the question is whether or not a diviner can find water. How is a separate question
Indeed - I said exactly that in my first post here.
(Pedantically, the question isn't whether they can find water, rather that they can do so beyond the probability of chance and without cheating.)
Here's another question.
Assuming that divination works: In order to divine water, does one just need the correct tools, or does it require special training / innate ability? Ie, I can reliably find nails and pipes in a wall using a hand-held metal detector (and so can anyone else), would I similarly be able to go buy a couple of rods tomorrow and successfully go looking for underground running water?
Science does not care about your anecdotes.
It should care if there's a huge body of it. They can be indicative of something. You'd be a fool to sit there with your fingers in your ears flat out denying something that happens every day just because there isn't a peer reviewed study.
100% based on the experiences of me and the missus.
We were at a heritage centre near Otterburn and the chap there handed me a set - within a couple of minutes I’d “found an underground spring”. Missus did too without question. It’s an odd sensation as you can feel the friction / movement in the palm of your hand.
** that said, the couple that were with us had nothing. Nowt. Thought we were hoaxing them.
within a couple of minutes I’d “found an underground spring”
What was this spring and how did you know you'd found it?
John Humphrys has experienced it too ...
https://inews.co.uk/news/bbcs-john-humphrys-defends-water-divining-saying-felt-force/
So you don’t think the huge amount of anecdotal evidence is worth anything at all?
How much do you think that's worth?
I’m not arguing that divining is true – I have no idea – but you also cannot yet prove it is false.
Because that would require me to prove a negative. I thought you were keen on the scientific method.
of course, it works, god sends (invisible) naked winged babies down to interfere with your rods and hey presto water, simple really.
Mrs M used to be able to divine water pipes on the farm and when she worked for a water company but seems to have lost the ability.
There are enough people claiming this ability for me to believe it, in spite of/because of my scientific background.
I compare dowsing (receiving a signal or identifiying a presence, then acting on it), to a radio. It plays a sound in response to a signal generated elsewhere. If you alter the radio settings/ dowser by pressurising them by observation , its ilke generating a field of static or changing the tuning. The radio won't work.
I’ve used diving rods several times. They worked. FFS! I’ve no idea how or why. One time I used them to find a key that had been lost for over six months on a patch of waste ground. Very, very sceptical when I started but put a clear mental image of said key into my mind, walked around, rods crossed, stopped and stooped down. There it was under some long grass. Makes no logical sense whatsoever but it worked.
I think there’s a logical explanation for sure, just maybe from area of knowledge that’s perhaps not as well understood as we think.
if it does and anyone who can would like a trip to harrogate and find some lighting cables on my site please post up.the Cable avoidance tool we have has found dozens of responses but no cable.
Thanks ps i sort of hope it does work
It should care if there’s a huge body of it. They can be indicative of something. You’d be a fool to sit there with your fingers in your ears
True, but I refer you to my previous comment:
In terms of suggesting that further investigation may have merit? Yes.
In terms of providing a shred of proof / evidence? No.
Plenty of people believe plenty of different things, our brains are quite remarkable but easily fooled. A scientific breakthrough can be founded on the basis of the anecdotal observations of one person or a thousand, numbers don't necessarily add weight to a theory.
Chinese medicine is a good example here. There's a handful of drugs that have their roots in TCM (eg., Ephedrine) and we're getting some interesting leads (a compound in turmeric is looking promising for cancer treatment), but the signal to noise ratio is proving incredibly poor - demonstrably, or Big Pharma would be all over an untapped goldmine of new drugs like a tramp on chips. Now, how many people do you reckon will have anecdotal "evidence" that TCM works? A billion maybe? More?
You're absolutely right that we'd be daft to ignore it. But we'd be naive to give it special credence because a number of people believe it works, too. Plenty of people like Justin Bieber FFS, we're not to be trusted as a subjective species.
(I'm quite pleased that I got to the end of this without mentioning religion. Erm, oops.)
What he’s saying is that simply because something cannot be disproved is no reason to argue that it must be true.
No he is saying that burden of proof lies on those who propose it and the default position is to await the evidence to prove it is real. Basically what it says at the start of what you read
<b>Russell's teapot</b> is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of <i>disproof</i> to other
How did you miss the evidence?
You’d be a fool to sit there with your fingers in your ears flat out denying something that happens every day just because there isn’t a peer reviewed study.
No you would be a fool to believe anecdotes when all the peer reviewed literature says there is no effect. there is no peer review evidence to support MMR causing autism but I can find plenty of anecdote. You saying its foolish to deny the science and go with the anecdote?
Out of interest do you believe what you write or are you just very confused or are you just being a devils advocate?
So you don’t think the huge amount of anecdotal evidence is worth anything at all?
Lots of people claim to have seen the lochness monster
Because that would require me to prove a negative. I thought you were keen on the scientific method.
So science never seeks to prove a negative? Really?
I'm confident that astrology has been disproved, because I did not see any way round the methodology. There isn't always room for doubt in every experiment, but in some there is.
What exactly is your problem with my position here?
What exactly is your problem with my position here?
Same as it always is. Inability to comprehend a view other than your own :-).
How did you miss the evidence?
That's secondary evidence - I read his original quote, which is primary evidence, and then I placed my own interpretation on it.
No you would be a fool to believe anecdotes when all the peer reviewed literature says there is no effect. there is no peer review evidence to support MMR causing autism but I can find plenty of anecdote. You saying its foolish to deny the science and go with the anecdote?
That's in no way comparable. It should be obvious, but I'll spell it out.
In the case of MMR anecdotes, people conflate independent things. So someone gets vaccinated, then they turn out to be autistic. But you don't know if the kid was going to be diagnosed as autistic anyway. And there are millions of kids who are vaccinated but aren't autistic. In the case of water divining, the diviner says 'dig here' and they find the pipe. The digger probably wouldn't have found a pipe if he was just digging random holes, would he?
Why do you think utility companies pay diviners?
I lost my flat keys somewhere in several square kms of snow. My dousing sticks were locked in the flat so I had a go with my ski sticks. Walking past the tourist office they nearly pulled themselves out of my hand so I went in and on uttering the magic words, flat keys, they appeared on the counter. True story, just a little embellished.
Same as it always is. Inability to comprehend a view other than your own :-).
I'm not sure that's exactly the case. Molgrips is a lovely bloke, but he's the Devil's Advocate Incarnate. I'm not convinced that he actually holds any opinions of his own, he just doesn't like others having them. (-:
I’m confident that astrology has been disproved
Are you? This should be good. How has it been disproved?
Inability to comprehend a view other than your own 🙂
What? I can certainly comprehend lots of views. I hold quite a few. Just in this case I don't hold the one you do, because I've evaluated your position rationally and I don't agree with it 🙂
I think it's you who's not fully understanding my position.
Are you? This should be good. How has it been disproved?
There was an experiment where some university professor gave horoscopes to a load of people. A high percentage (something like 75%) of people said the horoscope accurately described them, and an even higher percentage (90 something) of people's friends said it accurately described them. Except they'd all been given the exact same text.
I’m not convinced that he actually holds any opinions of his own, he just doesn’t like others having them
Thanks for the compliment however I do of course hold opinions. The issue is that nothing is black and white in my mind. Everything is shades of grey. We have no truths, only lots of evidence of various weights. You can (or should) never be sure of anything, just differently confident. The world is a very complex and mysterious place, whether you like it or not. As I said before, the history of science is rammed with people who were absolutely sure of things and were made to look silly.
And if you listen carefully to scientists, most of them talk like this. They say 'as we understand it...' or 'the results show that...' because they know full well that their scientific world could (and maybe inevitably will) be turned on its head eventually - it's only a matter of time.
In the case of water divining, the diviner says ‘dig here’ and they find the pipe. The digger probably wouldn’t have found a pipe if he was just digging random holes, would he?
Do they? 100% of the time? 50% of the time? 10% of the time? Is anyone reporting all the inaccurate guesses?
I'd hazard that an experienced utilities engineer would have a reasonably good idea where pipes are likely to be located. This is exactly what they do in the absence of other information - it's not a "random hole," it's a highly educated guess.
Why do you think utility companies pay diviners?
Before we can answer this question we must first ask the question "do utility companies pay diviners?" rather than blindly accepting the opening premise as fact. And the answer, I'm sure we'll all be surprised to hear, is "no they don't." It's individual engineers doing it unofficially for their own amusement / interest.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/22/water-firms-backtrack-admissions-divining-rods
There was an experiment where some university professor gave horoscopes to a load of people. A high percentage (something like 75%) of people said the horoscope accurately described them, and an even higher percentage (90 something) of people’s friends said it accurately described them. Except they’d all been given the exact same text.
That's not a horoscope, it's a Barnum statement. We've demonstrated here that a Barnum statement can work, we haven't disproven anything (unless your premise is "all horoscopes are just Barnum statements" which is highly likely but we're going to need to see proof of that assertion). What else have you got?
The issue is that nothing is black and white in my mind.
Hang on. Five minutes ago you were arguing that astrology had been disproven (and somewhat bizarrely that it was possible to prove a negative). That's pretty black and white.
I actually agree with your 'shades of grey' notion, so long as we're happy to accept "sufficiently dark grey that it's black for all practical purposes" as a possible shade.
I was also wondering about the bold statement that astrology has been disproved.
The crux of this whole discussion is that you can't disprove dowsing (or astrology). Howver, if you can't demonstrate reliable, repeatable scientific evidence in support of an alleged phenomena, the probability of it being real is very low.
Do they? 100% of the time? 50% of the time? 10% of the time? Is anyone reporting all the inaccurate guesses?
If you were the boss of a water company or a cash strapped council, how accurate would they have to be for you to keep employing them? If you were a professional diviner, how successful do you think you'd have to be to stay in work?
It’s individual engineers doing it unofficially for their own amusement / interest.
There does seem to be a lot of people actually using the results, from the stories I have seen.
I’d hazard that an experienced utilities engineer would have a reasonably good idea where pipes are likely to be located. This is exactly what they do in the absence of other information – it’s not a “random hole,” it’s a highly educated guess.
According to the stories, they use diviners (or do it themselves) when they don't know where the pipes or cables are, so that would not be the situation you described.
That’s not a horoscope, it’s a Barnum Statement.
You'll have to expand on that.
I was also wondering about the bold statement that astrology has been disproved.
I think that what I actually said was "I'm satisfied it is false".
I actually agree with your ‘shades of grey’ notion, so long as we’re happy to accept “sufficiently dark grey that it’s black for all practical purposes” as a possible shade.
The opposite in fact. For practical purposes, I weigh up the options and make a choice. It's only in the abstract academic sense that I have the luxury of being able to carry two opposing ideas in my head, because I don't need to pick one.
If you were the boss of a water company or a cash strapped council, how accurate would they have to be for you to keep employing them?
We've just covered this - they aren't doing that.
If you were a professional diviner, how successful do you think you’d have to be to stay in work?
Probably about the same as any professional medium, faith healer, fortune teller, mind reader, street magician... Do I really need to explain confirmation bias?
How do we define success here? If they get lucky on their sixth attempt of the day, is that not a successful divination?
According to the stories, they use diviners (or do it themselves) when they don’t know where the pipes or cables are, so that would not be the situation you described.
The "stories" would be a lot less interesting if they were finding pipes in locations where they already knew where they were, wouldn't they. Is it not a far more plausible explanation that they don't "know" where the pipes are but have a pretty bloody good idea?
A bloke from Openreach came round to our work a couple of months ago, looking for where the fibre comes into the building. No-one knew where it was, but he found it pretty quickly. Not because he had fibre-divining equipment but because he's been to a thousand other buildings which had cable installed. Your notion of "digging random holes" is fallacious because it assumes that what you're looking for is also placed at random. It generally isn't.
We’ve just covered this – they aren’t doing that.
Well they said they were, and then everyone thought they were insane and they retracted their claims. I wonder why they said they were in the first place?
Is it not a far more plausible explanation that they don’t “know” where the pipes are but have a pretty bloody good idea?
So you think they are saying 'ok lads, I think the pipe is here, but we'll hold off and wait for an old guy to cross his sticks before we dig' ?
Your notion of “digging random holes” is fallacious because it assumes that what you’re looking for is also placed at random. It generally isn’t.
So again - you say the engineers know exactly where stuff is, they just wait for the diviner first before digging? That would be odd. Would you be ringing diviners in that situation?
You’ll have to expand on that.
I'm sure you can google "Barnum statement" as well as I can (unless I'm misunderstanding what you're asking for clarification on?).
I think that what I actually said was “I’m satisfied it is false”.
That might've been what you meant to say, and if it had been what you'd said then I would have shared your satisfaction.
"So science never seeks to prove a negative? Really?
I’m confident that astrology has been disproved, because I did not see any way round the methodology. "
Anyway, in case you missed it, the real reason I am arguing here is because the absolute certainty being displayed here in the face of mystery, by people who aren't involved in the subject at all and often aren't scientists irks me greatly. You have no business being THAT sure of something you know nothing about.
The clever clogs want to disbelieve it. They want to think they know better than the daft hippies. So they are exhibiting as much confirmation as the daft hippies themselves.
So you think they are saying ‘ok lads, I think the pipe is here, but we’ll hold off and wait for an old guy to cross his sticks before we dig’ ?
I've absolutely no idea what they're doing. But that seems a lot more plausible an explanation, do you not think?
Scenario 1: Experienced utility workers ascertain where the most likely location for a pipe might be. Diviner comes along and goes "yep, you're right." Workers dig hole, are amazed at the diviner's accuracy.
Scenario 2: Inexplicable magic sticks.
you say the engineers know exactly where stuff is, they just wait for the diviner first before digging? That would be odd.
I've worked for a civil engineering company and met a lot of people who dig holes in roads. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
Would you be ringing diviners in that situation?
Is your browser set to write-only? I'm not calling this "fact" out a third time.
I read his original quote, which is primary evidence, and then I placed my own interpretation on it.
Yes and your interpretation was wrong even when they told you what it meant.
In the case of MMR anecdotes, people conflate independent things
You mean we cannot rely on anecdotes.
Why do you think utility companies pay diviners?
I have no idea* but this does not means it works. You do know about uri gellars work to find oil etc dont you?
* are they idiots?
The clever clogs want to disbelieve it. They want to think they know better than the daft hippies.
And the daft hippies have no vested interest whatsoever, of course.
I don't want to disbelieve it. Quite the opposite in fact, I'd love for it to be true, it'd be incredible and deeply fascinating. I just think it's highly unlikely, is all.
Don't misunderstand my stance. I'm not closed-minded or a hater, I grew up with a massive appetite for unexplained phenomena, it fascinated me as a kid and I've since looked into a lot of this sort of stuff. The truth though, Mr Mulder, is that the vast amount of supernatural doings have pretty mundane rational explanations. Nods to Occam
Experienced utility workers ascertain where the most likely location for a pipe might be. Diviner comes along and goes “yep, you’re right.” Workers dig hole, are amazed at the diviner’s accuracy.
Why would the diviner even be there in this situation?
Is your browser set to write-only? I’m not calling this “fact” out a third time
I dispute this fact because a) loads of people say they've worked with diviners both on here and all over the internet and b) the water companies originally said they worked with diviners, which would be a bit odd if they didn't, don't you think? They did issue a retraction but that could very easily have been under duress because of the negative press. And they didn't all retract anyway if you read the link you posted, but they did say they didn't pay for the privilege.
Again - why call a diviner if you already know where the pipes are?
The truth though, Mr Mulder, is that the vast amount of supernatural doings have pretty mundane rational explanations.
Oh yes of course. I don't believe in the supernatural (if you overlook the fact that the term is an oxymoron anyway). I do not believe it is magic. But even if it is subconscious response to cues, it is still fascinating because people aren't taught these cues, so how do they know about the water?
* are they idiots?
Seeing as Anecdotes are the new Facts:
As I said earlier, I used to work for a civil engineering company. They were contracted out by, amongst other people, various water companies.</div>
The owner was a guy who took to IT and technology like a duck to petrol, he had an inherent mistrust of anything to do with computers. If he was presented with the option of either a comprehensive road network database system or water diviners, there is little doubt whatsoever in my mind that he'd be out there with the coathangers himself.
But even if it is subconscious response to cues, it is still fascinating
Absolutely. No arguments here.
because people aren’t taught these cues, so how do they know about the water?
I offered one explanation earlier.
Also: it could be intentional trickery. Could be subconscious "knowledge." Could be that there's some sort of inherent sensitivity humans have to running water (cf. explain magnets, radioactivity or radio waves to a society yet to discover them). It could be (excuse me) "divine" intervention. Could be something else entirely.
We should consider all of these possibilities, though I'm unconvinced that they should all be given equal credence.
Thank you molgrips 😃 You took over perfectly as Someone needed to keep the wheels of industry turning today 😂
Daft? Yep. Hippy? A little. Rarely at the same time though, not to say it's not possible 😉
Dogma!!!!!! Grrrrr!
It's total horseshit, and yet...
There are six of us at work and we do have a set of rods (we drill boreholes so need to know where water pipes are so we don't ruin them). We'd never use them on site, but we can all get them to work. None of us believe in it, and yet it does seem to work. None of us are hippies or thick- we're all geologists with decent degrees. We are utterly scathing about divining in conversation, because it's nonsense, and yet every time we look for something with them it works. It works on flowing water and still water. And it shouldn't, obviously.
And every utility team we use from a variety of companies has a set. They'll find stuff with them but certainly won't report it if that's how they found it.
I'd put no reliance on it whatsoever but it just seems to have a bit of something about it.
why call a diviner if you already know where the pipes are?
the answer is not because its a demonstrably true scientific fact that it is effective
Why do you keep asking? what a business spends its money on is many things - proof of truth/efficacy is not one of them.
they may well think it works that does not mean it does.
Scenario 1: Experienced utility workers ascertain where the most likely location for a pipe might be. Diviner comes along and goes “yep, you’re right.” Workers dig hole, are amazed at the diviner’s accuracy.
This has never happened when I've been on site with a utility surveyor with rods. More often than not they can't find something using traditional methods and get out the rods as a last resort if they have absolutely no idea where a pipe goes. They seem to work, but because they shouldn't work they'll say "keep well away from that whole area" rather than "there's a pipe there".
Where are you geographically? I'd love to see this first-hand.
We're in the East Midlands. You're welcome to come and watch us go "this is obviously nonsense" and then find something. We even tried with our eyes closed once and it worked on the drains in our car park.
I'd consider it to be a party trick rather than a useful method of finding pipes though. I'd actually be very grateful, for the sake of my own sanity and integrity as a man of science, if you came out and saw us trying it and it didn't work. Because it's complete and utter rubbish.
Of course dowsing works, although bent coat hangers are a little old school.
All I need is a couple of Golden Retrievers and I can persuade any naysayer to change their views...
There was an experiment where some university professor gave horoscopes to a load of people.
As Cougar points out that wasnt tested whether proper horoscopes* work but instead whether fake horoscopes seem to work for many people.
Just because the latter is true doesnt mean the former isnt. Although possibly it could make you think about your own certainty about dowsing.
*By which I mean a horoscope prepared for an individual using date/time of birth and other key informational items.
You have no business being THAT sure of something you know nothing about.
I assume therefore you are going to retract your comments about astrology and horoscopes in particular since you have demonstrated very limited understanding of them.
